6th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2025

 
Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles
 
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
February 16, 2025
 
My brothers and sisters in Christ,^[1]
 
Today in our Gospel, we find Jesus opening his heart to tell us the secret of life, the secret of happiness.
 
But he doesn’t tell us what we might be expecting to hear.
 
Let’s listen to his words again: “Blessed are you who are poor … Blessed are you who are now hungry …Blessed are you who are now weeping … Blessed are you when people hate you.”
 
As we know, our world gives us a very different vision of happiness.  
 
Our world tells us that happiness comes from having wealth and power, from sensual pleasures and being popular. This is the big theme of most of the advertising and entertainment in our culture.
 
But what Jesus is saying is that the world’s idea of happiness is not real, it’s an illusion.
 
He tells us: “But woe to you who are rich … Woe to you who are filled now … Woe to you who laugh now … Woe to you when all speak well of you.”
 
So my brothers and sisters, we all want to lead a happy life. That’s what every human heart is longing for and looking for.
 
That’s how God made us. We are all born with this desire for happiness. God puts the desire for happiness in our hearts in order to lead us to himself.
 
And the saints teach us that “God alone satisfies.”^[2]
 
That’s what Jesus is talking about in today’s passage of the Gospel.
 
He’s teaching us that we need to have hearts that long for God alone, hearts that seek only him, hearts that know that what we are looking for in life can only be found in God. If we don’t have God in our lives, we will never be satisfied. We’ll never be fully happy.
 
And Jesus is telling us today that in order to find God, we need to become poor.
 
He is not calling us to give everything away. But he is calling us to become “poor in spirit,” to live with detachment from material things.
 
So, to follow Jesus, we need to have a simple lifestyle, not worrying too much about ourselves or our comforts. One of the saints said: “Don’t create needs for yourself.” And I was thinking that this is great advice!^[3]
 
So, Jesus is calling us today to trust in him. And to recognize that everything we have, including our life itself is a gift that comes from the loving hand of God.
 
That’s what the prophet Jeremiah tells us in the first reading of today’s Mass: “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is in the Lord.”
 
He is calling us to live with a grateful heart. He is calling us to show our gratitude to God by sharing the gifts that he gives us with those around us.
 
So my dear brothers and sisters: the path that Our Lord sets out before us today is a beautiful way to live. But he warns us that following him will not be easy.
 
He says that when we face hostility for living our faith in his Gospel, we should rejoice and be glad. For our reward will be great in heaven!
 
Heaven is our true home, heaven is the final destination of all our efforts!
 
St. Paul tells us today in our second reading: “But now Christ has been raised from the dead.”
 
This is our beautiful hope. This is why we can trust in Jesus completely. Because in his love he died for us and rose from the dead for us.
 
So because he loves us, we can believe in his promises; because he loves us, we can love as he calls us to love. And Jesus goes with us now on our journey, and he will never let us down.
 
He is our reward and our home. So we need to live our lives on earth in a way that leads us there.
 
And we need to make, as we know, Jesus our model. In all things, we should be learning from Jesus every day. From his words, from his example.
 
Jesus lived the truths that he teaches us today. And if we follow him, if we try to imitate him, if we put all our trust in him, he will show us the path that leads to heaven!
 
It is a beautiful reflection today on thinking about how the center of our life to be God — the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
 
Yesterday, in the Cathedral, we had the Black History Month Mass, as we do every year. And I have been reflecting on this beautiful prayer the Venerable Sister Henriette Delille, she’s one of the several men and women that are in the process of canonization that are from our country. 
 
 So the prayer is beautiful, I think that it would help all of us today and always just to reflect on how God should be the center of our lives.
 
So, her prayer is:
 
“I believe in God. 
 I hope in God. I love. 
 I want to live and die for God.”
 
So, my brothers and sisters, let us ask her intercession today — that we may have that same spirit, that same attitude of trust.
 
And let us ask Mary, our Blessed Mother to help us as we continue to follow in the footsteps of her Son, trusting in his love and striving every day to be more like him.