07 - Praying with Mother Thérèse: "O Divine Blood"

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She also had a particular devotion to a prayer to the precious Blood.[1]



    The month of July, following the month of June dedicated to the Heart of Jesus, is traditionally dedicated to the Blood of Jesus. These two devotions are linked. In the course of history, the blood shed by Christ first represents the life he gives for Salvation (out of love for men). The blood is not separated from his person. Through the Eucharist which makes Jesus present to us, the blood is an instrument of Salvation. It remits sins and purifies the heart.

The devotion to the Blood of Jesus took on a dolorist dimension from the 14th-15th centuries, which led the faithful to desire to share in the sufferings of Christ in his Passion.

We find these themes in Mother Thérèse's devotion to the Blood of Christ as she is known to us through the testimony of sisters and a prayer written by her hand.

 

It was the first day of the year when we lost her. All the novices went to visit her in her room, and she said to us: My good Sisters, we must ask the Holy Child Jesus to give us as a gift a very small drop of his blood. A single drop of this precious blood will be enough to erase the sins of a thousand worlds… and He wanted to give it to us entirely! Here, the Holy Mother stopped, as if delighted in the love of our Savior; then she went on: oh! my Sisters, let's ask Him for a drop of this blood; it will wash away all our sins. [2]

Other times, she took advantage of a feast, of an occasion, to lift up souls. For the Passion: ‘Oh! the good thief, it is a drop of blood that, falling on him, transformed him. The blood of Our Lord, what power! What do we do with it?[3]

I have made use of your permission in order to obtain one more Communion so that all the days of the week are taken excepting the one on which we bathe in the Blood of our Lord (it is thus that Father Pelegri speaks of Confession Day).[4]

 

Invocations to the Precious Blood

Note: The autograph was lost after the beatification process.

O Divine Blood, I adore Thee;

O Divine Blood, I implore Thee;

O Divine Blood, plead for me;

O Divine Blood, cleanse me;

O Divine Blood, hear my prayer.



[1] Mother Marie de Vaines, ordinary trial of Malines.

[2] Sister Victoire-Léonie, in “Stories from the Sisters of Fourvière about our deceased Sisters”, Easter 1887.

[3] Hard copy from the memories of Sr Madeleine, May 1926. Sr Madeleine entered in Lyon in 1869, where she stayed as postulant for one month. She returned to Fourvière from 1875 to 1880.

[4] Letter of Our Mother Marie Aimée Lautier, Lyon, May 18, 1880.