Sacerdotal Society of the Precious Blood

Hic est enim Calix Sanguinis mei, novi et æterni testamenti: mysterium fidei: qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum.

“It is our further and earnest desire that the common prayer of the faithful should also reach

out with burning charity to those who have not received Light from the truth of the Gospel or

attained the security of the Church’s fold and also to those whom an unhappy breach of faith

has severed Us, Who, however unworthily, represent on earth the person of Jesus Christ.”

Pius XII

Mystici Corporis Christi

1943

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The Sacerdotal Society of the Precious Blood is a priestly society within Ordo Sancti Graal (a tripartite fellowship founded on Good Friday 1973 for religious and lay apostolate) with a special devotion to the Blood of Christ. In common with the Pious Union of the Precious Blood, and the Confraternity of Our Lady of the Abandoned, members have to be at least thirty-three years old before becoming active. The S.S.P.B. attends the sick and dying, condemned prisoners (for which honorary priests in other jurisdictions are appointed for lands where the death penalty still obtains), persons and places where demonic interference is suspected, and all who have been erstwhile refused ecclesial support. The sick, possessed, dying and condemned signify their readiness to receive Holy Unction for the healing of the infirmities of their souls and, if it please God, their bodies also, by kissing a crucifix. Where appropriate, there is exposition of the Blessed Sacrament for two hours to pray for the person. Communion, including the Precious Blood in the chalice is made available to those able to receive it. Honorary members of the S.S.P.B., comprising priests outside Ordo Sancti Graal, are invited to participate in all of the aforementioned. The S.S.P.B. was founded by the Right Reverend Seán Manchester, Bishop and Superior General for O.S.G., on the Feast of the Precious Blood in 2002.

Devotion to the Blood of Christ spread through the widely popular legend of the quest for the Holy Grail, the Cup of the Last Supper, also reputedly used by St Joseph of Arimathea to catch the Blood that flowed from Christ’s wounds at Calvary. Among the remoter origins of the devotion are the stress on the humanity of Christ and Eucharistic devotion of the kind that gave rise to the Feast of Corpus Christi in the thirteenth century. It was encouraged by accounts of the stigmata of St Francis of Assisi, with the emphasis on the five wounds, and it is later found particularly among Franciscan spiritual writers. The Franciscans appear to have now abandoned the cult, which is at the centre of the O.S.G.’s devotion. Liturgical recognition came in 1582 with the grant of an office “For the Blood of Christ” to the diocese of Valencia, but the widest propagation of the cult would appear to have been in the eighteenth century with permission to celebrate the Feast being granted to several dioceses, and the establishment of a Confraternity of the Precious Blood in the Roman church of St Nicholas in Carcere. In the nineteenth century St Gaspare de Bufalo founded the Missionaries of the Precious Blood and in 1822 won permission to celebrate the Feast on the first Sunday of July. The Feast was extended to the whole Church in 1849. Though the reforms of the Second Vatican Council have witnessed the Feast day being moved to the second day of July, the Sacerdotal Society of the Precious Blood still keeps to the earlier designated day of July 1st, at which time acolytes within the Society are usually raised to the diaconate and priesthood.

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The S.S.P.B. belongs to an Order and Old Catholic jurisdiction that is self-governing within the wider context of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.