3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
January 24, 2021

My brothers in sisters in Christ,¹

We continue to pray for our country today. We ask that God be with our new President Biden to strengthen him, and to grant him wisdom and courage to lead this great nation. 

Today, we celebrate the Sunday of the Word of God, this is a new celebration established by our Holy Father Pope Francis in 2019. 

As we enthroned the Scriptures here at the altar at the start of Mass, we pray today for the grace to “enthrone” the Word of God in our hearts and in our minds. 

The Word of God, my brothers and sisters, is alive! When we pick up the Gospels and read, we meet Jesus, who is the Word of God made flesh and dwelling among us.

And he comes to us still in the pages of Sacred Scripture. In these pages, he draws near to us, to speak to us. We hear his voice, just as the first disciples did in our Gospel today. 

This is the time of fulfillment.
The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the gospel.

God’s Word is always — before everything else — a call to conversion. “Repent.” Change your mind. Change your way of thinking, your way of living. 

Our encounter with the Word of God means that we have to change the whole plan for our lives. Jesus asks us to make a decision for him. He gives us a new “word” to live by. Just like those first apostles we hear about today, Simon and Andrew, James and John. 

Jesus calls to them, and Jesus calls to us: “Come after me!” Follow me. 

The Word of God gives a new direction to our lives. And to follow Jesus means we join him in his mission of spreading the Gospel, the mission of proclaiming God’s word of love, his word of healing and mercy. 

My brothers and sisters, Jesus is calling you to follow him in your ordinary daily lives — in your homes, in the places where you work, in your neighborhoods and communities. 

Notice today in the Gospel — Jesus comes to the disciples in the place where they are working. Down by the sea, where they were doing their jobs as fishermen. He comes to them, and he calls to them, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Like those disciples, Jesus wants to turn our “occupations” into “vocations.” Everything we do, we can be fishers of men and women. Through our lives, through the things that we do and the way that we act — we can lead other people to God, to find his love, to know his mercy. 

Jesus wants us to be his messengers in the world. He wants us to proclaim his Word to the people of our time and place. 

Brothers and sisters, we are living in a society and culture that is aggressively secular, that has forgotten about God and God’s Word. It is like Nineveh, in the time of Jonah. As we heard in that first reading. 

The word of the Lord came to Jonah, saying:
“Set out for the great city of Nineveh,
and announce to it the message that I will tell you.”

This is our calling, too, my brothers and sisters. God is sending us into our culture. Not to be “culture warriors.” But to be disciples, followers of Jesus Christ. 

We don’t proclaim God’s Word with harshness or condemnation. No. That’s not God’s way, at all. We speak to everyone in love, we try to persuade through reason, through the “soul force” of our own example. We respect the dignity of every person we encounter, even those who oppose or disagree with us. Because we know that we are all children of God. 

Sometimes we think, things are so bad, that we can never change them. But that’s not true. With God all things are possible. Never stop believing that. Because it’s true. 

Jonah did not think he could convert Nineveh, but he did. As we heard: “The people of Nineveh believed God.” And God’s Word is still true, still alive and still capable of changing people’s hearts and minds. So we pray and work, as Jonah did, so the people of America will hear God’s Word again, and believe. 

As the saints remind us, our calling is not to be successful. Our calling is to be faithful. Our job is to proclaim his Word boldly but with integrity and in all sincerity and purity. With love. Even when others oppose us, even when God’s Word is inconvenient. Our mission is not to win; God will ensure the victory. Our mission is to love and to follow Jesus.  

 St. Paul tells us today in the second reading: “The world in its present form is passing away.” 

And it is true. This world is not going to last forever. Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”²

So we need to cling to the Word of God, my brothers and sisters. 

The Word of God is not just a “book” that we’re supposed to be read. We meet Jesus in these pages, just as we meet him in the Eucharist. As Christ out of love came down from heaven to become a man, in the Scriptures, the Word of God comes to us in human words. 

Brothers and sisters, his Word has the power to change us. But we have to allow it to work in our hearts. 

So I recommend a very simple practice. To read a passage from the Gospels every day. Read it prayerfully. Ask Jesus to open his Word for you. Ask him, “Lord, what are you saying to me in this passage? How are you asking me to change? What are you asking me to do?” 

The more we pray with the Gospels, the more we will have “the mind of Christ.”³

We will have his thoughts and feelings, seeing reality through his eyes. 

And the more we pray with the Gospels, the more we will feel Christ’s call to change the world — to help our society and culture to know the beautiful love of God, and his plan for our lives. 

So, let us ask for that grace today, on this Word of God Sunday, to grow in our love for God’s Word, to let this word dwell in us richly, as it did in Mary our Blessed Mother.⁴

Mary heard the Word of God in the promise of the angel. She heard the Word and believed. She heard his Word and she did it. 

For Mary the most important thing was to allow God’s Word to work in her life. And we remember her beautiful fiat: “Let it be to me according to your Word!”⁵

Let us ask our Blessed Mother to intercede for us. May she help us to follow her Son and to keep the Word of God always in our hearts and to be “doers” of his Word, always. ⁶

1. Readings: Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Ps. 25:4-9; 1 Cor. 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20.

2. Mark 13:31.

3. 1 Cor. 2:16.

4. Col. 3:16; Luke 2:19.

5. Luke 1:38.

6. Luke 11:28.