In Honor of the Precious Blood
By JL Cook
As time has gone on our Lord in His mercy has given us more and more ways to run to His mercy. The number of devotions and prayers has grown throughout history until this point where we now have a plethora of ways we can honor Him and gain very rich indulgences. Many of these devotions have the imprimatur of the Catholic Church and have indulgences attached to them. Some devotions come directly from our Lord and His Blessed Mother given to us through saints. One of these devotions is the Honor of the Drops of Blood Lost by Jesus on His way to Calvary.
First it is important to understand what an indulgence is. An indulgence is payment for what we owe to Divine Justice for our sin. An indulgence is not forgiveness of the sin. Forgiveness for sin is given when absolution is given by a priest during Confession. An indulgence is the payment for that sin.
For example, if someone steals money from you, you may forgive them but you still want your money back, right? So the forgiveness you grant to the thief in this example is compared to the Absolution you receive in Confession. The money that the thief stole is the debt they still owe to you. The debt you owe to the Lord for your sin has to be paid back as well.
There are primarily two ways this debt is paid back. One is time in Purgatory and the other is by indulgences. I would like to mention that there are other ways to pay back the debt such as martyrdom, penance, fasting, etc. The use of this example is only used to explain what an indulgence is for.
Consecrating the Drops of Blood which Our Lord lost on His way to Calvary.
Copy of a letter of the Oration found in the Holy Sepulcher of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, preserved in a silver box by His Holiness and by the Emperors and Empresses of the Christian Faith.
St. Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary, with St. Matilda and St. Bridget, wishing to know something of the Passion of Jesus Christ, offered fervent and special prayers, upon which there appeared to them Our Lord Jesus Christ Who spoke to them in the following manner:
I descended from Heaven to the Earth in order to convert you. In olden times people were religious and their harvests were abundant; at present, on the contrary, they are scanty.
If you want to reap an abundant harvest you must not work on Sunday, for on Sunday you must go to Church, and pray to God to forgive your sins. He gave you six days in which to work and one for rest and devotion and to tender your help to the poor and assist the Church. Those people who brawl against My religion and cast slurs on this Sacred Letter, shall be forsaken by Me.
On the contrary, those people who shall carry a copy of this letter with them shall be free of death by drowning and from sudden death. They shall be free from all contagious diseases and lightning; they shall not die without Confession, and shall be free from their enemies and from the hand of wrongful authority, and from all their slanderers and false witnesses.
Women in peril at child-birth will, by keeping this Oration about them, immediately overcome the difficulty. In the houses where this Oration is kept, no evil thing will ever happen: and forty days before the death of a person who has this Oration about him or her, the Blessed Virgin will appear to him or her. So said St.Gregorius.
To all those Faithful who shall recite for 3 years, each day, 2 Our Fathers, 2 Gloria’s, and 2 Hail Mary’s, in honor of the drops of blood I lost, I will concede the following 5 graces:
1. The plenary indulgence and remittance of your sins. 2. You will be free from the pains of Purgatory. 3. If you should die before completing the said 3 years, for you it will be the same as if you had completed them. 4. It will be upon your death the same as if you had shed all your blood for the Holy Faith. 5. I will descend from Heaven to take your soul and that of your relatives, until the fourth generation.
Be it known that the number of armed soldiers were 150; those who trailed me while I was bound were 23. The executioners of justice were 83; the blows received on my head were 150; those on my stomach, 108; kicks on my shoulders, 80. I was led, bound with cords by the hair, 24 times; spits in the face were 180; I was beaten on the body 6666 times; beaten on the head 110 times; I was roughly pushed, and at 12 o' clock I was lifted up by the hair; pricked with thorns and pulled by the beard 23 times; received 20 wounds on the head; thorns of marine junks, 72; pricks of thorns in the head, 110; mortal thorns in the forehead, 3. I was after wards flogged and dressed as a mocked king; wounds in the body, 1000. The soldiers who led Me to the Calvary were 608; those who watched Me were 3, and those who mocked Me were 1008; the drops of blood which I lost were 28,430.
BENEDETTA DA SS., POPE LEO XIII, IN ROMA 5 APRIL 1890
It’s also important to not forget those who are currently in Purgatory. Their only recourse for shortening their time is through us, the Church Militant.