MOST PRECIOUS BLOOD OF N. - Feast whose object is the "Most Precious Blood" that Christ shed for the salvation of the human race (v. REDEMPTION; HYPOSTATIC UNION); it stands in close relation to the feasts of Corpus Christi and of the Sacred Heart.
The saving power of this Most Precious Blood has been extolled by all Christian literature from antiquity down to our own day; it is therefore no wonder that this Most Precious Blood became, beginning in the late Middle Ages, the object of a particular devotion which was, moreover, the natural consequence of devotion to the humanity of Christ, spread by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Bonaventure, St. Gertrude the Great and others. Witnesses to it are: 1) the hymns, prose texts, sequences and prayers, catalogued by U. Chevalier (Repertorium hymnologicum, VI, Brussels 1920, p. 86 [index]), among which should be remembered the canticle by an anonymous author, but sometimes attributed to St. Bernard or St. Bonaventure: Salve caput cruentatum (Chevalier, op. cit., no. 17846); 2) the miniatures, paintings, stained-glass windows and sculptures depicting angels gathering into chalices the Blood that flows from the side and from the hands and feet of Christ Crucified; the mystical "bath" in the Blood of Christ; the "fons salutis"; the mystical "mills" and "presses."
There also contributed to the spread of this devotion: 1) the legend of the Grail (cf. the Quête du Graal: 12th-13th centuries); 2) the "relics" of the "Blood of Christ" which gave rise to liturgical feasts in their honor from the 12th-13th centuries onward. Among the most famous relics of this kind are counted those of Mantua, of Bruges (church of the 12th and 14th centuries) and of Fécamp (characteristic is the litanic chant in honor of the Most Precious Blood composed in this monastery).
Later there came to be a proper liturgical feast for the Most Precious Blood, which was celebrated on different dates. One of the first concessions by the Holy See of an office De Sanguine Christi is that granted in 1582 to the diocese of Valencia (Spain). In the 18th century, concessions of Mass and Office for the feast of the Most Precious Blood multiplied; for example, it was granted to the diocese of Sarzana (16 Dec. 1747) for the day after the Most Holy Trinity; to the Passionists, to various dioceses and to all of Portugal (1794) for the Friday after the Fourth Sunday of Lent; to the diocese of Breslau (1778) for the 3rd Friday of March, and to various other dioceses or religious congregations which obtained permission to celebrate it during the month of March or during Lent. In Rome, devotion to the Most Precious Blood was particularly practiced in the church of St. Nicholas in Carcere, seat of the archconfraternity of the "Precious Blood," established in the 18th century. But the most zealous apostle of devotion to the Most Precious Blood and consequently the propagator of the feast of the Most Precious Blood, in the first thirty years of the 19th century, was Bl. Gaspare del Bufalo (v.), who obtained permission to celebrate it in the houses of his Congregation with the double rite of the second class on the 1st Sunday of July with an octave (26 March 1822; a concession renewed in the following years at the request of various dioceses and religious families). It was then Fr. Giovanni Merlini, 3rd superior general of the Missionaries of the Most Precious Blood after Bl. Gaspare, who suggested to Pius IX, exiled at Gaeta, that he make a vow to extend it to the whole Church, should he be able to return to Rome. His prayer granted, Pius IX, by the decree Redempti sumus of 10 Aug. 1849 (Archive of the S. Congr. of Rites: Decreta ann. 1848-49, fol. 209) established that it be celebrated on the first Sunday of July with the double rite of the second class. Pius X, in 1914, fixed it with the same rite on 1 July, and Pius XI, in commemoration of the 19th Centenary of the Redemption, assigned it the double rite of the first class, slightly revising its office (25 Apr. 1934: AAS, 26 [1934], pp. 559-60; cf. also 27 [1935], pp. 81-89). As for the Sermon of St. John Chrysostom, which is read in the II Nocturn, of doubtful authenticity according to some critics, there are excellent arguments for holding that it is genuinely his. Finally, it should be noted that the Mass and Office of the Most Precious Blood, still in use, were composed by order of Benedict XIV and are the same as those granted with the double rite of the first class in 1747 to the diocese of Sarzana (Archive of the S. Congr. of Rites: Decreta ann. 1745-47, fol. 335).