17th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021 (World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly)

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
July 25, 2021

My brothers and sisters in Christ, ¹

As I was saying, today, we are celebrating our grandparents and elders, in this first World Day for the Grandparents and the Elderly established by the Holy Father Pope Francis.

In this celebration of our grandparents there is a beautiful reminder that Jesus Christ came into the world through a human family.

He was born of the Virgin Mary, and lived most of his life with Mary and Joseph, her husband. The Gospels indicate that he had a big extended family, cousins and aunts and uncles, and elders.

And the Church’s ancient tradition tells us about Mary’s parents, St. Joachim and St. Anne, who would be the grandparents of Our Lord.

So the human family of Jesus reminds us how important the family is in God’s creation and in God’s plan for humanity. Our families, as we know, are “domestic churches,” places where we meet God and learn his ways.

And as we also know, our grandparents and elders are our teachers and guides in the ways of God, they are sources of wisdom and grace, and witnesses to love.  

As you all know — one never stops being a mother or a father. You are always praying and sacrificing for your children, and praying and sacrificing for your children’s children — and even your grandchildren’s children!

These are the beautiful bonds of Catholic family life, the bonds of love and wisdom and witness.

And Pope Francis tells us, and I quote: “There is no retirement age from the work of proclaiming the Gospel and handing down traditions to your grandchildren." ²

So, I think it’s a beautiful initiative and decision of Pope Francis to start having, every year, this day of prayer for our grandparents and the elderly. So let’s pray for them in a special way today and for their important vocation in the life of the Church.

Then, turning to the Gospel, today we hear the beautiful and familiar story of our Lord’s multiplication of the loaves and fishes.

And this Gospel passage reminds us that there are many people in our city and in the world that do not have enough food to eat.

And I think sometimes when we see the challenges in our society — all the human needs and the suffering of people — we can feel like those apostles in the Gospel. We can feel like: “What can I do, I am just one person?”

In fact, that is just what the apostle Philip says in the Gospel today. He looks at the crowd of hungry people and he tells Jesus it is impossible to help them, they could never find enough money to buy bread to feed them.

“Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little,” Philip says.

And it is true: things do seem impossible when we are only thinking about ourselves and what we have and our resources. My brothers and sisters, we need to remember — with Jesus all things are possible.

We are called to share what we have with love — just like that boy in the Gospel. He only has five loaves of bread and two fish — there is no way that could ever feed a crowd of 5,000 people.

But Jesus takes his little gift, which is all that the boy has to give, and Jesus turns his offering into a miracle for others.

And this is the same lesson we heard in our first reading today. The servant of the prophet Elisha says, “How can I set this before a hundred people.” And the prophet tells him to trust in God.

And that is what we need to do. So we ask God today for the courage to be like that servant, to be like that young boy in the Gospel — to open our hearts to those in need and to share what we have; to make little acts of love, especially for the poor and the homeless.

And as we see in the Gospel, Jesus takes the bread, he gives thanks, and then he gives the bread to the people. I’m sure that you noticed, this is exactly what he did at the Last Supper and what he continues to do in every celebration of the Eucharist.

Every time we celebrate the Eucharist, our Lord is still taking bread, and giving thanks, and feeding us with the bread of eternal life — and he is doing that, obviously, through the hands of his priests.

My brothers and sisters, the Eucharist is the true miracle of divine love and divine life.

Jesus still himself comes to teach us and heal us and to feed us. Not just 5,000 people — but the whole world.

So the miracle of the Eucharist is the heart of the Church and the heart of every Catholic parish. And yes, each one of us — all of us — we need to make the Eucharist the heart of our lives and we need to ask for the grace to always grow in our love for the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is meant to change us, to transform us. In our communion with Jesus, Jesus wants to make us more like him.

Every time we receive his Body and Blood in Holy Communion, we need to ask for the grace to open our hearts to his love and to allow him to shape our lives in his image — just as he multiplied the loaves and the fish, and just as he transforms the bread and the wine.

Ask him for the grace that he transform us, in our own personal life and especially in our desire to be close to Jesus to imitate him, and to share that with the people of our time.

So let us pray today to feel a new love for Jesus in the Eucharist. Let us love spending time with him. Like those people in the Gospel, we need to come to be with Jesus — to let him look at us and speak to us in our hearts. We need to spend time in prayer and in adoration.

The Eucharist, as I’ve been saying, will transform us. It will really make us faithful disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So let us continue to pray today for our grandparents and elders and let us pray that our society and the Church comes to a new appreciation of the beautiful gifts that our elders bring to us with their wisdom, their witness, and their love.

And let us ask our Blessed Mother Mary that we learn to use our gifts to serve others — to bring more gentleness, and more peace and unity and more love — to our world today.