Father Robert T. Cooper

          From the earliest days of Her history, Holy Mother Church has employed beautiful sacred vessels in Her liturgical ceremonies.  This is an important point because the Sacred Liturgy is the primary means by which we offer worship to God, and in the course of that undertaking, are truly sanctified. The Sacred Liturgy is not primarily a tool for social animation or fraternal relationship. It is the context in which we offer fitting worship to the God who is “the Alpha and the Omega; the first and the last; the one who is, who was, and who is to come.” In the final analysis, the wonderful social doctrine of the Church, everything we can do in our country and in the political arena to bring the realm of Christ to real brilliance and to power, all this is ultimately a consequence. A consequence that is very important and cannot be belittled if we are true disciples of the Lord, but it is still a consequence because the centrality and heart of the call of the Church is not there. The call is a liturgy. The call is the foremost and grandest liturgical act ever. The call is the sacrifice of the cross that is perpetuated on our altars.

          Liturgy done properly and done well (with reverence, artistic grace, and making use of the most appropriate vessels and vestments) places us, interiorly, in a disposition to offer fitting and true worship to God and to be inspired with a spirit of humble adoration and contrition thereby creating a fertile ground for prayer and penance. The vessels used for the Eucharistic celebration should always arouse wonder in the presence of the beauty that leads one's whole being to adore the glory of the Lord.

          The chalice is the sacred vessel used at the Mass which contains the Blood of our Lord. Oftentimes, priests have their own chalice, and many of them are quite rich in symbolism with words, images and designs that are special to the priest himself. Most chalices have a rich history, and sometimes, that history can be revealed by looking on the bottom of the chalice. One may find a series of inscriptions indicating when the chalice was commissioned, the occasion in which the chalice was first used in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar, and perhaps the name or names of those who gave the chalice as a gift.  

          The initial design work for Fr. Cooper’s ordination Chalice began in the summer of 2002. Fr. Cooper employed Adrian Hamers Church Interiors, located in Larchmont, New York, to sketch and craft his chalice. Since 1887, the Hamer’s family rich history of craftsmanship of chalices and other liturgical vessels truly preserves the mystery and wonder of the Eucharist – an artistry that gives glory, laud and honor to Jesus Christ, our Lord and God. Over the next five years, the head work master, in collaboration with the silversmiths, artists, jewelers, and craftsmen, employed reverent dedication and artistic skill in handcrafting the chalice.

          The chalice was given the name The Chalice of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus since many of the hand-painted enamel panels at the base of the chalice depict Biblical scenes which inspire devotion to the Precious Blood of Jesus. Family jewelry and precious stones were incorporated into the design; a chorus of three dimensional cherubim surrounds the base of the cup. The chalice was a gift from Fr. Cooper’s maternal grandparents.

Below is a pictorial of the chalice from the initial design to the final              handcrafting silverwork.    

The Most Precious Blood of Christ

          Salvation is through the Most Precious Blood of Christ Jesus! It is in His Blood that all humanity is redeemed and sanctified. It is through His Blood that Jesus communicates to us His perfections. It is in His Blood that He has laid up His blessings for us, as in a storehouse. It is by His Blood that He has created over again His frustrated creation. It is out of His Blood that all graces flow. It is this Blood which merits all good things for every one. The unhappy would be more unhappy, were it not for this Blood. The wicked would be more wicked, were it not for this Blood. The flames of hell would burn many times more furiously, if the shedding of this Blood had not allayed their fury. There is no corner of God’s creation, which is not more or less under the benignant control of the Precious Blood.

          Such is the mystery of the Precious Blood. Every doctrine in theology is a call to the Precious Blood. Every liturgy of the Church tells of it. Every homily that is preached is an exhortation to the power of it. Every Sacrament is a communication of it. Every supernatural act is a growth of it. Every thing that is holy on the earth is either leaf or bud or blossom or fruit of the Blood of Jesus. Yet we need not go to Jerusalem, we need not have lived two thousand years ago, to find the Precious Blood and adore it. Here is part of the wonder of our holy faith, which makes us so thrilled with love that it is sometimes as if we could not bear the fire which is burning in our hearts. We actually adore it every day in the chalice at Mass. When the chalice is uplifted over the altar, the Blood of Jesus is there, whole and entire, glorified and full of the pulse of His true human life. The Blood that once lay in the cave, that curdled in the thongs and knots of the scourges, that matted His hair and soaked His garments, that stained the crown of thorns and bedewed the Cross, the Blood that He drank Himself in His own communion on that Holy Thursday night, the Blood that lay all Friday night in seemingly careless prodigality upon the pavement of the treacherous city – that same Blood is living in the chalice, united to the Person of the Eternal Word, to be worshipped with the uttermost prostration of our bodies and our souls.

          Let us desire to attain to a deep and fervent devotion to the Precious Blood. As we grow in devotion to the Precious Blood, the sovereignty of God will become dearer to us. Our loyalty to the Church will become more a part of our spiritual life, and more a sanctifying exercise of the special virtue of religion. Our faith and joy in the Sacraments will be continually increasing, and our devotion to them will be at once our shelter and our shield from the dangers which during these days threaten both the minds and the hearts of the faithful, while our more reverent frequentation of them will augment our union with God and make us saints. Such is devotion to the Precious Blood! It is a glory and an ornament to the Church. It is the life of the living, and the thirst of the Holy Dead. It is the song of angels. It was the light of all Mary’s darkness, and the jubilee of all her woes. It was the devotion and singular possession of Jesus Himself. It was the devotion, the choice, and the complacency of the Eternal Father.

          What more can we say? Let us begin this very day to love and to serve our dearest Lord as we have never loved and served Him before. Always and in all things shall His Blood rule and guide us. It shall rule, not only our spiritual life, but all our temporal circumstances. For what will happen to us at the moment of our death if the Precious Blood is not reigning in our hearts? If it does not rule over us  at the hour of our death then we will be lost forever. But how shall we better secure its empire at our deaths, than by establishing it over our lives? The past will not do. Jesus must be more victorious in our souls, more a conqueror, and more a King. Oh that the Precious Blood might so work in our hearts that life would seem to have only one possible gladness – the gladness of having Jesus to reign over us as King. Oh, Sweet devotion to the Blood of God! It is earth’s beatitude to feel that the Precious Blood is bearing us onward into the adorable Abyss of Love. It is heaven’s jubilee to be sinking evermore through that same Blood in the unfathomable depths of the Uncreated Bosom of the Father. All glory and all devotion be to that mysterious River of the City of God, whose Spirit-fashioned streams are carrying us this hour with such breathless swiftness to our eternal home.

Blood of Christ, price of our salvation, Save us!

Apostolic Letter of Pope John XXIII

          Unlimited is the effectiveness of the God-Man's Blood - just as unlimited as the love that impelled him to pour it out for us, first at his circumcision eight days after birth, and more profusely later on in his agony in the garden, in his scourging and crowning with thorns, in his climb to Calvary and crucifixion, and finally from out of that great wide wound in his side which symbolizes the divine Blood cascading down into all the Church's sacraments. Such surpassing love suggests, nay demands, that everyone reborn in the torrents of that Blood adore it with grateful love.

          The Blood of the new and eternal covenant especially deserves this worship of latria when it is elevated during the sacrifice of the Mass. But such worship achieves its normal fulfillment in sacramental communion with the same Blood, indissolubly united with Christ's Eucharistic Body. In intimate association with the celebrant, the faithful can then truly make his sentiments at communion their own: "I will take the chalice of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord...The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve my soul for everlasting life. Amen." Thus as often as they come worthily to this holy table they will receive more abundant fruits of the redemption and resurrection and eternal life won for all men by the Blood Christ shed "through the Holy Spirit." Nourished by his Body and Blood, sharing the divine strength that has sustained countless martyrs, they will stand up to the slings and arrows of each day's fortunes - even if need be to martyrdom itself for the sake of Christian virtue and the kingdom of God.

          Theirs will be the experience of that burning love which made St. John Chrysostom cry out, "Let us, then, come back from that table like lions breathing out fire, thus becoming terrifying to the Devil, and remaining mindful of our Head and of the love he has shown for us...This Blood, when worthily received, drives away demons and puts them at a distance from us, and even summons to us angels and the Lord of angels...This Blood, poured out in abundance, has washed the whole world clean...This is the price of the world; by it Christ purchased the Church...This thought will check in us unruly passions. How long, in truth, shall we be attached to present things? How long shall we remain asleep? How long shall we not take thought for our own salvation? Let us remember what privileges God has bestowed on us, let us give thanks, let us glorify him, not only by faith, but also by our very works."

          You know well enough that your ransom was not paid in earthly currency, silver or gold; it was paid in the Precious Blood of Christ; no lamb was ever so pure, so spotless a victim. If only they would lend a more eager ear to the apostle of the Gentiles: "A great price was paid to ransom you; glorify God by making your bodies the shrines of his presence."

          Their upright lives would then be the shining example they ought to be; Christ's Church would far more effectively fulfill its mission to men. God wants all men to be saved, for he has willed that they should all be ransomed by the Blood of his only-begotten Son; he calls them all to be members of the one Mystical Body whose head is Christ. If only men would be more responsive to these promptings of his grace, how much the bonds of brotherly love among individuals and peoples and nations would be strengthened.