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There is Power in the Blood

In the First Reading, the writer of the Apocalypse says that in heaven he saw a great multitude of people, all wearing white robes. The text explains that these are the people who have washed their clothes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

This is an odd idea, isn’t it? Anybody who does laundry can tell you that one of the hardest stains to get out is blood. Why would anybody think you could clean things with blood?

When we are united with Christ through his body and blood in the Eucharist, our works live too through him
The answer is that it depends on what you are trying to clean. The Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb 9:14) says that the blood of Christ can cleanse a conscience from dead works.

Now a thing that is dead just lies there, without moving. Dead works are works that don’t go anywhere. But where would works be going except where the person who does the works wants them to go?

So a dead work is a work that doesn’t do what the person who does the work wanted to do. In Romans (Rm 7:15), Paul says, “I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.” Is there anyone who doesn’t understand this problem? Examples of it are easy to come by. Here’s one: You set out bravely to give up smoking, and day after day you smoke.

It’s not hard to see why dead works stain a conscience. Whose conscience would not feel stained by endless daily failure to do what he himself wants to do?

This is what the blood of Christ cleanses us from.

The blood is the life of a thing, Scripture says (Dt 12:23). When we participate in the Eucharist, the blood of Christ comes into us; and so Christ’s life comes into us too. What we could not do on our own, because our works are dead and our consciences are stained, the blood, the life, the Spirit of Christ can do in us.

When we are united with Christ through his body and blood in the Eucharist, our works live too through him. And if our works live, then our consciences are cleansed. And that is how the saints  in heaven have made the dirty laundry of their lives white.

There is power in the precious blood of the Lamb!

Eleonore Stump
Eleonore Stump is Professor of Philosophy, Saint Louis University

Art by Martin Erspamer, OSB
from Religious Clip Art for the Liturgical Year (A, B, and C). This art may be reproduced only by parishes who purchase the collection in book or CD-ROM form. For more information go http://www.ltp.org