Requiem Mass for the Unborn 2023

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
January 21, 2023

My brothers and sisters in Christ,¹

First of all, I want to welcome all of you to the Requiem Mass for the Unborn, and I also want to welcome those joining us in prayer through the internet and radio, and especially through EWTN, El Sembrador (ESNE), and Guadalupe Radio.

So, I know that many of you have been with us since this morning, taking part in OneLife LA, our annual walk for life and family festival. I think it’s been a beautiful day as every year we have this special blessing of this beautiful event.

And what draws us together today, and again this evening, is the beautiful truth that we are all children of God and that every human life is sacred and precious to God.

Tonight, we are praying for all those little ones, who never had the chance to be born. We pray tonight that the love they could not find on earth, they now find in heaven, wrapped in the loving arms of the Father.

We also pray tonight for a new awakening of love — in our hearts, and in the hearts of our neighbors. 

In our Gospel tonight, Jesus is walking by the Sea of Galilee and we are told that he “saw” his first disciples, the brothers Peter and Andrew, James and John.

Jesus was looking for them. And he is looking for us. This the truth about our lives. We live in the presence of God, always under the loving eyes of our Lord.

Jesus sees us, my dear brothers and sisters. He sees us and he knows us — he knows who we are, he knows our names, and he knows our hearts. From before the foundation of the world, Jesus loved us and chose us to be born; God destined us in love to be his children, St. Paul once wrote.²

So every person has a destiny, from the moment of our conception. That is one of the reasons why the first Christians were so concerned about the child in the womb.

I was thinking this week about an early Christian letter, written in the year 177. It was written by a layman, a catechist called Athenagoras. And he is writing to the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. He tells the emperor: “We Christians regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care.”³

In our compassion and care for these innocent ones, we stand in a long and noble Christian tradition, a tradition that dates back to Jesus.  

Our Lord told us that every hair on every head is numbered, and that God gives every child an angel in heaven, to guard and guide that child.⁴

Children are the sign of his kingdom of God. Jesus said, as we all remember: “Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."⁵

This is what the Requiem Mass and OneLife LA is all about. This movement for a culture of life and love is about children and families and mothers and fathers. It’s about the kingdom — the family of God that Jesus wants us to build with him on earth.

So, in the presence of these little ones tonight, let’s ask for the courage and strength to keep moving forward — that every child might come to Jesus, and that nothing will ever prevent that.
 
Again, Jesus Christ sees us, my dear brothers and sisters. And he “calls” us. Just as he sees and calls those brothers in the Gospel tonight. “Follow me,” he says to each of us. “Come after me.”

This is the beautiful reality of our human lives. Every one of us is born to respond to the call of Jesus, born to respond to his call of love in our lives.

We are “destined in love.” That means that God has a plan of love for every person. This is the constant teaching we find in the Scriptures. The Lord sees us and he calls us from the womb — he gives us a name, and consecrates our lives with a destiny and a purpose.⁶

So those words of Jesus — “Follow me” — these two words set our lives in a whole new direction. “Follow me” means: Take my hand and walk with me, let my light be the guide for your life.

So my brothers and sisters, you and I, we have a purpose on this earth, in this moment. And our purpose is to bring others to be apostles, to follow Jesus and to share his love, to share his light.  

The prophet Isaiah says tonight in that first reading: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light … You have brought them abundant joy.”

This our mission, to bring the joy of Jesus into our world, to shine the light of his love in every heart.

And as we know, we have entered a new moment in our country.

Tomorrow marks the fiftieth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional “right” to abortion. Thanks be to God, this past summer the Court changed its mind, and now says it’s up to each state legislature to decide these grave matters.

But as we know, our work for mothers and children and families has not ended. It is only changed.

So we still need to work every day to build a city and nation where it is easier for people to be born and to raise families, where the strong help the weak, and the vulnerable are protected.

We still need to work every day to build a society where every person will know the warmth of human love, and every person will have what they need to lead their lives with dignity.

This is, my brothers and sisters, our beautiful mission, to build a culture of life and love. 

St. Paul encourages us tonight to be united in this mission of love. Let us make his words our prayer. Let’s ask for the grace tonight to be “united in the same mind and in the same purpose.”

And let us always stay close to Holy Mary, Our Blessed Mother, who carried Our Savior for nine months in her womb. May she help us always to answer the call of her Son — with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our might.⁷