Second Memorial Mass for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
January 9, 2023

My brothers and sisters in Christ,¹

Today is the ninth day since our beloved Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was taken home to God. So it is fitting that we pay tribute to him as we celebrate the Feast of Our Lord’s Baptism.

Baptism, as we know, is the sacrament of faith, the beginning and the whole basis of our Christian life.

In baptism, our lives are plunged into the mysteries of Christ’s life. We go down into the waters of baptism, as Jesus descended into the tomb. We come up from those waters, as he was raised from the dead.

And from that day forward, we walk with Jesus in love, in joy and confidence. We walk in what St. Paul once called “the newness of life.”²

In the waters of baptism, our Pope Emeritus died with Jesus. We pray now that he shares with him in the fullness of his resurrection, in the love that never ends.

In his encyclical on hope, Benedict gave us a profound vision of heaven. Heaven, he said, was not some place high in the clouds, or some never-ending passing of days on a calendar.

Heaven, he told us, is “like plunging into the ocean of infinite love, a moment in which time — the before and after — no longer exists. … in which we are simply overwhelmed with joy.”³

It is a beautiful image. And in his long years of ministry, Benedict lived with only this one intention: to lead all of us to that ocean of infinite love.

In his final audience before he left office in 2013, he said: “I should like to invite all of us to … to entrust ourselves like children in God’s arms, certain that those arms always hold us … I want everyone to feel loved by that God who gave his Son for us and who has shown us his infinite love. I want everyone to feel the joy of being a Christian.”⁴

“Like children of God!” My brothers and sisters, this is the deep mystery of our Christian life, this is the new life that we have in baptism.

The voice from the heavens that speaks to Jesus in the Gospel today, speaks the same words over you and me: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

So this is who we are. Each one of us. You are God’s beloved son and you are his beloved daughter. We are children of God. We are here for a reason. Each of us. We are here, because in his love, God wanted us to be born.

Then, the Lord’s baptism begins his public ministry, as St. Peter makes clear today in the second reading.

Though Jesus is without sin, he humbles himself to be numbered among those sinners who gather by Jordan’s banks. Though he is without sin, he takes upon himself the burden and consequences of our sins.

We could never imagine a love so great. But this is how much he loves us, so much that he gives his life for us. Not because we “deserve” it or because we’ve “earned” it. But simply out of love, to open up the gates of heaven for you in baptism.⁵

And at the end of his earthly journey, Jesus entrusted this mission to his Church — to be his witnesses, to proclaim his love to all creation, to baptize and hand on the gift of faith.

As Pope Benedict always reminded us, the Church’s mission is not just the work of popes and bishops, priests and religious. All of us share in this mission, every one of us who has been baptized.

In a sense, our baptism is not meant just for us. We receive this treasure in order to share it with others. We find our lives in losing our lives, in giving ourselves to others, out of love.

But each of us is called now — in our own way and in our own lives — to speak of this beautiful love that we know.

So, as we celebrate the life and witness of our Pope Emeritus Benedict today, let us
thank God for the gift of faith, for the joy that we know as Catholics. And let us renew our dedication to sharing this gift, this joy, with our neighbors.

May the Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, accompany us and help us — to be a light for our brothers and sisters, and to make the voice of God heard in our land.