Lessons from the Peripheries: The Joy of the Gospel and our Continental Mission

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Convocation of Catholic Leaders:
The Joy of the Gospel in America
Orlando, Florida
July 3, 2017

Dear friends,

Thank you for your warm welcome. It is so good that we are here!

This really is a historic occasion. Here we are! The bishops of the United States gathering with the Church’s pastoral leaders to reflect on our shared mission to evangelize. And we do this at this moment in American history when our society and culture are changing in many ways, and changing fast.

We gather in the presence of the saints of the Americas, the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us! Saints are the true founders of America.

It is no coincidence that this convocation began on the feast day of St. Junípero Serra — the great Franciscan, the spiritual father of America’s first evangelization.

St. Junípero was an immigrant and a missionary, a Hispanic who came to this land from Spain by way of Mexico. His witness reminds us — and we should never forget it — that the mission to America was a continental mission from the beginning. It was a mission to make all the peoples of the Americas, North and South, into a one family — a new world of faith.

I know many of you were in our nation’s capitol in 2015, when Pope Francis canonized St. Junípero Serra.

That was a historic moment, too. The first pope from the New World giving the U.S. Church our first Hispanic saint — and the first saint to be canonized on the soil of this country.

I had the privilege to concelebrate that canonization Mass with Pope Francis. It is one of the most beautiful moments of my priesthood. And I will never forget what the Holy Father said in his homily that day.

He said: “Father Junípero Serra … was the embodiment of ‘a Church which goes forth,’ a Church which sets out to bring everywhere the reconciling tenderness of God.” 

I am recalling this canonization because St. Junípero is the living example of Pope Francis’ vision for the Church.

He is a model for a Church that adores and worships Jesus Christ — the Church that answers his call to follow him. To leave security and comfort behind and to go forth to the “peripheries” of human experience.

And that is what we are here to talk about today: Going to the peripheries. The mission of the Church.

We could say that Pope Francis is the “Pope of the Peripheries.”

“Peripheries.” It is a curious word. We do not find this word in the Scriptures or in the Catechism or even in the Compendium of the Church’s social doctrine. It turns up only in a few random places in the writings of recent Popes.

As I have been reflecting on it, it strikes me that this word — “peripheries” — gives us a window into the Holy Father’s vision for the modern world and his vision for the Church’s mission of evangelization.

The Pope’s vision comes from the “Church of the peripheries” — from Latin America, where four every ten Catholics in the world live today. Which makes Latin America the “Continent of Hope.”

So in our time together today, I want to reflect on some of the “lessons of the peripheries.”

I want to begin by seeing what Pope Francis means by the peripheries — where they are; who lives there; what that means.

Then I want to talk about how this “perspective of the peripheries” can help us to judge the signs of the times and our pastoral realities here in the United States and throughout the Americas. 

Finally, I want to talk about what this perspective of the peripheries means for our pastoral action, our mission of proclaiming the joy of the Gospel.

Ok. So let us begin.


1. Where are the peripheries and what goes on there?

The peripheries were the theme of the short speech that then-Cardinal Bergoglio gave in the meetings before the conclave in 2013.

In fact, some people say these are the words that convinced his fellow cardinals to select him as Pope. So it is good for us to reflect on what he said:

“The Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery.”

These are beautiful, powerful words from our future Holy Father. 

And we can see that for Pope Francis, the peripheries are places on a map, places where people live.

The peripheries are the parts of our cities and the rural areas that we never visit. The peripheries are the bitter fruits of neglect, exploitation and injustice. They are all the places our society is ashamed of and would rather forget about.

But for Pope Francis, there are also “existential peripheries” — places where people are wounded and feel their life has no meaning and makes no difference.

In the existential peripheries, men and women are caught in the webs of sin and addiction, in many kinds of slavery and self-deception.

And the Pope is saying that these peripheries are growing in the modern world. And these peripheries are the new mission territory.

So let us turn to our current moment in the United States. 


2. “Not an age of change, but a change of age.”

The Pope has said: “Ours is not an age of change, but a change of age.”

And I think all of us can sense this “change of age.”

We are living in a global and commercialized society and the rhythms of life seem to get faster with each passing year. Advances in technology — in automation, in communication, in transportation — are driving deep changes in how we work and in our economies, our politics, our families. Even in our interior lives.

But the process of globalization is not bringing us closer together. It is driving us farther and farther apart. Our lives seem to be more fragmented and more isolated from others.

We live in the richest nation on earth, but the distance is getter wider — between those who have what they need for a dignified life and those who do not.

Our families are breaking down, our communities are losing stability and meaning. There are more and more people that our society considers to be “nobodies” with “no place.”

In Los Angeles, where I am from, we have almost 60,000 people who are homeless — living under bridges, in their cars, in tents on the sidewalks. This should not be happening!

The peripheries in the Americas are the consequence of social structures of sin — of a culture that throws away everything that it does not find useful anymore.

But the “existential peripheries” are growing too.

When we talk about the random violence that goes on every day in our communities. When we talk about the epidemic of opioid addiction or the alarming number of suicides — especially among our young people — we are talking about “the existential peripheries.”

And this is where we must go — as a Church. To these people who are hurting. This is where the Church is called to be.

The peripheries are the place of the poor. And poverty is both spiritual and material — existential and social. And as the saints always remind us, the greatest poverty is not to know God, not to experience his tender mercy, his beautiful plan of love for our lives.

All the sadness and sorrow, all the suffering that we see in our society — is rooted in this loss of God, this loss of the transcendent sense of life.

This is what Pope Francis is helping us to see about our society.

And that brings us to the “Joy of the Gospel.”


3.  !Siempre Adelante! Always Forward!

My brothers and sisters, it is time for us to get to the heart of the matter.

We have examined the “peripheries” as Pope Francis understands this category. We have seen how this helps us to discern our current moment in the Church and our “mission territory.”

The question for us now — is what are we going to do? How are we going to live when we leave Orlando and return home?

We have celebrated beautiful liturgies and heard inspiring presentations. We have prayed together and strengthened our friendships. What is next? How is this time together going to change us?

My brothers and sisters, in the Church every question has a one-word answer.

The answer is Jesus. The answer is conversion. We need to go deeper in our love for Christ and our commitment to his mission.

The final words that Jesus spoke to his disciples — he is still speaking to us today: “Go forth! Go out into all the world. Follow me and walk with me in the power of my Spirit. Bring all men and women to discover the love that you have found!”

You are all here today because you love God and because you have heard the call of Jesus: “Follow me!” You are all here today because you know that Jesus has a part he wants you to play in his mission — this beautiful plan of God to redeem the world.

If we want to serve God, we need to keep growing in holiness, and in our relationship with Jesus, in our desire to be more like him.

To be missionary disciples we need to striving for sanctity.

This is our first duty, my brothers and sisters. We are called to be saints. Saints who are trying to change their lives and change the world. And we are called to help others to become saints, too. This is our mission. This is how we change our society.

The saints are down-to-earth, they are not pie-in-the-sky. The saints are always practical. They know that the Christian life depends on developing good habits — trying to get closer to God, doing the right things day after day.

The habits of the saints are habits that you can adopt in your own life — prayer and the practice of the presence of God; lectio divina and Eucharistic adoration; confession and a daily exam of conscience.

The ancient devotions are still the best. So I urge you — when you go home this week, make a new commitment to being saints! Try to live some of these practices in a new way.

If everyone attending this Convocation would commit to going to daily Mass — it would change the Church. If everyone of us would try to make time, even just an hour a month, for Eucharistic adoration — it would change the world. Little by little.

Remember: Seeking holiness does not turn us inward, it does not make us self-centered. It is just the opposite.

Seeking holiness opens our hearts to God’s love. It opens our hearts to the needs of our brothers and sisters. When we strive for holiness, it means we are trying to live like Jesus.

And the more you try to live like Jesus, the more you will be drawn to the peripheries, into the serving of others.

To follow him means we have to imitate him. So we have to go — as Jesus did — to the places of pain and injustice, to the places where people feel forgotten and alone. 

So, my brothers and sisters, Our Lord sends us out today — just as he sent out the saints and missionaries before us.

Like St. Junípero and the great saints of the Americas, we are called to play our part in the great story of salvation, the great story of Jesus Christ sending forth his Church into the world — to make disciples of all nations.

Let me leave you with a story from the life of St. Junípero Serra.

If I could give one more piece of advice, my brothers and sisters. Learn the stories of our American saints. Study their lives, pray with them. Pray to them. The saints are the true spiritual leaders of the Church in our country. They will help us to know the will of God. They will help us to evangelize.

St. Junípero was man of prayer and he wrote beautifully about the environment. He preached God’s compassion, fought for the dignity of women. He may have been the first person in America to make a moral case against capital punishment. Three years before the Declaration of Independence, St. Junípero had already written a bill of rights for indigenous Californians.

You should get to know him!

But let me leave you with this one story.

It was in December 1776 and St. Junípero was traveling up from San Diego. And he had to cross through the territory of the Chumash people. Now this was a proud people and the Chumash were known to attack missionaries who crossed into their lands.

It was the rainy season — they used to have rain back then in California! And there was a terrible storm. In the foothills, there were mudslides and the streams were flooded. And the missionaries could not continue. Everyone was terrified that the Chumash were going to attack.  

But something amazing happened. When the Chumash saw this holy man — St. Junípero — they came and they picked him up  — and they carried him up the muddy hills to higher ground.

My brothers and sisters, this is the power of holiness. In this saint — who gave his life to go to the peripheries — these people encountered the love of God. And this encounter with God’s love, changed their hearts.

Holiness is beautiful. It is attractive. It brings people together. It can make friends out of enemies. This is what the Church’s mission is all about — making friends for God, making “others” — our brothers and sisters.

So let us go forth my brothers and sisters, !Siempre Adelante! That was St. Junípero’s motto. Always Forward!

Pope Francis said recently that this expression is a “synonym for the Christian vocation.”

So let us ask this great saint to help us keep moving always forward! May he help us to be very excited about this great adventure of following Jesus to the peripheries.

And may Our Lady of Guadalupe go with us and inspire us — Our Mother who appeared to St. Juan Diego in the peripheries of the New World. And brought to the Americas — the joy of the Gospel.