Religious Education Congress Closing Mass 2012

The Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Anaheim Convention Center
Anaheim, California
March 25, 2012

My brothers and sisters in Christ,¹

What a glorious few days this has been! Such energy and passion. Thank you for sharing  your dedication to Jesus Christ and his Gospel and his Catholic Church! 

There is a beautiful movement in the readings from sacred Scripture that we have just heard.

In the first reading, we hear the prophet Jeremiah promise, “The days are coming” when God will make a new covenant with his people. Then our second reading talks about the “days” when Jesus was in the flesh, in our world. And in the Gospel, we hear Jesus himself announcing: “Now is the time. … The hour has come.” 

Jesus is of course talking about his “hour.” The hour of his Passover, the hour of his passion and death. He is talking about the hour in which God our Father fulfills his loving plan for history, by making a new covenant in the blood of his only Son. 

We’re still living in this “hour,” my brothers and sisters. We will be until the end of time. St. John called this “the last hour” — the final age, the hour of his Holy Spirit and the hour of his holy Catholic Church.²

That’s why what you do in your ministries is so important. 

Jesus gave his Church a mission. To extend his “hour” — to proclaim his salvation to the ends of the earth until the end of time. 

Catechesis is at the heart of this mission. Because catechesis is about making disciples of Jesus — so that men and women of every nation can come to new life in the name of Jesus. 

So this is more than a job that you have. This is more than a line you fill out on your tax return: “I’m a catechist or a teacher or a religious educator.” 

What you do is a part of God’s plan of redeeming love. His plan for the world. His plan for every human soul. 

That’s why every day, every one of us in the Church has to make a kind of act of faith. We have to make a conscious effort to remind ourselves that we are disciples — servants of this beautiful mission that Jesus Christ gave to his Catholic Church.

A great saint of the 20th century used to pray the Creed every day, and when he got to the part about the Church, he would say: “I believe in the holy Catholic Church, in spite of everything.” 

One day one of his friends asked him what he meant. And the saint replied: “I mean in spite of my sins and yours.”³

Yes, when we work in the Church, we see every day what you might call the “human dimension.” 

But we know that the Church is not only human. She is also divine. It’s not our Church, it’s his Church. And one of the great mysteries of God is that he desires to exercise his transcendent purposes through broken earthen vessels like you and me. 

That’s why it’s important for us to renew our faith every day. 

Every day we have to remember what Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel: Now is the time! This is the hour! Now is the time to love Jesus and to strive to be more like him. This is the hour to struggle against our selfishness and pride; our desire to pursue our own agendas; our need to be “right.” Our need for it to be “my way or the highway.” 

You know, we have a lot of highways around here in Los Angeles. I’m sure you noticed. They call them freeways, but I don’t know about that. I never feel too free when I’m stuck in eight lanes of traffic. 

My point is that in the Church, it can never be “my way or the highway.” It’s never about us. Any of us — no matter who we are. We’re not living in our hour. We’re living in his hour. 

My brothers and sisters, our mission is to be like those apostles in the Gospel today. 

The people of our times are like those people who come to Philip in the Gospel. The people of our times are also asking: “We want to see Jesus.” 

They’re asking us. They’re asking his Church. I’m not sure we fully understand just how important the Church is in our world today. 

We can get caught up in the “human dimension” and focus on scandals and weakness. But if we think about it: the Catholic Church is the last institution in our society that claims to know ultimate truths — the only truths that really matter. All the other institutions in our society go the other way. They either say that there is no truth or that it’s impossible for us to know the truth. 

But we know that there is truth and the truth has a name — Jesus Christ. We know that Jesus is the Truth, and he is the only Truth that can set people free.

So teach Jesus Christ, my brothers and sisters. Teach him with confidence. Because Jesus is the only Truth and the answer to every question. Only Jesus saves us. Only in his Name do we find the meaning of our lives — where we come from and where we’re heading; why we’re here and what’s our destiny. 

In the Gospel we heard today, a Voice comes from heaven that sounds like thunder. And Jesus says, “This Voice did not come for my sake but for yours.” 

Jesus gives us his Voice to guide us. So that means we have to be people of prayer. We have to keep a quiet place in our hearts and listen for his Voice always in our lives. 

Every day, we need to be reading his words and reflecting on his example in the Gospels. Every day, we need to spend some time reflecting on some part of the Catechism. Because his Voice still speaks to us in the teachings of his holy Church.  

Jesus gives his Voice for our sake — for each one of us. But he also gives his Voice for  the people we are called to evangelize and catechize. 

So we need to make sure that when we teach, we are teaching in his Voice. Make your voice a voice for his teaching. Make yourselves “spokesmen” and “spokeswomen” for Jesus. ⁴

Do you know the story of Mother Marianne Cope of Molokai? 

She’s going to be canonized as a new American saint sometime later this year. It’s great isn’t it? We’re going to have two more American saints this year — Mother Marianne and Kateri Tekakwitha, who will be our first Native American saint.

The age of saints is now. The “hour” of the Spirit and the hour of the Church means it’s always a time for saints. You are called to be saints and me too. And our mission in the Church is to call others to be saints, too. 

The reason I mentioned Mother Marianne is that her life shows us a good example — of how we should be listening for the Voice of Jesus and allowing his Word to take root in our hearts, and to bear fruit in our ministries. 

As you may know, she was an immigrant from Germany. She came to upstate New York with her parents when they emigrated in the mid-1880s. She was a Franciscan sister and was serving as a provincial in Syracuse when one day she got a letter from the authorities in Hawaii asking her to send some sisters to run hospitals and serve the sick and lepers. 

Sometimes this is how the Voice of Jesus speaks to us. Through a routine letter. Through a chance encounter we have with somebody. Some conversation or an event. We have to be like Mother Marianne — we have to always be attentive to the presence of God in our lives. 

So she read this letter and it stirred her heart and changed her life. Because in this letter, she heard the Voice of Jesus calling to her.

And of course, we know the rest of the story. She went to Hawaii in 1883 and never came back. For the next 35 years, she gave herself in love and sacrifice to serve the bodies and souls of the lepers, the poorest of the poor. 

She used to say: “Time is flying. Let us make use of the fleeting moments. They will never return. … Let us try in the name of God to do what we can for his greater honor and glory.”⁵

That’s a good attitude for us, my brothers and sisters. 

Mother Marianne heard the Voice of Jesus and said “not my will, but thy will be done.” She knew it wasn’t about her. She knew his Church was bigger than any one of us. 

So let’s continue in our celebration of this holy Mass. Let’s give thanks with all reverence, for the gift and blessing we have to be able to serve Jesus in this “hour” of his Spirit and his Church. 

Let’s pray that he will create in each of us a new heart, a heart we can fill with his love and his truth. 

1. Readings (5th Sunday of Lent): Her. 31:31-34; Ps. 51:3-4, 12-15; Heb. 7-19; John 12:20-33.

2. 1 John 2:18;  Catechism 607, 670, 1165.

3. St. Josemaría Escrivá quoted in Portillo,  Immersed in God (Scepter, 1996), 3-4.

4.  Catechism, 427.

5. Hanley,  A Song of Pilgrimage and Exile (Franciscan Herald, 1979), 376, 389.