Blood

In Bonaventure’s eighth section, he speaks much about the blood of Christ. And well he should, given the Catholic theology he believed. The blood, so they say, is the grace of God, granted through the mass. It is for this reason that Mel Gibson has mass volumes of blood flowing out of Jesus in his Passion of the Christ. Some called that film “realistic”, but Gibson wasn’t working toward realism in the scenes that showed blood. Rather, he was symbolically demonstrating the pouring of Jesus grace and salvation upon everyone who came to him.

But in my anawimic (not Catholic) theology, this is in error (although I have nothing but esteem for my Catholic brothers and sisters). It is not the mass that offers God’s grace, but the martyrdom and the sacrifice of God’s people. It is the suffering and rejection of those who do mercy, of those who follow Jesus, that is where the grace is poured out. The one who lives for himself all week and then comes to receive the mass, even after confession, does not necessarily receive God’s grace.

Rather, God’s grace is for the poor, the persecuted, the lowly, the rejected, the outcast. God reserves His grace for those who need it. And the ones most in need of salvation are those who society has rejected. God is there for them. And the blood of Jesus was shed to show that those who live the life of Jesus would get the opportunity to live the second life of Jesus.