Most Reverend José H. Gomez Archbishop of Los Angeles
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels June 16, 2024
My brothers and sisters in Christ,1
As we celebrate today Father’s Day, I want to say Happy Father’s Day first to all fathers who are here with us.
Being a father is a great vocation, a calling from God, a calling to service and love. And fatherhood is a vocation that is essential to God’s plan for our world and for every child.
I like to reflect, especially, on the beautiful example of St. Joseph. And I’m sure that many times St. Joseph held Jesus in his arms and kept him close to his heart. In his humanity, Jesus could hear the heart of a “father” who loved him.
As we know, Jesus was born of a woman and raised in a family to show us the importance of fathers and mothers and the family in God’s plan of salvation.
Through the father’s love, his children see reflected the love that God our heavenly Father has for each of his children.
So today we pray for fathers and grandfathers, those who are living and those who have gone before us. And we pray for a new family spirit in our society and in our culture, and we pray for stronger marriages and families.
It is a special opportunity to reflect on the importance of the family and the importance of fathers and mothers in dedication to the children and the future of the Church and the world.
Then today, in the passage of the Gospel, Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is like a man who scatters seed in his fields.
The man doesn’t know what’s going on under the soil, the seed grows in a hidden way. As Jesus says: “He knows not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit.”
So I was thinking that Jesus is teaching us today that God is in charge. We know that. He is in charge in our world, and in our lives.
We heard his beautiful words: “First the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.”
That’s how it is with God’s plan. Everything grows according to his designs. His grace is always working, in hidden ways, in our souls and in the souls of everyone.
He plants the seed of his divine life in us when we are baptized.
Then he feeds us with his Word and the holy Eucharist. He inspires us to live and love according to his teaching and work to bear good fruits for his kingdom. Then, in the fullness of our days, we will reach the harvest of love, in the kingdom of Heaven and eternal life.2
“First the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear!” This is, my dear brothers and sisters, how God’s grace works in our lives. And this is how God’s kingdom grows.
It starts like a tiny mustard seed, as Jesus tells us.
Or, as the prophet Ezekiel tells us in the first reading, the kingdom grows from “a tender shoot,” that is planted and grows, putting forth branches and bearing fruit until it becomes a great cedar tree.
When we reflect on this beautiful passage of the Gospel and Jesus talking in these parables, then we can see first the story of the Catholic Church.
The Church started as a tiny seed, a tender shoot — it was just the twelve apostles and Jesus’ mother Mary in the upper room in Jerusalem.
And God sent his Holy Spirit upon them and filled them with grace and power and sent them out to the ends of the earth to spread the good news of his love.
No one would have ever believed that from this tiny “seed,” the Church would grow and become a great tree of love with branches that extend to every corner of the world.
No one would have believed that from this “tender shoot,” a great family of God would grow, in which millions upon millions of peoples, from every nation and every race and language would find shelter and dwell.
This is the mystery of the Church, the mystery of God’s kingdom alive in our midst!
And Jesus is telling us today that the work is not over, that we have to keep planting, keep growing his kingdom, keep growing his Church.
And of course, everything begins in our own personal lives. In the way that we allow the grace of God to grow in our own daily life, especially through reflecting on the world of God, the life and teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and receiving Jesus in Holy Communion. Our devotion to the real presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.
We are the men and women that he is talking about in that parable. Jesus is sending us out to scatter the seeds of his love, the seeds of his truth, in the land that we live in.
What we do for others and what we give to others — through our love, through our words, our example, our service — these are the seeds that we are planting. Seeds of love, seeds of mercy, seeds of his truth.
And if you plant love, love will grow. If we do our part, Jesus will do the rest. The Scriptures tell us: “It is God who gives the growth!"3
So today, let us especially reflect on how important it is for us to be open to the grace of God and bring the good news of the Gospel to the people of our time.
Let’s ask for the grace to trust in Jesus, to trust that his Kingdom is growing, that his Holy Spirit is moving over the face of history and through our lives and the lives of the people we love.
It is a beautiful reality of the presence of God in our lives. So today, let us always remember that God is a Father who loves each one of us personally.
Let’s turn to Holy Mary our Blessed Mother Mary for her intercession and St. Joseph too.
May they help to walk by faith and have courage and to keep scattering the seeds of love that will grow and bear fruit in our lives and in our world.