ST JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, VICTORIA
  • Home
  • About
    • Safe Environment
  • Photos
  • Worship
    • Holy Baptism
    • Confirmation
    • Holy Matrimony
  • Ordinariate
  • Music
  • WALSINGHAM

Washed Clean

2/7/2018

 
Fr Lee Kenyon
‘Today it is quite a common thing to be able to say, in literal fact, that you have given your blood for somebody else. As it is, we have grown accustomed to a more violent, and, some would say, a less gracious metaphor. St John, at the beginning of his Apocalypse, refers to our Lord as one “who has proved his love for us by washing us clean from our sins in his own blood”.

It is not surprising that the Christianity of the Reformation, with its strong insistence on the doctrine of the Atonement, should have fastened on that language and made it familiar to us. For us Catholics, the Precious Blood is proposed as a special subject of meditation during this month of July, and for us, too, the same symbolism does duty. Read a Catholic poet like Crashaw, and you will find him referring to “that blood, whose least drops sovereign be To wash my worlds of sin from me”. Read an Evangelical poet like Cowper, and you will find him preaching the same doctrine; “The dying thief rejoiced to see That fountain in his day, And there may I, as vile as he, Wash all my sins away”. St John’s metaphor has become a commonplace of Christian devotion.

Do you still find it crude, over-strained, unacceptable? Be it so, we are not tied to any particular form of imagery which the piety of a past age has bequeathed to us. Only, in this month of July, we do well to remember the bitter Passion of our Lord, and that giving of his life-blood which sealed it, and seals us through it. A price was paid to redeem you (St Paul says); and because the price paid was so high, because the world itself was not worthy of such a ransom, we must go on reiterating, blindly and uncomprehendingly, our gratitude. Moreover, because the price paid for us was so high, no price can be too high which is demanded of us by our loyalty to Christ, though it should be death itself. To be always generous with God, to go on and on giving him of our best in spite of weariness and disillusionment, to despise soft options, and interpret our duty in terms of love, not in terms of mere justice, to be ready if we might to give him more than he asks of us, ready if that were possible to give him more than he deserves of us - that is the meaning of our devotion to the Precious Blood; may his grace make us worthy of it’.

from a sermon preached at the Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer and St Thomas More, Chelsea, 1956
Mgr Ronald Knox, 1888-1957

Comments are closed.
    Fr Lee Kenyon

    Fr Lee Kenyon

    Archives

    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018

    Categories

    All
    Advent
    Andrew SDC
    Anglican
    Ascension
    Baptism
    Benedict XVI
    Bible
    Christmas
    Church
    Collect
    Discipleship
    Easter
    Ecumenism
    Epiphany
    Eucharist
    Faithful Departed
    Five Wounds
    Guéranger
    Holy Family
    Holy Name
    Holy Spirit
    Holy Week
    Hymnody
    John Paul II
    Knox
    Lent
    Liturgy
    Love
    Monarchy
    Music
    Nativity
    Newman
    Ordinariate
    Our Lady
    Parsch
    Passiontide
    Penance
    Pentecost
    Pilgrimage
    Poetry
    Prayer
    Precious Blood
    Pre-Lent
    Priesthood
    Resurrection
    Rogation
    Sacred Heart
    Saints
    Transfiguration
    Trinity
    Unity

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About
    • Safe Environment
  • Photos
  • Worship
    • Holy Baptism
    • Confirmation
    • Holy Matrimony
  • Ordinariate
  • Music
  • WALSINGHAM