Sacerdotal Society of the Precious Blood

.

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 Superior General for O.S.G. on the Feast of the Most 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.

.

The Most Precious Blood

.

.

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

.

.

The Blood of Christ is precious because it is Christ's own great ransom paid for the redemption of mankind. As there was to be no remission of sin without the shedding of blood, the Incarnate Word not only offered His life for the salvation of the world, but He offered to give up His life by a bloody death, and to hang bloodless, soulless and dead upon the Cross for the salvation of men. There, upon the Cross, He atoned for every form of human sin. "God was indeed Christ, reconciling the world to Himself." He shed His Most Precious Blood for all - for Jew, Gentile and for all unbelievers. In that Blood of Jesus our sins have shed, which is at the same time the price of our redemption. The feast of the Most Precious Blood is a call to repentance and reparation. It was shed that sinners might be forgiven, that they might live and not die; that they might live unto Him "in Whom we have redemption through His Blood, the remission of sins."

.

Ordo Sancti Graal

.

.
On Good Friday 1973 twelve people founded Ordo Sancti Graal on the summit of Parliament Hill at London’s Hampstead Heath. Following three months of spontaneous happenings, they developed into a dispersed Order of disciples with both radical and traditional approach. By this point the principal founder, namely myself, was in minor orders within an autocephalous branch of the Catholic Church in Great Britain. Seventeen years after the founding of Ordo Sancti Graal, I took Holy Orders and was later episcopally consecrated by three independent Catholic bishops.
.
I contributed to a Channel Four British television programme about the Holy Grail in February 1997, and a documentary film for America’s NBC channel in early 1998 which was filmed at Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset. These transmissions included the Nanteos Cup, the remnant of a wooden bowl thought by some to be the Holy Grail. A minister in the area had access to the Cup for the purpose of immersing prayer cloths in Holy Water and Chrism in the bowl to facilitate healing, also appeared in these television programmes. The Cup’s location, however, remains undisclosed.
.
Christianity came to Britain in the first century and is the essence of our civilisation. Lose it and we lose everything. The consequence of that loss is already apparent. On page 87 of The Grail Church is written:

.

“To the native Celts the Grail Church became known as the British Church; so as to distinguish it from the Anglo-Saxon English Church. When the Anglo-Saxons adopted Roman Christianity the British Church receded until it eventually vanished. Yet the memory of the Holy Grail could not be eradicated; indeed, its symbolic potency only grew with the passing of time.”
.
Traditional Christianity is disappearing as atheism, relativism and heresy spread on a scale hitherto unseen. The primary purpose of the work begun at Easter 1973 is to provide spiritual sanctuary in a land awash with soul-killing materialism and moral bankruptcy by actively seeking to reclaim Britain for Christ.
.
A table for twelve is always set at the Order's private retreat and chapel in England. This number represents those who joined at the founding of the Order inaugurated on Good Friday 1973 at the summit of Parliament Hill, Hampstead Heath, London. The Order belongs to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church which autocepahlous jurisdiction under our leadership is universally known as Ecclesia Apostolica Jesu Christi.
.
Novi et æterni testamenti — it is the priest who recites these words at the consecration of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord — Hic est enim calix Sanguinis mei: novi et æterni testamenti. We stand for this inheritance which Jesus Christ gave to us. It is His Sacrifice, it is His Blood, it is His Cross, the ferment of all Christian civilisation and of all that is necessary for salvation.

.

The Order exists for the glory of the Most Blessed Trinity, for the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ, for the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, for the love of the Church, for the love of bishops, of priests, of all the faithful, for the salvation of the world, and for the salvation of souls. By keeping the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, by keeping His Sacrifice, by keeping the Eucharist — the Eucharist which has been bequeathed to us by our predecessors, the Eucharist which has been transmitted from the time of the Apostles unto this day — we shall hold fast to what is true.
.

The True Grail

.

The true Grail is the cup sealed by the Holy Blood of the Saviour which was entrusted along with its sacred mysteries to St Joseph of Arimathea, who, clothed with the virtues of the risen Christ and the Holy Grail, was sustained spiritually and physically. The Grail became a sign of saving grace and wonder to that company which he was elected to take westward. The cup contained the Saviour’s Blood and unlimited powers of healing were attributed to it, but it was also an outward symbol of unity with God as well as an inward means of transmitting a direct apprehension of God. On Ascension Day the arch-natural Body was removed from the world, but there remained the Holy Grail into which the Precious Blood of the natural Body had been received by St Joseph. Later chroniclers would employ the word Sangreal within which lies the words Saint Gréal (Holy Grail) and Sang Real (Royal Blood). The Gospels of Matthew and Luke tell us that Jesus was of royal blood.

.