Memorial of St. Josemaría Escrivá 2022

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angeles
June 25, 2022

My brothers and sisters in Christ,¹

It is always a special joy for me that we celebrate the Mass of St. Josemaría here at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. It is a moment of grace for all of us, and as I was saying, it is a good time to especially pray for peace in our country and in the world.

We are going through challenging times — we heard, obviously, good news, especially with the respect of life — but also the challenges of bringing the truths of the Gospel to the people of our time.

But this year is special for us as we celebrate the Mass in honor of St. Josemaría. Because today we give thanks to God for the 20th anniversary of his canonization, which we will remember later this year, on October 6th.

And I was reflecting on this 20th anniversary, I was reading again the words that Pope St. John Paul II spoke to the pilgrims the following day, after he had canonized St. Josemaría. I know that many of us were there, and it was an extraordinary, beautiful celebration. A time of joy.

And if I remember correctly, there were more than 300,000 pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, from every continent on the day of the canonization.

So, the following day, as I said, St. John Paul II spoke to the pilgrims and there are some words, especially, that caught my attention. He said:

“Saint Josemaría was chosen by the Lord to proclaim the universal call to holiness and to indicate that everyday life, its customary activities, are a path towards holiness. It could be said that he was the saint of the ordinary.”²

So thinking about it, just these words show the extraordinary gift that our Lord gave to his Church in St. Josemaría Escrivá de Bealaguer.

St. Josemaría is, as Pope John Paul II said, he is the Saint of the Ordinary — the Saint of Ordinary Life. Personally, I was thinking that I should call him the Doctor of Ordinary Life. Maybe we will someday, he will be called the Doctor of the Church of Ordinary Life — but that’s obviously not up to me.

But what helps us to understand is that all of us in the Church are called to holiness, each in our own way. No matter who we are, no matter what are condition in life. All of us are called to walk in the footprints of Jesus, to conform our lives to his image, and to seek the Father’s will in everything that we do.

St. Josemaría, as we know, was living this vocation of holiness, since the foundation of Opus Dei. His unique gift was to rediscover this mystery of our faith — that Jesus wants each one of us, all of us, to be saints; that holiness is our vocation; that the will of God is our sanctification, our perfection in love.³

So in this, he reclaimed the truth about who we are, and who we are meant be, as Christians. So the meaning of our lives is to be found in carrying out the Lord’s command, from the Sermon on the Mount: “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”⁴

So Jesus commands his apostles to serve him, to seek perfection and holiness, in the context of their daily realities, their daily labors. And St. Josemaría helped us to see that. We can never read the Gospels the same after we have met St. Josemaría.

In the passage of Gospel today, we hear Jesus speaking to St. Peter and the apostles, after they had just spent a long, frustrating night on the job, in their work as fishermen.

But in this passage, Jesus is speaking to each one of us, calling us. As he said to the apostles, he says to each one of us: “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”

Holiness, for Jesus, doesn’t mean turning our backs on people, fleeing the world. Just the opposite.

Holiness means trusting in Jesus, following him deeper into the heart of the world — this world that God loved so much that he gave his only begotten Son.

And as his followers, we are called to put out into the deep, to use our gifts and talents to sanctify and redeem this world, to love this world and to love every soul in this world — with the same passionate love that Jesus has.

My brothers and sisters, so this is why we are here. That’s what we heard in the first reading. We are made to be co-creators with God, working with his grace to complete the beautiful work of his creation; working with joy to make this world God’s kingdom.

God puts each one of us in the garden of this world, “to cultivate and care for it.”

How do we do this? Yes, with our ordinary work, carried out with the help of heavenly grace. We sanctify ourselves by sanctifying others, through the way we live and through the way love —in our jobs, in our families, at school, in our neighborhoods, and in society.

That’s the beautiful call that we have — sanctification in ordinary life.

St. Josemaría also taught us the beautiful doctrine of our divine filiation, again recovering the meaning of our Christian lives found in the Gospel and New Testament.

In the second reading St. Paul tells us today that we are “children of God,” heirs to all the promises of Christ. That means that God has a unique purpose for creating each and every one of us.

We are so special to God — sometimes we take it for granted. I think today, let’s ask for the grace, to especially understand once again how much God loves each one of us personally.

This week, I was reading one of the early letters of St. Josemaría, one that he sent to the members of Opus Dei. It is dated March 24, 1930.

And he tells us: “Each day, my beloved children, should witness to our eagerness to fulfill the divine mission which the Lord, through his mercy, has entrusted to us.”⁵

Yes, we are beloved children of God, we know that. Our lives have a divine purpose, and we have been entrusted with a mission. We all know that. And it’s something that we have to be aware of every single moment of our lives — doing the simple, ordinary things of everyday life and we are fulfilling God’s will.

And that’s exactly what St. Josemaría taught us, starting with the morning offering, starting with getting up each morning.

He taught us to rise and say: “Serviam! I will serve you. With the help of your grace, I will serve you with all my heart, ‘even at the cost of fortune, of reputation, and of life.’” Every day, in every moment, St. Josemaría recommended us to go and say: “I will let nothing and no one come between me and the fulfilment of your most Holy Will.”⁶

So my brothers and sisters, today, as we reflect on our call to sanctify our ordinary life, and as we also reflect on the fact that we are children of God, sons and daughters of God — today, in the presence of the Lord, in the presence of this great relic of St. Josemaría, let us renew our decision, our determination to serve God unconditionally: Serviam! I will serve you!

Let us honor St. Josemaría’s memory by continuing his work, the Work of God.

Keeping in mind that our Lord is with us, just as he was with his apostles by the sea. He is with us, in every event, in every circumstance, every single moment of our lives. He is here, now — once again asking us and commanding us what he said to the apostles: Put out into the deep!

So let us reflect these days, as we prepare the celebration for the 20th anniversary of the canonization of St. Josemaría, asking for the grace that we get strengthened by the grace of God and by our fidelity to our vocation and our personal call.

And let’s ask Mary, our Holy Mother, Mother of Fair Love, to help us to live as children of God, lighting up the paths of the earth for souls, spreading the sweet fragrance of Christ, her Son, in this world that he loves.⁷


1. Readings: Gen. 2:4b–9, 15; Ps. 2:7–12; Rom. 8:14–17; Luke 5:1–11.

2. Address (October 7, 2002).

3. 1 Thess. 4:3.

4. Matt. 5:48.

5. Singuli dies (“Each day”)  (March 24, 1930) Collected Letters 1:41–65.

6. Way, 519; Forge, 238, 891.

7. Friends of God, 271; Christ Is Passing By, 156; Forge, 1.