12th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
June 25, 2023

My brothers and sisters in Christ,¹

As we were just listening to the passage of the Gospel, there are beautiful words that once again show our Lord’s amazing love for us.

Let us listen again: “Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

So my brothers and sisters, again, we belong to God. He keeps us close to his heart. Even the hairs of our head are numbered in his loving eyes.

So this is, as we know, the beautiful truth that Jesus came to proclaim to the world — the truth about God, the truth about creation, the truth about our humanity. Our great dignity and destiny as sons and daughters of God.

Sadly, as we also hear in today’s liturgy, not everybody wants to hear that truth. This is what the prophet Jeremiah is experiencing in the first reading of today’s Mass.

As we know, the prophet Jeremiah was sent by God to speak the truth to the people of his day. But he was forced to suffer, he was persecuted, humiliated, and lied about, as we heard.

But Jeremiah understands that God is at his side. We can say that God “has his back,” even when he is suffering. So the prophet understands that the persecution he is going through is a trial, a test of his faithfulness. “You who test the just, who probe mind and heart,” he says.

And of course we also know that there are many of our brothers and sisters, all over the world, who are undergoing persecution and suffering for their faith. So, we especially pray for them today. We pray that God grant them the strength to persevere, that they always know his love, as Jeremiah did.

We also know that in our own lives, sometimes we face trials and challenges because of our faith in Jesus.

It is not easy to live our faith in our society, as we know. We face a lot of pressures to compromise our conscience, pressures to accept things that are contrary to the Gospel, contrary to the dignity of the human person.

But Jesus tells us three times today in the Gospel: do not be afraid. “Fear no one! … Do not be afraid!”

Jesus makes this promise to us today: “Everyone who acknowledges me before others, I will acknowledge before my heavenly Father.”

So my dear brothers and sisters as we often reflect on and as we know, we have a mission in our lives — the mission of acknowledging him before others. We have a duty to share the good news about Jesus, the beautiful truth about the love of God.

And I was thinking that the grace that we need to ask for especially, is to have the same zeal, the same passion that the prophets, the apostles had. The same enthusiasm that the missionaries had bringing the Gospel to the people of their time.

So what Jesus is telling us is that we should live our faith with confidence and courage — and ask for the desire to share these great truths of our faith with our neighbors.

So we need to keep praying and working to reform our society in the light of the Gospel and the great values of human dignity and the destiny of the human person as a child of God.

And yes, that means we are going to encounter resistance and opposition from our neighbors, from our society and sometimes from our neighbors. Just as in Jeremiah’s time, just as in Jesus’ time, there are those who do not want to welcome this good news.

But we should never be afraid of what might happen or worry about what other people will say. What is important to each one of us is only what God thinks, what God wants.

And God’s will is that every heart, every man and woman, knows his love and knows what a beautiful plan God has for their lives and for all of creation!

If we follow Jesus in love, if we live for Jesus and according to his commands — he will help us, he will protect us, and he will guide us. We heard those beautiful words from the prophet Jeremiah, he said: “The Lord is with me, like a mighty champion: my persecutors will stumble, they will not triumph!”

My dear brothers and sisters, we always need to remember this. No matter what happens in our lives! God is here. He is with us. We have a Father who loves us, a Father who cares for us — even to the point of counting every hair on our head!

And this is the love of God, how much God cares for each one of us — that’s the “gracious gift” that is what St. Paul is talks about in the second reading of today’s Mass. It is the gift of grace, the gift that we have of sharing in God’s own life of love.

So my dear brothers and sisters, I hope that this week, we continue to reflect on the beautiful truths that God is our Father and that every life is sacred to him. Yes, your life and my life. That every hair on our head is numbered.

And let us reflect on the opportunities we have to share these beautiful truths especially in our homes, in our families, and in our society.

Let us ask Mary our Blessed Mother to intercede for us, that we might be good disciples of her Son, spreading his saving truth and his love into every area of our world today.