This month of July, for us HERE has begun with the Solemnity of the Most Precious Blood of the Lord, with the celebration and opening of the Centenary of the present Basilica (1/7/2024), which guards the Rock in which the Lord has sweated his divine Blood for our Salvation. Moreover, we know that the month of July is particularly dedicated to devotion to the Precious Blood of Jesus for the Apostolic Letter of Pope John XXIII, which gave new impetus and vigour to this devotion that has always been present in the heart of the Church (1).
If we think about this, even today, this divine liturgy, assumes a fundamental importance that we cannot contain, if not only in part! We would like to reflect on this great mystery from this Garden.
There is a passage of the prophet Jeremiah that maybe there can be help, gift and light we hope, for our life, for the Church. It is the step in which the Prophet is invited to descend into the potter’s workshop and observe how the craftsman shapes clay, to his liking. If the pot is not according to his will, knead it again, in order to form it according to his desire. Even those who are not so experienced, consent that so it must be. There is no way that the vase tells the potter how and what he must do to make the work of art! Everything is clear and taken for granted. A little less when it happens in our lives! Beyond our agreeing or not, so it happens in our material reality and in the same way it has happened and happens in spiritual reality.
The prophecy states: "Behold, as the clay is in the hands of the potter, so you are in my hands, the house of Israel" (Jer 18,6b).
We said "in the same way it has happened and happens…” It was accomplished with the Mystery of the Redemption, and HERE in part, the Son of God, being a true man, entered into our human reality, and with trusting abandonment, making himself "vessel" available to the "Potter", with tenderness and strength, with respectful desire and immense love, with his offering and his sweat of Blood, he wanted to shape again "the vessel-man drawn from the earth", according to the hand and will of the Father! This mystery is sublime: the Creator becomes Creature, so that man, the apex of creation, can receive from the Son of God the vital medicine that heals him and makes him live, his Precious Blood! And this is wanted by God... a great and moving mystery for us: a new creation!
In our prayer with him, let us contemplate his way of doing, his divine action in our humanity, to find ourselves opening our eyes and discovering that we, little babies and "moulded children", are the form of the Creator, created "in his image and likeness" (Gen 1:26-27).
We can thank him, praise him, and implore this divine action on all humanity in need of peace, which needs the healing touch of his hand, we who are "blood of his Blood, flesh of his Flesh"! May Mary Most Holy intercede for us all.
Good prayer.
From the Garden of the Lord.
(1). Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on June 30, 1960, the Eve of the Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the second year of our Pontificate
