The courage to be made clean

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For 1 November 2015, All Saints, based on Revelation 7:2-4,9-14

I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to damage earth and sea, saying, “Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants of our God with a seal on their foreheads.” And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the people of Israel: After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.


Scripture passage from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright 1989, 1993, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

About Karla Bellinger

Karla has a DMin in Preaching from Aquinas Institute of Theology, a Dominican school sponsored by the friars of the Chicago province. Her 2012 doctoral thesis, “Are You Talking to Me? A Study of Young Listeners’ Connection with Catholic Sunday Preaching,” arose from her passion to more effectively connect the message of the gospel with our young people. In May of 2014, Liturgical Press published her book entitled “Connecting Pulpit and Pew: Breaking Open the Conversation about Catholic Preaching.” which is available at: here . Karla is a wife and mother of five young adult children. In August of 2015, she started a new position as the Associate Director of the John S. Marten Program in Homiletics at the University of Notre Dame.