“Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?”
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.”
That makes me remember the
southern gospel song “Are you washed in Blood of the Lamb?” Are you washed in the blood, in the soul-cleansing blood
of the lamb? Are your garments spotless? Are they white as snow? Are you washed
in the blood of the lamb? (1878 –Elisha Hoffman)
But it is a fact, we have
all sinned and come short of the glory of God. It was that way with the Saints,
those we know and those we don’t know. St..
Matthew was a tax collector. St. Augustine was a pagan and womanizer. St.
Francis was full of vain glory. There are many more stories of the saints and
their failures.
But as that hymn goes on,
they laid aside their garments that were stained by sin, they washed in the Blood of the Lamb.
Catholics know this
cleansing power. Catholics realize the healing manifest in the body and blood
of Christ at the Eucharist..
Servant of God, Dorothy Day knew
the truth about the blood of Christ. A Priest came to offer mass at mission run
by Dorothy Day. The priest went to the kitchen and took a coffee mug to use as
a chalice to hold the blood of Christ. After the mass, he placed that former
coffee mug in the sink to be washed.
Dorothy Day took the mug
outside and proceeded to bury it. Someone asked why she was burying a coffee
mug. Her reply was that it was no longer a coffee mug but a holy chalice that had
held the Blood of Christ. From that moment on nothing else could worthily be placed
in the cup.
Dorothy Day knew the
cleansing power of the blood of Christ. She was a American journalist and a
social activist who lived a carefree youth before becoming a Catholic Christian.
She was an unwed mother. She was an anarchist.
Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has
not yet been revealed.
Pope Benedict XVI said Dorothy
Day’s conversion story is an example of how to "journey towards faith ...
in a secularized environment." The Church has opened the cause for Day's
possible canonization, which was accepted by the Holy See for investigation.
For that reason, the Church refers to her as a Servant of God.
My friends, we are like that
mug that became a chalice. By our Baptism and by the Eucharist, Christ is in us.
We are all God’s children now. What we shall be has not been revealed.
We live in a time, when the
Church is persecuted. We live in a time when the public image of being a
Christian is looked at with distain by the media and social influencers.
We all make mistakes; but we
seek to be better. In our striving for good and Christ’s love, the system that
is the world including media, celebrity, and social influencers mock us.
God is the greatest
influencer. He influences the heavens and the earth. By his is all of creation.
By his command the winds are stilled and the waters quieted.
To be a saint, He must be
the influencer of life. Who are those
wearing white robes and where did they come from?
For Jesus said, “blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and
utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be
glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.”
Are you washed in the Blood
of the Lamb?
Be good, be holy, and preach
the gospel by the way you live your life and love one another. That is the way
of a saint. Amen.
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