First Reading for All Saints

The SOLEMNITY of ALL the SAINTS

FIRST READING

Revelation 7:2-4, 9-14

(Douai-Rheims translation)

²I 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, ³saying, “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.” ⁴And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the people of Israel: ⁹After 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. ¹⁰They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” ¹¹And 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 worshipped God, ¹²singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

¹³Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” ¹⁴I 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.

This description of the worship of the Lamb which He receives from the Angels and Saints in glory reminds us that during the Most Holy Eucharist, Heaven descends around the altar. Thousands of angels are present. And the Bible teaches us that in general “we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses” of the Saints. How much more true when the Divine Mysteries are celebated?