Frederick William Faber (1814-1863) was a Roman Catholic priest who converted from Anglicanism in 1845. Shortly his ordination in 1847, he joined John Henry Cardinal Newman to work with the Oratorians in 1848. Among his books is The Precious Blood: The Price of Our Salvation (1860). This volume teaches, rather strongly, Mary as co-Redemptrix and co-Mediatrix, another demonstration of (1) the problematic nature of Roman Catholic Mariology (for more, see my book, Behold the Mother of My Lord: Towards a Mormon Mariology) and, related to such, (2) that Mary as co-Redemptrix and co-Mediatrix is a doctrine (albeit, not a defined dogma, as of writing) within Catholicism (cf. § 967-970 of the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church where this is taught). The edition of Faber’s book I will be quoting from is the following:
Frederick William Faber, The Precious Blood: The Price of our Salvation (Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1978)
The Precious Blood was assumed directly to our Blessed Lord’s Divine Person from his Immaculate Mother. It was not taken merely from his Body, so that his body was directly assumed to the Person of the Word, and his blood only indirectly or mediately as part of his Body. The Blood, which was the predetermined price of our redemption, rested directly and immediately on the Divine Person, and thus entered into the very highest and most unspeakable degree of the Hypostatic Union—if we may speak of degrees of such an adorably simple mystery. It was not merely a concomitant of the Flesh, an inseparable accident of the Body. The Blood itself, as Blood, was assumed directly by the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. It came also from Mary’s blood. Mary’s blood was the material out of which the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the artificer of the Sacred Humanity, fashioned the Blood of Jesus. Here we see how needful to the joy and gladness of our devotion is the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Who could bear to think that the matter of the Precious Blood had ever been itself corrupted with the taint of sin, that it had once been part of the devil’s kingdom, that what was to supply the free price of our redemption was once enslaved to God’s darkest, foulest enemy? It is not indeed an endless daily jubilee to us, that the Church has laid upon us an article of our faith that sweet truth which the instincts of our devotion had so long made a real part of our belief?
Moreover, there is some portion of the Precious Blood which once was Mary’s own blood, and which remains still in our Blessed Lord, incredibly exalted by its union with his Divine Person, yet still the same. This portion of himself, it is piously believed, has not been allowed to undergo the usual changes of human substance. At this moment in heaven he retains something which was once his Mother’s, and which is possibly visible, as such, to the saints and angels. (pp. 34-35)
[T]he choice of God is the only measure by which we can approach any knowledge of his Immaculate Mother. As her office was inconceivable either by angel or by saint, unless it had been revealed, so also it is the immensity of her holiness. The choice of God lights up vast tracts of her magnificence, and shows us also how much there is left for us to learn and to enjoy in heaven. The grandeur of her office is infinite, as St. Thomas says, and the omnipotence of God could not create a grander office: what then must be the infinity of her grace? It is God who chose her, the God of numberless perfections, of illimitable power, and of lavish munificence. His choice tells us that the mighty empress of heaven was adorned with the utmost participation of the divine splendor of which a creature was capable. What regalia must they be which come out of the inexhaustible treasures of God, and which are chosen for her whom he chose eternally to be his blessed Mother? So, finally, we get our idea of the worth of the Precious Blood by seeing the end for which the Creator chose it. (pp. 85-86)
Who can doubt [the Precious Blood’s] sweet constraints over the immaculate heart of Mary? She is queen of heaven and earth. Far and wide her empire stretches. Its boundaries are scarce distinguishable from those of the Precious Blood itself: so closely and so peacefully do the two sovereignties intertwine. Mary holds sway over the Precious Blood. It does her bidding, and she commands with a mother’s right. Yet she too is a subject of the Precious Blood, and rejoices in her subjection. Out of her very heart that Blood first came; and out of that Blood came also her Immaculate Conception. It was the very office of her Divine Maternity to minister that Blood; and it was that Blood which from all eternity had merited for her the Divine Maternity. It was the Precious Blood which made her suffer; but it was the Precious Blood also which turned her suffering into dignities and crowns. She owes all to the Precious Blood, to whom the Precious Blood owes its very self. Yet the river is greater than its fountain. The Precious Blood is greater than Mary; nay, it is greater by a whole infinity, because the waters of the Godhead have assumed its uncommingled stream unto themselves. Mary sits upon her throne to magnify the Precious Blood. Her power is used for the propagation of its empire. Her prayers dispense its grace. Her holiness, which enchants all heaven, is the monument and trophy of that victorious blood. (pp. 126-27)
The Upper Room of Pentecost is another Bethlehem. It is the birthplace of the Church. There is the same Mother as in the midnight cave. But, instead of Joseph, there are apostles. Instead of angels’ songs in the quiet midnight, there is the rushing wind of the Eternal Spirit; and his fiery tongues, instead of all the wintry brightness of the stars. From that Upper Room the Procession seems to start again. Not that the Precious Blood had left the earth, even at the Ascension. The whole of those ten days it lay, in real sacramental presence unconsumed, on Mary’s immaculate heart as on a reposoir. (p. 154)
Even Mary does not fully comprehend the beauty of her Son, nor has she ever come to the last depth of his sweetness. Yet we shall understand nothing of these lives separately, unless we also realize them as one. This is the secret charm of the Rosary. It simplifies while it divides. It is a unity, while it is a variety as well. It parts our Lord in the Joys, the Sorrows, and the Glories of his Mother, and five times subdivides each of these three divisions; and yet it is all the one Jesus as Mary saw him, Mary’s Jesus, Mary’s view of him, love of him, and the worship of him, which the complete Rosary brings before us. The devotion to the Precious Blood performs the same office differently to those eight lives; and in this function lies that affinity to the Rosary which those who practise it are not slow to discover. The Precious Blood runs through all those lives, and is the one human life of all of them. Yet it is not a mere fanciful string upon which our devotion may hang them for convenience’ sake, as if they were so many beads. It is a living unity. It runs them into one, and gives a special meaning and imparts a special light to each. It is the one devotion to the Precious Blood eight times multiplied by the thoughtfulness of love. (p. 266; cf. The Rosary in Catholic Marian Devotion)
Many revelations from the other world testify to the peculiar devotion of the Dead to the Precious Blood. Souls in Purgatory have been allowed to appear and to tell how, in their patient land of woe, it is Blood, and only Blood, the Blood of the Adorable Mass, which can quench the flames. The pictures, which represent the angels holding chalices to the Wounded Side of Jesus, while Mary prays beneath, and then pouring those chalices into the fires of Purgatory, simply represent this catholic truth as it exists in the sense of the faithful. Prayers for the conversion of sinners naturally seek their efficacy in the oblation of the Precious Blood. (p. 267)
There is yet another characteristic, which the history of this devotion suggests to us, but which by no means depends only upon the circumstances of its history—its peculiar alliance with the Immaculate Conception. It is curious that both these devotions have received great contemporary developments during the present pontificate. After centuries of growth, first in popular piety and then in the schools of theology, the Immaculate Conception has received its crown in the glorious definition of the dogma. This is the grandest event of the nineteenth century. The devotion to the Precious Blood has also had its indulgences and privileges augmented, and a new memorial east instituted in its honor. The Pope’s exile at Gaeta was sweetened by his Encyclical in favor of the Immaculate Conception. His return to Rome was celebrated by the institution of the new east of the Precious Blood. The chief function of both these mysteries is to illustrate redeeming grace. They both preach redemption. The Precious Blood was the very instrument which redeemed the world. The Immaculate Conception, which was its choicest work, the Precious Blood first took its rise. The Immaculate Conception was for the sake of the Precious Blood. It was for the insuring of its purity and the protecting of its honor. The Precious Blood raised up the mountains of the Immaculate Conception by the subterraneous heavings of its fiery love, and then flowed down from the summits as a sweet fountain for the gladdening of the nations. The Immaculate Conception therefore is actually part of the devotion to the Precious Blood. It is creation’s richest offering, made by the queen of creatures, who thus in the jubilee of her sinless dawn crowned the Precious Blood by being crowned herself with its choicest crown.
It is no wonder, then, that we find in the two devotions, the devotion to the Precious Blood and the devotion to the Immaculate Conception, a similarity of spirit, a similarity of gifts, a similarity of graces. (pp. 267-68)
In close connection with this grace we should name, as another fruit of the spirit of this devotion, a great devotion to the Sacraments. But this has been sufficiently dwelt upon in the course of the Treatise. A zeal for souls is naturally given to magnify the Sacraments. An apostolic man knows of them by experience. He has seen the magic of their operations. He has seen how they can lie in the bosom of corruption, like God’s amulets, and charm away the vicinity, the relics, the associations, the roots, the attractions, of sin. He has handled their divine realities, and worships rather what he sees than what he knows of by the hearing of faith. But a great devotion to the Sacraments is not only an inseparable accompaniment o zeal for souls: it is also an antidote against all that is worldly, material, and anti-supernatural in the tendencies of the present day. It will increase in us, in proportion as we grow in devotion to the Precious Blood.
The effect of this devotion upon our devotion to our Blessed Lady may as well be named as one of its graces, one of the revelations of its spirit. It makes our devotion to her an integral part of our devotion to Jesus. It makes the two devotions one. It draws her into the scheme of redemption so intimately, and at the same time with such splendors of separate exaltation, that the very highest language the saints about her becomes easy to us, and is the only natural expression of our inward love. To be enthusiastic, our love of Mary only needs to be theological. The devotion to the Precious Blood clothes her with a new glory. It makes Mary magnify Jesus, and Jesus magnify Mary. It causes her individual mysteries to shine forth like starts, the Precious Blood forming the clearness of the purple night in which their peculiar brightness is more visible and more distinctive. He that can find another point of view, from which our dear Lady seems greater than before, has got a new means of sanctification; for he has acquired a new power of loving God: and the devotion to the Precious Blood is full of such points of view. (p. 274)
