Blood of Christ, From Which the Sacraments Receive Their Strength, Have Mercy on Us

But we should have a very imperfect notion of the empire of the Precious Blood if we did not take into account the chief methods by which it does its work.

We have seen some of the principal ways in which it spreads its empire; let us now see the means by which it spreads it. These means are the Sacraments.

But our clearest idea of the Sacraments is that which we gain from Hugh St. Victor and the elder theologians. They are the making visible of invisible grace. In them the Precious Blood has clothed itself in visible forms.

In the matter and form of the Sacraments it has put on its priestly vestments, of unearthly fashion, and of manifold significance.

Indeed, the grace of the Sacraments is the very physical grace which was in the Soul of Jesus, replicated, as theology speaks, that is, repeated again and again in us, and repeated in us by means of the Precious Blood.

The seven Sacraments are hieroglyphics of some hidden wisdom of God. Christ instituted them as Man; and thus they are the going-on of the Thirty-Three Years upon earth.