Mass for Young Adults in Ministry 2018

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
November 17, 2018

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,¹

As we gather for our Eucharist today, we know that there are thousands of people here in our state, California, who are suffering as a result of the wildfires. So let us keep them in our prayers today.

Let us pray for those who have lost their lives and their homes, and also for all the men and women who are fighting the fires. I’m sure you know but funds to help the victims of the fire. If you go to the Archdiocese’s website, you can find a link to help them.

Especially now, let us pray for them and for all their families. We also want to keep in our prayers the victims of the Thousand Oaks shooting and their loved ones, and also for the brave police officer — who lost his life trying to help people — and his family.

I’m very happy to be with all of your today! And it is great that we are celebrating this Mass today, which is the day when the Church remembers St. Elizabeth of Hungary.

St. Elizabeth lived in the 1200s, and she was a young adult saint. She died when she was just 24.

She has a great story. She was a queen, married to King Ludwig of Hungary.

But Elizabeth always lived in the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi, opening her home to the poor, serving them out of love.

She had a beautiful marriage. Her husband supported and encouraged her works of mercy and charity, so did her three children.

When her husband died, she made sure that her three children were provided for. And then she gave away all her possessions, began to live like St. Francis, and she built a hospital for the poor.

She spent the rest of her life ministering to the sick and the dying, and eventually she was infected with a disease and she died on this day, in the year 1231.

There is much more to her story than what I have said and I encourage you to learn much more about her.

Because the saints are our friends and our teachers — and they are the model for how God wants us to live. That’s why we have all the saints on the tapestries.

And what we see in the life of St. Elizabeth — and so many other young saints — is that it does not matter how old you are or how young you are.

We are all called to follow Christ and to be saints! Each of us in our own way.

As probably many of you know, I spent all of October in Rome, where I was a delegate to the Synod on young people in the Church. And this is exactly what I was talking about it in my presentation to the Holy Father and the bishops at the See.

Our mission in the Church — all of us, bishops and priests, deacons, religious and the lay faithful — all of us are called to holiness. Our mission is to “make saints.” Our mission is to become saints ourselves by the grace of God — and to help others become saints, too.

Today let us especially think of how important it is for young people to rediscover what is important in their lives. And in the end, when we think about it, the most important thing is a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. This is true for you! And it is also true for me, for all of us, and for the people that we serve.

Everything starts with that personal encounter with Jesus.

So we need to ask for the grace to open our hearts to the presence of Jesus in our lives. And to find a way, as we discover that we have that personal encounter, to get to know Jesus, to follow him, and to try to imitate him.

The Christian life, when we think about it, it’s beautiful and very simple. If only we could realize this. Jesus calls us to follow him, and he calls us to love God and love our neighbor.

This is it — loving God and loving our neighbor. It is easy to talk about it, but as we all know, it’s challenging because we get so distracted with other things. We think that we are going to find happiness in doing material things or just doing our own things that we think are better for us.

And that’s what St. John is talking about in today’s first reading. He says:

Beloved, you are faithful in all you do for the brothers and sisters,
especially for strangers;
they have testified to your love before the Church.

My brothers and sisters, love is the word. Love is the meaning of our lives. This is how we become saints — by love. This is true for each one of us. And it is true for the young people we serve in your ministry.

One of the saints said, where there is no love, put love — and you will draw out love. This is what St. Elizabeth of Hungary did.

It’s not that God is asking us for something really challenging — to give all our money and everything we own to the poor, like St. Elizabeth of Hungary did. But we need to love like she did. We need to do everything for love, everything for Jesus and for the glory of God.

So let’s ask for that grace today. As we heard in the passage of the Gospel today, those beautiful, powerful words of Jesus: “When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

That’s the real a question for all of us.

What is it that we have in our hearts, in our minds, in our souls? Do we believe in it? And do we live as we believe? We do! That’s why we are here.

But there’s always the possibility of doing a little better. Of recommitting ourselves, because our spiritual life is not only beginning, but beginning again and again.

We can do it today, once again, to commit ourselves to really dedicate our lives to loving God and loving one another as the example that we are reflecting on in St. Elizabeth of Hungary.

So I want to thank you for everything you are doing to bring Jesus to our young people. Let’s continue to pray together and working together.  

We have a beautiful mission! First personally, because we are called to holiness and then in our ministry to help other people to discover the beauty of our vocation — to love God and to love one another.

Let us especially ask Mary our Blessed Mother for her intercession — she is always walking with us and guiding us. May Mary our Blessed Mother, Queen of all Saints, help each one of us to continue in our journey of loving God and loving one another, striving for holiness.