PRECIOUS BLOOD, II (THEOLOGY OF)

The theology of the Precious Blood deals with the mystery of Redemption through the Blood of Christ in all its phases: the real shedding on Calvary as summation of the whole earthly redemptive work of Jesus, the mystic shedding in the central action of the sacramental Church and focal point of the life of grace, and the final consummation in the celestial liturgy and the eternal priesthood. It is the special function of this theology to explain the mystery in relation to the devotion to the Precious Blood. In both the basic concern is the whole work of Redemption: totum opus redemptionis.

This work is divine redemptive action on the part of the triune God offering mercy to man, wrought through Christ, the priest-mediator between fallen mankind and God. It is accomplished through the incarnation of the logos, the Second Person in the Holy trinity, all His acts (called objective Redemption) bringing grace (and glory) to man (called subjective Redemption).

Who and Why. The mystery of Redemption by Blood properly involves the mystery of the why (motive) and the who (Person) of the Incarnation. Was the Incarnation eternally decreed because of the Redemption through the Blood? All agree that in this present sinful order it was. But some theologians (Thomist) maintain that had there been no sin, there would have been no Incarnation at all; others (Scotist), that there would have been an Incarnation without pain or Blood. Still other writers reject this ancient dispute as purely hypothetic and in no way dealing with the present world. The dispute, they say, assumes an order of priority in the divine decree. They hold that God, by one simple decree (with no interior order of priority), determined to create this universe in which sin would be permitted (not caused) by God and the sinful creature redeemed. A world redeemed, they contend, gives greater glory to God than a sinless world not in need of Redemption. In this view the Blood of Redemption is central in the universe, the source of grace to adam in his innocence and to the angels (F. Malmberg).

As to the who in the Incarnation, faith teaches that only the Second Person became man, though St. Thomas holds that either God the Father or Holy Spirit could have become incarnate, giving striking arguments ex decentia for the Incarnation of the Logos. But, it is being asked, is there not a more profound cogency to his argument? Perhaps the very order of origins in the Trinity makes it impossible that the Father eternally unborn be born in time; perhaps only the Son born from eternity in the Godhead could be born in time. This bold linking of the oikonomia (God's work outside the Trinity) with the theologia (the Trinity itself) would relate the work of Redemption to the very heart of the inner life of God.

Whether one accepts or rejects these insights (they are not presented as certain at all), there is a special significance (which no one denies) in the Second Person's being the image of the Father and His becoming man, having the created image of god, patterned on the Logos in whom all things were made.

Indeed this very relation of the two images … is the more basic reason why in the Incarnation the one image could be and should be hypostatically united with the other. For the Incarnation is … the penetration of the inner image of God into the external image, manifesting and communicating in and through it the entire inner glory externally…. And conversely, this external image of God is drawn to the internal. Thus the external image of God, which is man, is perfected and crowned through the inner image of God. [M. Scheeben, Dogmatik 3.147 (No. 356)]

The image is the Word, the Logos, eternally uttered in the bosom of the Godhead and uttered in time in the

Incarnation. Through Mary mankind responded and accepted its mediator. Now He who spoke to man as the Word of the Father turns to God with Mary and a united mankind, offering homage of obedience and love to an offended majesty in the one sign and symbol that is the supreme act of submission, the loving acceptance of death in the shedding of Blood. It was merit, satisfaction, Redemption, efficacy, and sacrifice: it was death because the giving of one's life for friends is the most exalted act of love. It was death because Christ chose to share human existence and experience, a kind of life that is marked by death. In human existence all one's life acts receive their final impress and definitive integration in death (A. Grillmeier).

Calvary and the Church. Calvary was death, but it was bloody death, the death unto life. The climax of Good Friday, the culmination of Christ's merit, satisfaction, sacrifice was the glorious resurrection of christ. Through the Resurrection-Ascension Christ has become the life-giving Spirit bestowing the Christ-life, the Godlife of grace on man. Now man redeemed, purchased by Blood, is God's possession, no longer slave given to death: death has erased death and given immortality.

This divine life is given to men under the veil of sign, as all Christ's actions in the flesh are sacramental, grace-producing. He is the Sacrament of God, visible sign of salvation. And the Church that flowed from His riven side in the symbol of blood and water is His sacrament, for it is the sign of all His grace. In union with it men are one with Him, men's prayers mingling with those of the Church and His. In the Eucharistic prayer there is communion and communication with God through Him. All partake, the priest through official sacral order and indelible sign of priesthood, the laity through the sacerdotal signs of Baptism and Confirmation that link every member of the Church with Christ, the Priest. Though all the Sacraments are in the order of worship, these three are Sacraments of perpetual priesthood, deriving their meaning from the High Priest who forms the Church in its supreme duty of offering worship to the Father through Him and thereby sanctifying men. The bond is sealed in the Blood of covenant-love, between the Church, between High Priest and ministers, between ordained priest and members of the Society of Worship: the bond is the bond of Calvary's Blood.

Heaven. Awaiting the Second Coming of its Lord, the Church celebrates the memorials of His Passion and death under the sacramental veils. When He removes the veil, the Church will celebrate with Him the celestial liturgy. It seems preferable to follow the theologians (e.g., J. Alfaro) who place the resurrected Christ, resplendent in His Wounds, in the very center of the blessed congregation who adore the Lamb that was slain. This glorified humanity (as subjective disposing cause, not as a medium) prepares the blessed for the vision of God. Thus the redemptive action continues forever in eternal fruition, the work of the everlasting priesthood. The term itself, consecrated in theology, would have little meaning were the priesthood to end on the day of final judgment, and the wounds in glory to be merely a memory.

In explaining the devotion to the Precious Blood, theology goes far beyond the adoration of the blessed Humanity infinitely adorable in all its parts. It must embrace the totum opus redemptionis. The shedding of Blood is sign and symbol of that total work. Progress in this study parallels the progress in christology, mariology, ecclesiology, and the liturgical movement inaugurated by St. Pius X, attaining its climax in the liturgical constitution of Vatican II. As never before, because of the progress of theology, one today understands better Christ in His history (Scripture-tradition), in His mysticalbody, in His glory—and all this in the light of the Redemption through His Blood. The decisions of the Church through John XXIII, Pope of the Precious Blood (Inde a primis, a new Litany of the Most Precious Blood, the addition of "Blessed be His Most Precious Blood" to the Divine Praises) were official recognition of the importance of the devotion and its proper theology.

Bibliography: john xxiii, "Inde a primis" (Apostolic Letter, June 30, 1960) Acta Apostolicae Sedis (Rome 1909–) 52 (1960) 545–550. r. haubst, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10 v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 2:544–545. a. grillmeier, ibid. 1156–66; 3:1024–30. Precious Blood Study Week, Proceedings of the First and Second (Carthagena, OH 1957, 1960). f. malmberg, Über den Gottmenschen (Basel 1960). k. rahner, On the Theology of Death, tr. c. h. henkey (Quaestiones disputatae 2; New York 1961). o. semmelroth, Die Kirche als Ursakrament (Frankfurt 1952). j. alfaro, "Cristo Glorioso, Revelador del Padre," Gregorianum 39 (1958) 222–270. e. g. kaiser, "Theology of the Precious Blood," American Ecclesiastical Review 145 (Washington 1961) 190–201.

[e. g. kaiser/eds.]