4th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 — Archdiocesan Religious Jubilarians Mass

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
January 28, 2024

My brothers and sisters in Christ, and especially my dear jubilarians:¹

Today is a beautiful moment of grace for the whole family of God in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

We thank God today for our religious sisters and brothers who are celebrating their jubilees. We thank him for the gift of their lives, poured out in the service of the people of God.

So, I want to say personally to all the jubilarians: Thank you for your humble service of prayer, for your ministries of catechesis and education, and thank you for your love for the poor and sick.

Our Lord speaks his words to each one of you: “Well done, good and faithful servants!”

For all of us, you are a witness to the joy of the Gospel, the joy of discipleship, of following the Lord with all your heart and all your strength.

So as I said, it is a beautiful blessing that we are gathered this afternoon for this celebration and a special day of joy for the whole Archdiocese of Los Angeles and for the Church for that matter.

So, going to the readings of today’s Mass. As we all know, discipleship and following Christ, as I was saying before, is the theme of our Sunday Gospels in these initial weeks of the New Year, these first few weeks in “Ordinary Time.”

In the Gospel today, the Gospel of St. Mark we are continuing our journey with Jesus in the early days of his public ministry.

And today, in our Gospel, we are walking in Jesus’ footsteps, traveling the road with him and his disciples toward Capernaum. I think sometimes it’s very beautiful to reflect on how with our vocation, our Christian vocation, and we are following Jesus — physically speaking we are not, but spiritually we can really feel that, throughout our life, that we are walking with Jesus.

So it’s interesting that he enters into the synagogue with the disciples and the disciples are hearing what Jesus is teaching,

And if we imagine ourselves that we were “there,” so we hear how he heals a man who has an “unclean spirit.”

Personally, I have to say that what I love about the Gospels is how they draw us in and make us “witnesses” to the ministry of Jesus.

When we read the Gospels, we are “right there” with Our Lord, alongside his first disciples. We hear his words, we see his actions.

So today I was thinking that we especially should ask for the grace to always, when we read the Gospels, try to understand that we are personally involved in these stories, as his disciples, his followers.

It is interesting that our Gospel today does not tell us the content of what Jesus is teaching. We don’t hear his words or what he is talking about. We only hear the reaction, the effect that his words are having on the people who hear him.

As we just heard: “The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes. …All were amazed and asked one another, “What is this? A new teaching with authority.”

So the people seem to sense that there is something different about Jesus. Jesus is not like the scribes. The scribes are teachers, but they don’t have the spiritual authority, the power that Jesus has.

The people seem to understand that the Word that Jesus brings is not only a human word — it is the Word of God.

It’s true that at that time, the people were waiting for a prophet, as we heard in our first reading. God had promised that he was going to send his prophet into the world.

As we heard God tells Moses: I “will put my words into his mouth; he shall tell them all that I command him.”

And that is what we see in Jesus, and that is what the people “sense” in that synagogue. Jesus is more than a prophet. Jesus speaks with the authority and power of God.

So when Jesus speaks, his words become actions. His words “do” the things that he says he is going to do.

And as we witness in the Gospel today, when Jesus commands the unclean spirit to come out of the man — the unclean spirit obeys and comes out of the man!

So we need to reflect on how we listen to the Word of God and are we docile, or obedient to the Word of God. 

That’s obviously our spiritual life. That’s what we are trying to do — listen to what Jesus is asking us to do and make it happen in our lives.

In our responsorial psalm for today’s Mass, we prayed: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts."

Beautiful questions for all of us to reflect on. Are we listening to God’s voice? Do we open our hearts to his Word, to his teaching?

Obviously I’m sure that we all do. And maybe today, as we have this beautiful celebration, it’s a good time for all of us to work on becoming more attentive to the Word of God. To make an even stronger effort to hear our Lord’s voice and follow his will.

We need to be like those people in the Gospel. Like they were, we need to be “astonished at his teaching.”

And we can have that peace of mind when we live according to the Word of God, according to the Gospels.

Again, I hope that all of us, as we continue in our spirituality and our commitment to be faithful disciples of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and as we read the Gospels — we always open our hearts and see what else we can do in order to be faithful to the will of God.

We see that, in a special way, in our religious jubilarians. In their long years of religious life they have kept the words and example of Jesus and pondered them in their hearts, just as the Blessed Virgin Mary did.

And like Holy Mary, our jubilarians have brought Jesus Christ into our world through their love and the witness of their lives.

So again, it is a special moment that we reflect on how we can do God’s will — listening to the Word of God and following the example of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, let’s thank God for the witness of our jubilarians, and let us deepen our own love for Jesus, and open ourselves again to be “astonished” by his Word and teaching!

And may Our Blessed Mother, the Mother of all of us, to intercede and watch over us all with a tender love.