Te ergo quæsumus

I will drive off in the early morning to Hobart to-morrow, for the feast of the Most Precious Blood – our Missa cantata will be Tasmanians' only opportunity to celebrate this devotion liturgically.

It is, of course, transparently obvious that the renaming Corpus Christi as the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ does not in fact somehow translate all devotion to the Precious Blood to that feast day: for the feast of the Precious Blood of Christ is not in fact a day of devotion to the Eucharistic Chalice (full of Real Blood as it is, as St Philip Neri in awe would say), but of a wider consideration of the saving power of that Blood streaming from Christ's side, that Blood in which we are laved, forgiving all sins (Christus dilexit nos et lavit nos a peccatis nostris in Sanguine suo); that Blood by which we are redeemed (Redemisti nos, Domine, in Sanguine tuo).  It is a soteriological feast.

As the sacred Liturgy teaches, let us kneel and pray:

V/. Te ergo quæsumus, tuis famulis subveni.

R/. Quos pretioso Sanguine redemisti.

(We beseech Thee, therefore, to help Thy servants, 

whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious Blood.)