90th Annual Procession Honoring Our Lady of Guadalupe

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

East Los Angeles College Stadium
December 5, 2021

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, children of Guadalupe! ¹

It is beautiful that we can be together this year. Let us keep praying to Our Lady for an end to this pandemic which has taken too many of our loved ones; and let us ask her to keep the sick and all those who care for the sick in her tender care!

Today, we move forward in hope and in our mission! That is our theme for this year’s procession. And this is a historic year. In a couple of weeks we will celebrate 490th anniversary of the Virgin’s apparition to St. Juan Diego at Tepeyac. Four hundred and ninety years of grace!

Our Lady of Guadalupe was sent by God to announce the evangelization — not only of Mexico, but of all the Americas. This country, every country in North and South America, are under her mantle, under her loving protection and care.

Every year during this season, I try to reread the beautiful story of the apparition, the Nican Mopohua (“Thus it is told”).

It is a good devotion for all of us in these first days of Advent. Because in these early days of Advent, we celebrate Our Lady’s great role in God’s plan of salvation — first with the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, and then a few days later with the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12.

In our responsorial psalm today, we sang: “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.”

This is true! The Lord has done marvelous works, he has given us the great gift of Jesus Christ. And he has done that, through the cooperation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In God’s great plan, Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin, and she was kept free from sin her whole life! God was preparing her to be the Mother of our Savior, the Mother of God!

But Mary herself had to say yes to God. When the Angel came to her, she had to make a decision about what she was going to do with her life.

Mary chose God, she chose to dedicate her whole life to bringing Jesus into the world, so that everyone could know his love.

In the Gospel today, we are introduced to St. John the Baptist. And we see that John has the same purpose in his life as Our Blessed Mother had in her life.

The Gospel tells us that “the Word of God came to John” while he was living in the desert. Just as the Word of God came to Mary, through the Angel Gabriel.

And just as Mary did, John consecrated himself to that Word from God. God called John to play a part in the history of salvation. And John gave up whatever he was planning, whatever he was thinking that he wanted for his life. He gave everything up to live for Jesus!

God calls every person. He calls you, he calls me. We have the same decision to make in our lives as the Blessed Virgin and St. John the Baptist. God wants each of us to play our part in this beautiful mission of bringing Jesus into the world.
 
John the Baptist went into the world, and as we heard, he preached “repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” He wanted only one thing, to bring people to Jesus, so that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

This is what this holy season of Advent is all about. Jesus wants to be born into our world. He  wants to break down all the walls that people put up around their hearts to keep God out.

My dear brothers and sisters, that’s what sin is. Sin is like a wall that we put around our hearts to keep God out. Sin separates us from God, but it also separates us from one another. Jesus comes to knock down those walls. He wants to live in your heart and my heart.  

But Jesus cannot do that without our cooperation. That is what repentance is all about. Repentance means turning our lives around, turning to Jesus. It means saying we are sorry for not living the way he wants us to live. It means asking for the grace to make a new start.

We are all trying to be good Catholics, good people, good parents, good husbands and wives, good children. Jesus knows that! We are all working hard to do what is right. That is beautiful!

But good is not “good enough” for Jesus. He is calling us always to give more, to go deeper in our friendship with him. We are made for greater things, he has greater gifts he wants to give us.
Advent tells us that we need to keep going always forward; we need to keep trying harder to be holier, trying to become more like Jesus every day of our lives.

That is what it means to repent. It is not just something we do once. We need to repent every day. We need to seek forgiveness for our sins, every day.

St. Paul talks about this in the second reading. He makes a beautiful prayer for us. He says: “This is my prayer: that your love may increase more and more, in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure.”

Our Christian life is always in motion. We are either moving forward or we are moving backwards. That is what St. Paul is saying. We need to increase more and more in our love for Jesus, in our understanding of what God wants in our lives, in our desire to do his will We need to always be trying to be pure, to be holy.

Listen, brothers and sisters, we are a part of something so big, so beautiful. That reading this morning from the prophet Baruch says: “God will show all the earth your splendor … see your children gathered from the east and the west at the word of the Holy One.”

This is us, brothers and sisters! We are the children that God is gathering by the Word of his Holy One. This is what it means to belong to his Church.

Jesus came into this world — for you, and for me. He lived for you, he suffered for you, he died for you. And he rose from the dead for you. And he goes with you now.

And now Jesus is calling you to follow him — just like the Virgin Mary did, just like St. John the Baptist did. And Jesus wants you to be doing the same thing in your life that they did in their lives.

So let’s live for Jesus. Let’s look for opportunities every day, in our lives, to bring Jesus to others.

We can bring Jesus to others in our homes, at work! Loving others in the little things of everyday life, this is how we bring others to Jesus!

The Lord has done great things for us! Let us do great things for him!

So dear Guadalupanos, let’s live for Jesus, let’s live to bring Jesus to others! Just like Our Blessed Mother.

Let us ask her today to help us to play our part in this beautiful mission of salvation.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!
St. Juan Diego, pray for us!

1. Readings (Second Sunday in Advent): Bar. 5:1–9; Ps. 126:1–6; Phil. 1:4–6, 8–11; Luke 3:1–6.