Pretiosissimi Sanguinis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi
First-class feastRed
Understanding the Day
Season
Time After Pentecost
Week
Week 3 of Time After Pentecost
Rank
First-class feast
The celebration of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ falls in the Time after Pentecost, the long portion of the Church year when we live out the fruits of Easter and follow Christ in daily discipleship. In plain language, its rank—Double of the I Class—marks it as one of the Church’s principal feasts: special liturgies, prayers, and a focus in the family’s prayer life help honor this mystery. There is no octave or vigil requirement stated here; the day is observed on its appointed date within the ongoing season. Practical applications include praying together, reading short Scripture passages about Christ’s saving work, and teaching children how the Cross and the Eucharist express God’s mercy and covenantal love.
Daily Prayer
The Introit for this day has not yet been generated.
Weekly Prayer
Weekly prayer content will appear here once it is scheduled.
Weekly Formation
Commandment 10
The Ten Commandments
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.
The Tenth Commandment governs desire for possessions and calls the heart to contentment and justice. It forbids wishing to obtain another’s goods wrongfully or resenting another’s prosperity, while still allowing honest work to improve one’s condition.
Saint & Feast
Principal celebration
Feast of the Most Precious Blood
Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ
The Feast of the Most Precious Blood focused liturgical devotion on the blood of Jesus Christ.
The Feast of the Most Precious Blood focused liturgical devotion on the blood of Jesus Christ. It entered the General Roman Calendar in 1849, was observed on July 1, and was removed as a separate universal feast in the 1969 revision.
The Nativity of John the Baptist celebrates the birth of John as narrated in the Gospel of Luke.
The Nativity of John the Baptist celebrates the birth of John as narrated in the Gospel of Luke. The feast is observed on June 24, six months before Christmas in the liturgical calendar.
Today in Church History
No Church history reflection has been prepared for this date yet.
Catechism
Catechism of the Catholic Church
In the journey of faith, no Christian seeks holiness alone: in Christ, each of God’s children is joined to all other Christians in the unity of the Mystical Body. The communion of saints unites the faithful in heaven, those being purified, and pilgrims on earth in a lasting bond of charity and an abundant exchange of spiritual goods. The Church’s treasury is not material wealth, but the inexhaustible value of Christ’s merits, together with the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints. Through the Church’s ministry, indulgences draw on this treasury for the remission of temporal punishment due to sin and encourage works of devotion, penance, and charity; they may also be obtained for the faithful departed who are being purified. The sacrament of Penance is a liturgical and ecclesial action in which Christ personally forgives, heals, raises up, and restores sinners to communion. Individual, integral confession and absolution are the ordinary way the faithful are reconciled with God and the Church.
¶ 1475
In the communion of saints, "a perennial link of charity exists between the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home, those who are expiating their sins in purgatory and those who are still pilgrims on earth. between them there is, too, an abundant exchange of all good things." In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus recourse to the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin.
We also call these spiritual goods of the communion of saints the Church's treasury, which is "not the sum total of the material goods which have accumulated during the course of the centuries. On the contrary the 'treasury of the Church' is the infinite value, which can never be exhausted, which Christ's merits have before God. They were offered so that the whole of mankind could be set free from sin and attain communion with the Father. In Christ, the Redeemer himself, the satisfactions and merits of his Redemption exist and find their effficacy."
¶ 1477
"This treasury includes as well the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are truly immense, unfathomable, and even pristine in their value before God. In the treasury, too, are the prayers and good works of all the saints, all those who have followed in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by his grace have made their lives holy and carried out the mission the Father entrusted to them. In this way they attained their own salvation and at the same time cooperated in saving their brothers in the unity of the Mystical Body."
¶ 1478
An indulgence is obtained through the Church who, by virtue of the power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ Jesus, intervenes in favor of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishments due for their sins. Thus the Church does not want simply to come to the aid of these Christians, but also to spur them to works of devotion, penance, and charity.
¶ 1479
Since the faithful departed now being purified are also members of the same communion of saints, one way we can help them is to obtain indulgences for them, so that the temporal punishments due for their sins may be remitted.
¶ 1480
Like all the sacraments, Penance is a liturgical action. the elements of the celebration are ordinarily these: a greeting and blessing from the priest, reading the word of God to illuminate the conscience and elicit contrition, and an exhortation to repentance; the confession, which acknowledges sins and makes them known to the priest; the imposition and acceptance of a penance; the priest's absolution; a prayer of thanksgiving and praise and dismissal with the blessing of the priest.
¶ 1481
The Byzantine Liturgy recognizes several formulas of absolution, in the form of invocation, which admirably express the mystery of forgiveness: "May the same God, who through the Prophet Nathan forgave David when he confessed his sins, who forgave Peter when he wept bitterly, the prostitute when she washed his feet with her tears, the Pharisee, and the prodigal son, through me, a sinner, forgive you both in this life and in the next and enable you to appear before his awe-inspiring tribunal without condemnation, he who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen."
¶ 1482
The sacrament of Penance can also take place in the framework of a communal celebration in which we prepare ourselves together for confession and give thanks together for the forgiveness received. Here, the personal confession of sins and individual absolution are inserted into a liturgy of the word of God with readings and a homily, an examination of conscience conducted in common, a communal request for forgiveness, the Our Father and a thanksgiving in common. This communal celebration expresses more clearly the ecclesial character of penance. However, regardless of its manner of celebration the sacrament of Penance is always, by its very nature, a liturgical action, and therefore an ecclesial and public action.
Baltimore track
Baltimore Catechism No. 3
Lesson 16 — On the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Ghost
Q. 698.Which are the effects of Confirmation?
A.The effects of Confirmation are an increase of sanctifying grace, the strengthening of our faith, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost.
Q. 699.Which are the gifts of the Holy Ghost?
A.The gifts of the Holy Ghost are Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.
Q. 700.Why do we receive the gift of Fear of the Lord?
A.We receive the gift of Fear of the Lord to fill us with a dread of sin.
Q. 701.Why do we receive the gift of Piety?
A.We receive the gift of Piety to make us love God as a Father, and obey Him because we love Him.