By Silvia Holgado (Consecrated Woman of Regnum Christi)
July 5th 2024 - Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center
The Church of Jerusalem gathers every July 1st to celebrate the solemnity of the Most Precious Blood of Christ. And it does so in the place where the earth received that Blood for the first time: in Gethsemane. It is in this basilica, which this year celebrates its centenary of rebuilding, where the Church seems to tell us, as the summer dispersal begins, not to forget that Jesus shed His blood out of love for us. Like a “final summary of the course.” It seems like a last message during the farewell of the vacation exodus, for Jerusalem, too, due to the heat and the painful war, empties more during this summer time. Yes, do not forget that it was in this place where He accepted to bear all the suffering that our salvation entails. Remember that it was here, that our Lord embraced, with human pain, the divine will of our redemption.
Celebration of the Body and Blood of Christ, Church of All Nations (Gethsemane)
Like the olives of that blessed Mount of Olives, pressed for the first time, give their finest oil, so we pressed our Lord until Precious drops of Blood fell. Amidst His anguish, He prayed more intensely. This fact narrated in the Gospel of Luke finds its current echo in the beautiful gesture of the Custodian of the Holy Land, who at the beginning of the solemn Mass, scatters red rose petals over the venerated rock inside the Basilica. And it is good that we remember it today in Jerusalem: that Jesus Christ was not indifferent to our anxieties, He was not indifferent then and He is not now. It is better to remember it in Jerusalem and in the whole world.
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