100th Anniversary Mass for St. Mark's Parish / 3rd Sunday of Advent 2023

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

St. Mark Parish
Venice, California
December 17, 2023

My brothers and sisters,¹

As I said, I’m very happy to be with all of you today for this special celebration of the — celebrating the 100 years of your parish.

So we give thanks to God today for a century of his kindness and for all his blessings on this faith community in your parish.

So let us thank God for all your pastors, priests, deacons, religious men and women, and for all the ministers, volunteers, and benefactors who built this church through their hard work and sacrifices.

If we just think for a moment all the celebration of the sacraments for 100 years, we think of baptism and confirmations and the celebration of the Eucharist, weddings and funerals and everything else that is part of the celebration. The social ministries that are coming from this parish is a moment really to give thanks to God for so many blessings.

I hope that we all feel that sense of gratitude to God for all the blessings and beautiful things that have happened in this parish for so many years.

Because every parish is the place where Jesus Christ is alive and working! And so we thank him for the many souls that he has saved and the many lives that he has touched and changed through the ministry of this parish over the years.

And today especially, as we celebrate this anniversary, we invoke the intercession of St. Mark, your patron saint, and the new saints whose relics we have placed in the altar today — Saint Candidus, Blessed Miguel Pro, and Blessed Marie Rose Durocher. We ask their prayers that we, too, might follow them in the footsteps of holiness and become saints.

And it is wonderful that we are celebrating this anniversary on the Third Sunday of Advent, which is known as “Gaudete Sunday,” the Sunday of joy!

Joy is an emotion that is much deeper than feeling happy. Joy comes from holding and possessing the things that we love.

It’s not about earthly things, joy is about spiritual and heavenly realities, it’s about God’s beautiful plan of salvation. We know joy in our hearts, and we can live everyday with that joy, when we know the truth about God’s love for us.

So we rejoice on this third Sunday in Advent because we realize that something wonderful is about to happen — in just a week from now!  God is coming to dwell among us!

The Word is coming to be made flesh! We are rejoicing because Jesus Christ desires to be born in our world and in our hearts.

So my dear brothers and sisters, this is the secret of this holy season. Jesus wants to “wake up” our sleepy hearts, he wants to tell us once again, how precious we are to God.

As we know, we are created out of love, we are God’s own children and he created us to do beautiful things with our lives! That’s why Jesus came into this world, and that’s why he lived for us, and died for us, and rose from the dead for us!

So each one of us is made with extraordinary dignity and with a divine destiny. We are made for glory, for eternal life in heaven!

So this truth should fill us with wonder and gratitude. And yes, this truth should fill us with joy.

The prophet Isaiah, in the first reading of today’s Mass, tells us these beautiful words: “I rejoice heartily in the Lord! My God is the joy of my soul; for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation and wrapped me in a mantle of justice.”

God has clothed each of us in the robe of his salvation, he has shone his light upon us!

He comes to share in our human life, our dreams and in our hopes; and through his Incarnation he wants to lift us up to share in his own divine life, which is a life of holiness that leads to heaven.

So when we think about it — why Jesus came? Because he knows that we could never find our way to heaven without him.

So Jesus came to be with us, to help us to be able to go to heaven.

So Advent, the season of Advent, is the season for making a new conversion. Now is the time, my dear brothers and sisters! To turn again to Jesus, to return to the Lord once again.

It is a moment of grace for all of us, and especially as we celebration the centennial of this holy parish.

It is an extraordinary moment of grace for each one of us, personally.

And this is also the message that we hear from St. John the Baptist in the Gospel.

The Gospel tells us: “He came for testimony, to testify to the light.” He came as the “voice of one crying out in the desert, “make straight the way of the Lord.”

So brothers and sisters, let us hear the word that Jesus is speaking to us, to our hearts today.

Let us make straight the way of the Lord. Let us open our hearts and allow Jesus to heal what is broken, to increase our faith, and strengthen our will to love him as he has loved us.

Yes, we are made to live as children of God, to live with that freedom and that joy.

And we have a purpose and a mission on this earth, it is a beautiful mission. The mission that we have is to spread his love, to spread his joy. Like John the Baptist, we are here to be a light for others, so that they can know Jesus and his salvation, just as we do.

St. Paul says in second reading of today’s Mass: “Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks.”

Yes, is the joy that Jesus wants for us.

So today, let us ask ourselves is how can we be more open to the grace of God and intensify our prayer life so that we can have that joy knowing that Jesus is with us.

Rejoicing always. Praying all the time. Giving thanks for the little blessings in our life — in all circumstances of our lives. Even when things are difficult because we know that God is with us, that he is always there to help us.

Rejoicing in the Lord always. My brothers and sisters, as we know, this is a beautiful way to live, even when there are challenges in our lives, we know that Jesus is with us and that gives us peace and joy.

And this is also, when we think about it, how our Blessed Mother Mary lived, and that is why we remember her words of joy as our responsorial today: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For he has looked upon his lowly servant … for he has remembered his promise of mercy.”

So, my dear brothers and sisters, as we celebrate your centennial, in this season of salvation, this season of joy, let us ask our Blessed Mother to help us to experience more deeply the love of her Son, who comes to us at Christmas.

And let us ask Mary to help us live with that same confidence and joy that she had, praising God in everything we do, and sharing that joy with every person.