July: Month of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord

As we begin the month of July during which it is traditional to focus devotion on the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, it is worthwhile reading the Apostolic Letter of St John XXIII from 1960:

Unlimited is the effectiveness of the God-Man’s Blood — just as unlimited as the love that impelled him to pour it out for us, first at his circumcision eight days after birth, and more profusely later on in his agony in the garden,[12] in his scourging and crowning with thorns, in his climb to Calvary and crucifixion, and finally from out that great wide wound in his side which symbolizes the divine Blood cascading down into all the Church’s sacraments. Such surpassing love suggests, nay demands, that everyone reborn in the torrents of that Blood adore it with grateful love. —Apostolic Letter, Inde a Primis, St John XXIII, 30 June…