The following is a transcript of Bishop Caggiano’s homily, given Tuesday Evening, October 29, at St. Rose of Lima
My dear sisters and brothers in the Lord,
The mere glance at it usually had the effect of making my legs queezy and my stomach even more so. If it wasn’t more than a glance, the smelling salt needed to be found. Okay, of course, as a little boy, the sight of blood was something I did not ever want to see. You could imagine one of the vocations I took off my list from the beginning was surgeon, out it went, off the list. I’m happy to report that now that I’m much older, that no longer happens.
I even have the courage to watch when they draw blood. The last time I did at Quest, a thought crossed my mind. How precious blood really is for you and me. For our lives would not be – it’s impossible without it. It is the liquid of life. For it carries nutrients, carries oxygen, and allows us to live our lives. Unseen, most of the time. Unseen seen.
And the ancients understood that principle, my friends, the importance of blood being the bearer of life. And so our Jewish sisters and brothers in the ancient, the ancient world, understood that blood was an essential piece of the sacrifice that needed to be made in remission of sins.
They understood what we understand in our own age, that the penalty for serious sin is death. It is its natural consequence. And so when sin occurs or is committed, there needs to be an atonement. There needs to be a forgiveness. And so in the ancient practice, animals were sacrificed so that their blood could pay the penalty and make atonement for the sins of God’s people. They would not endure it.
But an animal that was innocent and without sin, as are all animals, would do so. And blood once again became the vehicle not simply of life, but an invitation to a greater life.
We gather here tonight to begin this extraordinary period of prayer, this Eucharistic Pilgrimage, entering into the mystery of a divine sacrifice. We call it the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. What we are celebrating in grace, in a re-presentation in grace of the one act freely given where Christ became the Pascal lamb, where He took the place of the animals of the old covenant, and He freely shed His life and His blood so that our sins might be remitted, the penalty paid for us, for you and for me, and the effects of our sins be atoned.
You see, my friends, this sacrifice has liberated us from the penalty that would naturally be ours, and it is the doorway into a greater life, a life of glory, an eternal life. And we gather in prayer because He offered His life in sacrifice for us.
But there is more at work here, my friends. For Christ freely gave His life, shed His blood in sacrifice, not simply to atone for our sins, to pay the penalty for us so we could be freed and healed and forgiven. But He also revealed to the world the great power of love that is self-sacrificing.
You see, my friends, as we depicted here on the cross, in the sacrifice on the cross, this is the greatest act of love the world has ever seen. And it is so precisely because it was total self-gift, not because we merit it, not because we’re worthy of it, not because we’ve earned it, but simply for sheer grace. Christ offered all an imperfect love was unleashing that love and its power in you and me.
So we come here not simply to enter into the mystery of His death and resurrection and to be freed, to have the opportunity to be freed from the penalties that are ours. But we also come here to be fed so that we might love as He did. To love in total self-gift. To love in perfect sacrifice. To love so that there is nothing else to give, and in return, we have everything and a hundredfold more back.
That, my friends, is the mystery of discipleship, because we are all on the road trying to live that love, some days better than other days. But that is why He feeds us, His body, blood, soul, and divinity. For He knows our weakness. He has mercy upon us all and gives us the food that will ever make us more able to love as he loved and to unleash the power of Calvary upon the whole world.
To summarize, blood gives life. Blood allows life to exist. The divine blood of Jesus Christ allows us to hope for eternal life in Him. St. Thomas has taught that it only required one drop, one drop of the precious blood of Jesus to redeem all creation. One drop. In these days to come, let us come forward and adore Him.