Pints With Aquinas - 52: Why is the blood of Christ precious?

Episode Date: April 9, 2017

In today's episode we talk to Thomas about the blood of Christ and why it is important --- HUGE THANKS to the following Patrons: Tom Dickson, Jack Buss, Sean McNicholl, Jed Florstat, Daniel Szafran, Phillip Hadden Katie Kuchar, Phillipe Ortiz, Russell T Potee, Sarah Jacob, Fernando Enrile SPONSORS EL Investments: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/mattfradd/  Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd  STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/  GIVING Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mattfradd This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer coproducer of the show. LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd MY BOOKS  Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform  

Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, episode 52. I'm Matt Fradd. If you could sit down with St. Thomas Aquinas over a pint of beer and ask him any one question, what would it be? Well, in today's episode, we'll ask St. Thomas about the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Welcome to Pines with Aquinas. This is the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. Welcome to Holy Week. This episode is coming to you, as I'm sure you've noticed, a few days earlier than it usually does because I thought we should prepare ourselves for Holy Week. Holy Work? Well, that too. Holy Week! And so, we're not going to be having a pint with St. Thomas today. We're going to be having a glass of water.

Well, a pint maybe, but the pint has to have water in it. If you've been fasting up until now throughout Lent and you've been doing a stellar job at that, congratulations! If you've done kind of okay, don't give up. Now is the time to intensify your efforts. Easter is only one week away and we do not want to waste the graces that could come to us this week if we would only take it seriously. Many of you have already been joining me for a 40-day reflection. Many of you maybe know this, I'm not sure if you do or not, but St. Thomas Aquinas wrote a book in which every day for Lent, he writes a different meditation.

So I want to share one of those meditations today for you on the precious blood of Jesus Christ. If you're thinking to yourself, well, I would love to listen to more about what St. Thomas has to say. The way that's made available is by supporting Pints with Aquinas on Patreon. If you go to pintswithaquinas.com, click the Patreon banner, you can support the show for as little as $2 a month. Those who support the show for $5 a month get the entire audio book

of St. Thomas Aquinas' meditations. So you could do that and then listen to a different meditation each day for Holy Week. That would be awesome. That would support me, support the show, and it would keep it going. But if you can't, that's totally fine too. I understand that money's tight for some people.

But I do want to share this one meditation from that book with you because I find it absolutely beautiful. As I say, it is on the precious blood of Jesus Christ. Here it is. He says, through the blood of Christ, the New Testament was confirmed. Many quotes 1 Corinthians where it says, this chalice is the New Testament in my blood. Now, testament, says Aquinas, has two meanings. First, it may mean any kind of agreement or pact.

Now, God, says Aquinas, has twice made an agreement with mankind. In one pact, in the first pact, God promised man temporal prosperity and deliverance from temporal losses. And this pact is called the Old Testament. In another pact, God promises man spiritual blessings and deliverance from spiritual losses. And this is called the New Testament. I will make a new covenant, saith the Lord, with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant, which I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. But this shall be the covenant. I will give my law in their bosom,

and I will write it in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. Now, already we should pause here and think, you know, how many of us listened to that and thought, I don't know, the first covenant kind of sounds a little better than the second covenant. I think I had that reaction and then scolded myself for it. Because the fact that I had that reaction shows that I'm really more interested in temporal pleasures and successes than spiritual blessings. So, in that first covenant, you know, he talks about deliverance from temporal losses. That's the Old Testament. The New Testament is a spiritual one. Aquinas goes on, among the ancients, it was customary to pour out the blood of some victim

in confirmation of a pact. This Moses did when taking the blood, he sprinkled it upon the people and he said, this is the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you. As the Old Testament or pact was thus confirmed in the figurative blood of oxen, so the New Testament or pact was confirmed in the blood of Christ shed during his passion. All right, so that is the first and broad definition of testament, a pact. Here's the second definition Aquinas gives. He says, testament has another more restricted meaning when it signifies the arrangement of inheritance among the different heirs, that is, a will. So, if the first definition means an agreement or pact, the second, more restrictive definition of testament, Aquinas says,

means a will. So, testament in this sense, says Aquinas, are only confirmed by the death of the testator. There you go. I had no idea that was a word before I read that. Testator. As St. Paul says, for a testament is of force after men are dead. Otherwise, it is as yet of no strength whilst the testator liveth. Well, there you go. If you read the Douay-Rheims translation, which I don't usually, then I suppose you do know what Tessitur is. Aquinas goes on, God in the beginning made an arrangement of the eternal inheritance we were to receive, but under the figure of temporal goods. This is the Old Testament. But afterwards, he made the New Testament explicitly promising the eternal inheritance, which indeed was confirmed by the blood of the death of Christ.

And therefore, our Lord, speaking of this, says, Though to say, by that which is contained in this chalice, the New Testament confirmed in the blood of Christ is commemorated. chalice the New Testament confirmed in the blood of Christ is commemorated. Now, there are other things, says Aquinas, which makes the blood of Christ precious. And here he gives us, let's see, five, six, six reasons, six other reasons the blood of Christ is precious. And already I can't help but have a greater devotion to what we receive every week at the Divine Liturgy, at Holy Mass, when we receive what looks like wine, what looks like bread, but is actually the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ. If you're a new listener to Pints with Aquinas, perhaps you're a little confused about the Catholic teaching

perhaps you're a little confused about the Catholic teaching on the Holy Eucharist. The teaching is referred to as transubstantiation. And what it means is that the substance, transubstantiation, transforms, if you will, transubstantiates is a more accurate way to put it, into the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. Now, you might be thinking, well, but it still looks the same. And let's be honest, it's still bread. I mean, if I put it under a microscope, wouldn't it still look like bread, have the same components of bread? Yes, it would.

But the teaching has always been, in some degree or another, of course, it was more officially defined later on in church history, that the substance transubstantiates. The substance changes while the accidents remain the same. So, in other words, what it is, is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, even though its accidents appear differently. Accidents don't change the substance. Think, I'm looking right now at a blue coffee mug in front of me okay what is the substance of this thing well it is a coffee mug if i were to paint it red it would still be the substance would still be a coffee mug though the accidents had changed

well transubstantiation when that, the accidents remains while the substance changes. This is, to be fair, to be clear, to be clear, a radical teaching, a radical teaching. But Christianity is a radical religion. When Jesus Christ said, my body is true food indeed, When Jesus Christ said, my body is true food indeed, my blood is true drink indeed, Catholics believe him. Orthodox believe him. When Jesus Christ says, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. We do not think by that he meant, unless you eat something that resembles my body and blood and you think about my body and blood while you're eating that which isn't my body and blood. No, what he meant is what he said.

Unless you eat the flesh of the blood of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whenever you or I go to Holy Mass or the Divine Liturgy, we should pray, Lord Jesus, stir up within my heart a desire to receive you. Anyway, here are those six other things which make the blood of Christ precious. Number one, a cleansing of our sins and uncleanness. Jesus Christ hath loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Talks about that in the apocalypse, in the book of Revelation. Secondly, our redemption. Thou hast redeemed us in thy blood.

That again is from Revelation. Thirdly, the peacemaker between us and God. In Colossians, we read, And his angels making peace through the blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth and the things that are in the heavens. Fourthly, a draft of life to all who receive it. A draft meaning a drink, yes? Drink ye all of this. That's from matthew's gospel uh that they might drink the purest blood of the grape that's from deuteronomy fifthly what else what else makes the blood of christ precious

the opening of the gate of heaven having therefore brethren a confidence in the entering into the That's from Hebrews. That is to say, a continuous prayer for us to God. For his blood daily cries for us to the Father. And again, we are told, come to the sprinkling of blood, which speaketh better than that of Abel. The blood of Abel called for punishment. The blood of Christ calls for pardon. Finally, sixth, deliverance of the saints from hell. Thou also by the blood of thy testament hast sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water. Pretty cool, huh? The blood of Jesus Christ.

Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God. I pray that you have a very beautiful Holy Week this week. It can be tiring sometimes. I feel like we can become disheartened with ourselves because maybe you made several resolutions. You said, well, I'm going to definitely do this. I'm going we can become disheartened with ourselves because maybe you made several resolutions. You said, well, I'm going to definitely do this. I'm going to definitely do that.

I'll be honest. That was true of me. At the beginning of Lent, I said, I'm going to read a chapter of Exodus every day. And that lasted about five days. And then you miss a day. You're like, well, I'll just read two in the next day. It's really fine. It's really fine. But then I honestly haven't done it. So mea culpa. But then there are other things that I have stuck to. But I know what it's like when you mess up and you think, ah, gosh, I've just screwed this up again. And then you don't really think about it and you don't kind of really encourage yourself to kind of press forward. Well, I want to encourage you to do that, to be manful about that. So give up something extra as we approach Good Friday.

Maybe give up alcohol. Maybe give up coffee. You know when people say stuff like, well, you shouldn't give up something if it's going to make everyone else miserable around you. Sometimes that might be true, okay? But I think sometimes that's an excuse. There's a reason you've heard that a bunch. And it's because we like to say that, because we don't like to give things up that make us grumpy. Well, maybe you should be grumpy. Give up something. Maybe you and I should get up at three in the morning every day this week, get out of bed, sit on the couch and pray the Holy Rosary or read from the New Testament. Do something beautiful and manly, forgive me if you're a woman, the equivalent, womanly, okay, for the Lord Jesus Christ. Prepare yourself this week.

Give yourself to Jesus. Not in a, well, let's see if I can do it kind of like a workout, you know, let's see if I can accomplish it, but more of a, let me rest on you, Jesus. Let me turn to you, Jesus. Let me turn to you, Jesus. And when you feel that ache within your heart for our blessed Lord, right? Don't just then turn to something else. You haven't given up to fill that space, but turn to Jesus and say, you fill this ache. This happened to me a couple of weeks ago. It was a Friday, I had no meat. And in the Eastern church, we don't have fish on Fridays either. So it was kind of like, I had no meat. And in the Eastern church, we don't have fish on Fridays either. So it was kind of like I was eating lettuce and just tomatoes and bananas. And I was traveling and I was really

hungry. Woe is me, right? There's a lot of people out there who are much more hungry than me and maybe far better Christians that are giving up all food on Fridays. But I had to go to a hotel room late at night and I was so hungry. And I was like, I'm going to go to bed. I'm barely going to be able to sleep because I'm so hungry. But in that moment, I was reminded, you know, bring this ache to the Lord Jesus. And so I'm like, Jesus, I ache for you. I long for you. I want you. I want you. I want you, you know. All right. Well, that's all I got to say. Again, if you would like to listen to daily meditations for the rest of Lent, you can become a supporter on Patreon. By the way, I do feel kind of weird, okay, every week

asking y'all to support me. I get it, okay? And I've even had a few people really, really have written negative comments to me about Patreon. They're like, oh yeah, let me see. You're going to tell us to give us money so we can get into heaven? And I'm thinking, no. But I get it. I mean, we're asked for money all the time for different things. And sometimes when it's tied to a religiously driven program, maybe we have bad memories of whatever, like religious television where you've got some cheesy guy up the front saying, give me $90.95. So look, all I can say is this. You don't have to give me anything and you'll still get these weekly episodes. But this does take a lot of time for me. What else can I say?

Right now, my wife and son are upstairs and I would love to go and hang out with them. But this is something that I'm committing to doing. wife and son are upstairs and I would love to go and hang out with them, but this is something that I'm committing to doing. And a way for this to be viable for us as a family is to be making money from this financially. If we can't, then quite honestly, it's like maybe I'll do several other episodes, maybe a couple, maybe a dozen more, a couple of dozen. But eventually I might just look at my wife and be like, all right, I think we've done enough here. So if you do like the show and you want to support something that you like and that you believe in, that's all I'm saying. Go to patreon.com forward slash PWA, that's Pints with Aquinas, and you can support the show. Another way you can support the show,

if you don't want to support it financially or if you can't, is by rating us on iTunes. want to support it financially or if you can't is by rating us on itunes thanks to everyone who's done that by the way we've got nearly 600 or is it over i'm not sure now ratings um from for pines with aquinas thank you very much for doing that by doing that the show comes up higher when people search things like aquinas or lent or wet dreams what yes wet dreams there was an episode recent not recently but a while back we did on what thomas aquinas said about wet dreams anyway if you haven't listened to other episodes on pines with aquinas why don't you go back and start listening to them you know sometimes i'll be subscribed to a podcast and i'll think well i don't listen to their older ones because you know that stuff that people were talking about back then i want to listen to what's happening right

now but with these podcasts they're not timely in that sense. They all revolve around questions that are always relevant and they don't have to do with news items of the day. So you might go check that out. All right, God bless you, and I'll chat with you after Easter Sunday. Have a beautiful and blessed and holy, holy week. to carry you and I would give my whole life to carry you

to carry you to carry you to carry you to carry you