100th Anniversary Mass for St. Ambrose Church

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

St. Ambrose Church
West Hollywood, California
October 29, 2022

My brothers and sisters in Christ,¹

As I was saying it’s a special joy to be with all of you for this special celebration of the 100th anniversary of your parish. 100 years is a long time, isn’t it?

So thanks be to God for so many blessings in this parish for a long time. So we really give thanks to God for everything that has happened in this parish in such a beautiful way.

We thank God for all his blessings on this faith community, and we thank him for the love and sacrifices of those who came before us and helped to build this great parish.

In a special way, we ask the intercession today of your patron, St. Ambrose, who as we know, was one of the great fathers of the Church, and one of the Church’s most important teachers.

St. Ambrose taught us one of the deepest truths of the Gospel. He said: “The Church is beautiful in her saints.”²

So I was thinking that that means the Church is beautiful in each one of us. God made us to be saints, to be his glorious image in the world! We are not necessarily talking only about canonized saints, obviously, but we are talking about our vocation to strive for holiness.

When we think about it, this is the whole meaning of our lives. This is what Jesus came to reveal. We are sons and daughters of God, made to share in God’s own life.

As I’m saying in the little column that they publish in Angelus Magazine, I was saying that our saints are not born, they are made. Saints are formed in the duties and details of daily life.

Because my brothers and sisters, holiness consists in the habits of virtue that we develop out of all the decisions that we make every day.— to do what is right, to seek what is true, good, and beautiful.

And Jesus teaches us that there are only two ways to live. We can live for the love of God and the love of others, or we can live selfishly out of love for ourselves.

And the saints teach us that in the evening of our lives, everything else will fall away and we are judged by our love.

This is the beautiful possibility that we have in our lives. It’s a beautiful call, and this is why we are here. It’s exactly what God wants from each one of us.

Of course, you will tell me, “Well it’s easy to talk about it, but it’s not easy to really make it happen in our daily lives.”

It is a challenge to live the way that Jesus wants us to live. As we probably remember, Jesus used to say: “Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.”³

And today in the passage of the Gospel that we just heard, he’s talking about humility, about how important that is for our spiritual lives.

We heard those challenging words: “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

So my brothers and sisters, we cannot become holy, or try to strive for holiness, unless we first become humble.

I, personally, think a lot about the humility of Jesus. And I think about that because it is really hard and challenging to be humble. Pride is a stubborn thing, no matter who we are.

But the beautiful thing, again, is that Jesus shows us the way. Jesus humbled himself to share in our humanity. He is Almighty God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and yet he emptied himself, to come among us in the form of a servant.⁴

Isn’t that a beautiful example? In his humility he suffered and died on the cross, for you and for me. He humbles himself to share in our humanity, so he can lift us up to share in his divinity.

What a beautiful gift! Sometimes I think that’s what I try to reflect on that more often — we just take it for granted. But what Jesus did was extraordinary and unbelievable love for each one of us.

And that is exactly what the Eucharist is all about. In the Eucharist, Jesus humbles himself again, to come to the table and to give himself to us as bread and wine — to be our food, to sanctify and transform us, to enable us to become holy as he is holy.

So the “wedding banquet” that Jesus speaks of in today’s Gospel, in his parable, is the celebration of Holy Mass, it’s the Eucharist. And all of us are invited and welcome at his table. At this table, we’re all children of God — there’s  no one who is “greater” and no one who is “lesser.”

We are all sons and daughters of God and we are invited to come to receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist every single day of our lives.

So we should be really well prepared, at least every Sunday, and understand the beauty of receiving Jesus in Holy Communion.

So, that’s the humility of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus died for every one of us, without exception and without distinction. This beautiful truth should drive us to our knees. It should fill us with gratitude and the desire to serve him.

We also see that attitude today in the first reading of today’s Mass. St. Paul is writing this letter, that we hear about today, when he’s in prison. He is behind bars, he is in “the lowest place,” and yet he’s rejoicing, he feels free. He says: “Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.”

This is what it means to be humble. It means we give ourselves for the love of Jesus. And we have Our Lord’s promise, if we humble ourselves, he will exalt us.

So, today, as we start this next 100 years, let us approach this anniversary, asking for the grace of being humble and understanding how God is calling us really to be saints in our daily lives.

We need to become the saints that he created us to be. And sanctity, as we know, means service — often it’s service that no one sees except for the people we’re serving.

Being saints means serving others in love and humility, as Jesus did. It is a beautiful way that we can think how can we make this parish the holy place that God wants this place to be. Loving God and loving others.

So today, let us especially ask for the grace to serve others in love and humility, as Jesus did — in our homes and families, at work, in our neighborhoods, and communities.

And let us ask St. Ambrose to intercede and help us to imitate Our Lord Jesus Christ and to continue to make this parish, St. Ambrose, the beautiful place where people can learn about the life and love of Jesus Christ, and make it a reality in their lives. But it starts with each one of us.

So let’s ask Mary Our Blessed Mother to help us to be humble in heart, as her Son is, and to follow him in taking the least place, the place of service.