Bloodletting and the Triumph of the Cross

God created man—male and female—in His own image and likeness. Indeed, all of creation carries the Divine imprint. After the Fall, the Devil exploited man’s sin to deface God’s image and likeness in creation through violence, including the shedding of blood.

In the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life sustained our first parents. Although God gave them dominion over all of the creatures, they did not need meat-processing facilities. However, after Original Sin, the shedding of blood entered human experience as a consequence of disorder and became part of the fallen human condition. This disorder extended even to the shedding of human blood.

Cain’s murder of his brother Abel was rooted in the disobedience of sin: envy and hatred. The Israelites repeatedly fell into idolatry. The prophet Jeremiah condemned those who sacrificed their children to the demon Moloch. King Herod the Great ordered the massacre of the Holy Innocents to protect his throne from the newborn King. Child sacrifice was also practiced in ancient Carthage, and the Aztecs (and others, including the Incas) conducted ritual human sacrifice.

The violent shedding of human blood destroys innocent life. It appears in the destruction of unborn children in abortion. Decades ago, at the National Prayer Breakfast, Mother Teresa famously made the connection: “Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use violence to get what they want.” The bloody mayhem of war continues to rob the world of life in abundance by defiling the Divine imprint on all of creation.

In the Old Testament, God began to reorder fallen humanity’s understanding of sacrifice and to restrain the impulse toward human sacrifice. By Divine institution, animal sacrifices were commanded as part of a system of worship that both acknowledged sin and directed the people toward God. The blood of goats and lambs anticipated the one Perfect Sacrifice to come, prefiguring Christ’s obedience and triumph over sin.

But obedience to sacrificial rituals alone fell short of perfect worship. Psalm 50 highlights the futility of merely external sacrifices:

I do not reprove you for your sacrifices; your burnt offerings are continually before me. I will accept no bull from your house, nor he-goat from your folds… Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High; call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.

Psalm 50 sets the stage for a transformation in understanding authentic religious sacrifice: one that marries external ritual with communion with God through obedient self-offering, thanksgiving, and fidelity.

The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves near the Sea of Galilee advances our understanding of orthodox religious sacrifice. After the multiplication of loaves, Jesus revealed that true life comes not from ritual bloody sacrifices but from communion with Him. Unless they eat His Body and drink His Blood, they would have no life within them.

God’s image is found in the unity of the human person—body and soul. But the Devil rages against the Divine image imprinted on the human heart. What better way to sabotage the mission of the Messiah than through the horror of crucifixion? Yet, as the Psalmist foretold, it is obedience to the Divine will—not mere external sacrifice—that maintains our union with God.

During Jesus’ trials before the chief priests and before Pontius Pilate, human injustice—freely chosen—became the instrument of His condemnation. The hatred of the religious authorities, the agitated crowd, and Pilate’s political expediency became the instruments of His condemnation and execution. Yet this convergence of sin also manifests the presence of an ancient foe: the Devil’s exploitation of disorder, violence, and bloodletting.

Even so, Christ rules. As Saint Peter declares in Acts of the Apostles, Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). Thus, the Passion discloses a confluence of forces: injustice, demonic influence, and Jesus, willingly taking upon Himself the sins of the world for its redemption.

Christ remained obedient to the Father, freely taking up the Cross upon Himself and entering into His Passion. For the duration of the Passion, the suffering of Christ appeared to be the triumph of evil. But the perfect obedience of Christ shattered the Devil’s dominion, and the Cross became a sign of triumph, not defeat.

Through His loving obedience unto death, Jesus reconciled all human suffering with God. Henceforth, we can never claim that God is distant from human suffering. In His glorious Resurrection, heaven and earth are reconciled in His glorified body.

On the night before He died, Jesus revealed how we would forever participate in His perfect sacrifice in His New and Everlasting Covenant. Jesus places on the lips of every priest at Mass His words of the institution of the Eucharist:

Take this, all of you, and eat of it, for this is my Body, which will be given up for you.
Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me.

The destructive horror of blood sacrifice in all its forms is transfigured into the joy of sacramental food: “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” (John 6:55) By participating in this worship, we enter into communion with His one Sacrifice and with one another, offering our lives in obedience and love.

Grace and life are found not in bloodletting, but in self-giving love, communion, and faithful worship. The Eucharist that feeds body and soul restores and surpasses the Tree of Life lost by Original Sin. In the Eucharist, Jesus restores and perfects the divine image within the hearts of men.