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The Month of July is dedicated to the Precious Blood of Jesus. The feast of the Precious Blood of our Lord was instituted in 1849 by Pius IX, but the devotion is as old as Christianity. The early Fathers say that the Church was born from the pierced side of Christ, and that the sacraments were brought forth through His Blood.

“The Precious Blood which we worship is the Blood which the Savior shed for us on Calvary and reassumed at His glorious Resurrection; it is the Blood which courses through the veins of His risen, glorified, living body at the right hand of God the Father in heaven; it is the Blood made present on our altars by the words of Consecration; it is the Blood which merited sanctifying grace for us and through it washes and beautifies our soul and inaugurates the beginning of eternal life in it.”

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• A veil, like a sacrament, is an outward sign of an inward event. In this case, it is an outward sign of an inward call to emulate the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, the perfect woman, who always wears a veil. Honor the Blessed Mother May in the month of May by following her example of wearing the veil.

• The tradition of women wearing veils has been practiced within the Catholic Church since its beginning. St. Paul even speaks of women being veiled in Church. This is not because their status is less than men, but because they have a special role in creation and in salvation history. Because of this, women are to be cherished, set apart, special. By wearing a veil, a woman humbly accepts this great honor given to her by God. The veil symbolizes a woman’s acceptance of the sacred vocation God has ordained for her.

• Holy things are veiled in order to preserve their proper mystery and to show that they are set apart. In our Catholic churches, the tabernacle is veiled because it is holy and pure, containing the sacred Body of Christ, the author of life; a woman is veiled because she is a temple of the Holy Spirit and a tabernacle of life, whether in spiritual or physical motherhood, or both.

  [NOTE: Not only is a woman’s head veiled, but her entire body is called to be modestly concealed, preserving her sacred dignity before God and man. For women, skirts and dresses with hemlines below the knee and loosely fitted garments are modest; short skirts or dresses, and tightly fitted, body revealing fashions are not modest.]

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The Divine Mercy Chaplet Prayer Circle is a lay Catholic group offering prayers for those souls who are in their last hours and death is imminent. The group prays the chaplet throughout the day for souls near death. If you have a loved one for whom you would like to receive these prayers at the hour of his or her death, please send your request to the Divine Mercy Chaplet Prayer Circle at: Ezekiel.today@gmail.com