The month of July is specially dedicated to the Most Precious Blood of Jesus, and thus the traditional, historic calendar of the Roman Rite commences this month with the Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ on July 1 (which is also the octave day of St. John the Baptist's Nativity). Our Lord shed His Precious Blood in an atoning, propitiating sacrifice for our sins, both Priest and Victim of the New Covenant -- and so it is most fitting that the Church on July 1 also commemorates the first High Priest of the Old Covenant, St. Aaron, older brother of
St. Moses, for, as St. Paul teaches in his Epistle to the Hebrews (ch. 9:22), "
without shedding of blood there is no remission" of sins.
The traditional Roman Martyrology lists the
feasts of July 1 thus:
This Day, the First Day of July
The Octave of St. John the Baptist.
Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
On Mount Hor, the demise of St. Aaron, the first priest of the Levitical Order.
