Most Reverend José H. Gomez Archbishop of Los Angeles
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels January 29, 2023
My brothers and sisters in Christ,1
As I was saying, today we are honoring our jubilarians, the religious sisters who have served the family of God for all these years.
Sisters, thank you. You are a special gift for all of us. Every day. We rely on your prayers, more than you can ever know. And we are all grateful for your generous love for Jesus, and your witness to his love in your ministries of catechesis and charity, in your compassion for the poor and the sick.
You inspire us all to want to follow Jesus more closely. Your lives are showing us the beautiful possibilities that open up before us when we say, “yes” to Jesus Christ. When we say “yes” to living simply for the love of God and the serving of our brothers and sisters.
And this is the vision of life that Jesus sets before us today in the Gospel.
As we listen to today’s Gospel, first of all I was thinking, we need to imagine that we are in the fields up there on the mountain, listening to Jesus’ teaching.
And what do we hear him tell us? “Blessed are the poor … Blessed are they who mourn … Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness … Blessed are the merciful … Blessed are the clean of heart … Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
And obviously, we have heard this teaching many times. The Beatitudes that begin Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, are among the most famous words in the history of the world.
And as we know, Beatitude means “blessing.” Beatitude means “happiness.” It’s the happiness that only God can give to us.
God wants us to be happy, and to be blessed! God wants us to become saints, his holy sons and daughters! And the Beatitudes are the path that he calls us to walk.
But the first thing that we notice, is that the Beatitudes are the opposite of what everybody else tells us will make us happy.
The world teaches us that happiness means maybe having money and power. The world tells us happiness means following our own path, defining our own identity, finding our own truth.
But as we know, that’s not God’s way.
The prophet in the first reading says that God wants “a people humble and lowly, who shall take refuge in the name of the Lord.”
And St. Paul reminds us in the second reading of today’s Mass that God doesn’t care about “human standards.” He wants us to follow Jesus, to only “boast in the Lord.”
So Jesus comes to show us a different way. He comes to tell us that God, as we know, has the plan for our lives, and it is a plan of love.
Before the foundation of the world, God knew our names and he wanted us to be born. We have a destiny, as we know. Each one of you. And that’s what Jesus says today in the Gospel: “For they will be called children of God.”
God’s sons and daughters — that’s who we are! That’s our destiny!
So, when Jesus tells us that the Beatitudes are the way to happiness — he knows what he’s talking about. He has lived it.
Jesus lived the Beatitudes in the ordinary circumstances of his everyday life. And yes, we can do it too, of course with the help of the grace of God.
So we need to say close to Jesus in his Words and in his sacraments. And especially in the Eucharist, where he comes to us again, to be our bread; to satisfy the hunger and thirst that we have for the living God.
But as we know, it’s not easy to follow Jesus. It’s always “a sign of contradiction.” Remember those words when Mary our Blessed Mother and St. Joseph presented Jesus in the Temple, the holy man St. Simeon told Mary exactly that.2
So what Jesus asks us is always going against the grain of what the world demands. And, as we know, the world can be very aggressive in trying to pressure us to live a different way, not to do what Jesus is asking us to do.
That’s why at the end of the Beatitudes, as we just heard in the passage of the Gospel — we heard Jesus saying: “Blessed are they when they insult you and persecute you … because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.”
So my dear brothers and sisters, that’s a promise from Jesus: “For theirs is the kingdom of heaven… Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven.” And all we have to do is take his hand, to walk with him, stay faithful to his teaching.
So, my brothers and sisters, let us ask for that grace today, to keep walking with the Jesus in humility and with fidelity. The kingdom of God will be ours, if we persevere in following his way.
And let us especially rejoice today also for the beautiful witness of our jubilarians. Thank you, dear sister jubilarians!
And may Holy Mary, Our Lady of the Angels, help us to always follow the way of her Son, the way of the Beatitudes that will lead us to happiness and to heaven.
1. Readings (4th Sunday in Ordinary Time): Zeph. 2:3; 3:12–13; Ps. 146:7–10; 1 Cor. 1:26–31; Matt. 5:1–12.