Today is “All Saints Day”! Our Daily Reading tells Catholics how blessed we are to have God’s Saints helping us cure the “Confusion Headaches” that keep us from God. Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14 explains:
“I, John, saw another angel come up from the East, holding the seal of the living God. He cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who were given power to damage the land and the sea, ‘Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.’”
Then, we think about how: “I (John, the ‘most beloved Disciple’) heard the number of those who had been marked with the seal, one hundred and forty-four thousand marked from every tribe of the children of Israel.’”
Catholics realize that we who are blessed to live by The Church-Creating Word of Jesus to His First Catholic Pope must be among the “144,000 marked from every tribe”. We realize: “My ‘Tribe’ began when I or my ancestors became Catholic and got these ‘keys to The Kingdom of Heaven’: ‘And I say unto you thou art Peter and on this rock I build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I give you the keys to The Kingdom of Heaven.’”
We consider: “Electrons in my Tribe’s DNA molecules were ‘Upgraded’ by God’s Seven Catholic Sacraments when I or my ancestors were Baptized, our sins Absolved by Confession, received God’s Actual Body and Blood in Catholic Communion, and had been Confirmed as Catholic. I kept those “keys” until my Last Rites. That lets me be in one of God’s Tribes, blessed to be forever among: “A great multitude which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and language!”
May we all be blessed to be Catholic enough to be among “They stood before the Throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation comes from our God, Who is seated on the Throne and from The Lamb!”
What did John see and hear after that? “All the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They prostrated themselves before the Throne, worshiped God, and exclaimed:
“Amen. Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”
What happened next? “Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me, ‘Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?’ I said to him, ‘My lord, you are the one who knows.’
He said to me, ‘These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.’”
Is there a better way to cure “the great distress” of our “Confusion Headaches” than to gratefully obey “Love God and your neighbor as yourself.”, and be as Catholic as we can?
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Today’s Simple Rhyme: ” God loves we / who choose to be / Catholics for eternity!”
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