21st Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
August 22, 2021

My brothers and sisters in Christ, ¹

In our Sunday Gospels during these past weeks, we have been listening to Jesus’ discourse on the “bread of life,” on the Holy Eucharist.

We recall that we began several Sundays ago, hearing about the multiplication of the loaves, the beautiful miracle in which Our Lord fed the large crowd of people with just a few loaves of bread and a few fish.

The people, as we know, kept following Jesus, hoping to experience another miracle, hoping that he would feed them again.

But Jesus was using that miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish, to teach them — and to teach all of us — about an even greater miracle. The miracle of the Eucharist.

In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus revealed the truth about the Eucharist. That amazing truth that in the Eucharist he gives us his own Body and his own Blood, to be our food and drink. He said: “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”

Jesus is obviously talking about his real presence in the Eucharist — his Body, Blood, soul, and divinity.

This week, we have, as we just heard, the reaction of the crowd. And as we heard, many people were shocked, they could not believe what he was saying. “This saying is hard,” they say, “who can accept it?” 

And this is still a “hard saying.” The meaning of the Eucharist is not easy to understand. My brothers and sisters, sometimes people have the same reaction today, as they did back then. How can it be, and why? How can the bread and wine that the priest offers at the altar become his Body and Blood?

And the Gospel tells us today that a lot of people stopped following Jesus after he taught them about the Eucharist. As we heard: “many of his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.”

But the apostles remained. And we remain, my dear brothers and sisters. And that is so beautiful and so important. Like the apostles, we will not leave him. We stay near to Our Lord. Week after week, day after day. We keep following where he leads us in the journey of our lives.  

St. Peter today makes this beautiful confession of faith: “ Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

This is our confession of faith, too.  This is who we are, my dear brothers and sisters. We have come to be believe, we are convinced that Jesus is the Holy One, that he holds the words of eternal life.

So faith is the key that unlocks every door. When we believe in Jesus, our faith in him opens the door to understand the mystery of our lives, and the mystery of God’s love for us.

And this mystery is beautiful, it is powerful. We should think about it every day with gratitude, and awe! Why does God love me? What could I ever do to thank him for his extraordinary personal love for me — for each one of us?

That is exactly what Peter and the apostles came to believe. They came to believe in his love. And they witnessed it in an extraordinary way on the Cross.

St. Paul today says, “Even as Christ loved the Church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her.”

St. Paul reminds us today that Jesus “handed himself” over to be crucified, to suffer and to die — for you and for me. This is how much he loves us. He loves us so much that he was willing to die for us.

When we believe that, when we believe in his love for us, then we can understand the Eucharist.

Jesus sacrificed himself for our sake, he handed himself over — he gave his flesh and blood for us on the Cross. Now, he is doing the same thing in every celebration of the Eucharist. He is giving his Body and Blood to us, to give us life, to save us from death.

So today let us ask for the grace to renew our faith in the Lord’s love for us. We need to say with Joshua, as we heard in the first reading: “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

Faith requires a decision. That is what our readings are telling us today. Faith means making a decision about how we are going to live? What are we going to live for? And why?

For Joshua, there was the realization that God had brought his people out of slavery and performed great miracles, and protected them every step of the way on their journey.

For the apostles —and for each one of us —we have the realization of the great love of Jesus Christ. He laid down his life for us, to give us new life.

And I’m sure that each one of us can each reflect on our own lives and we can see all the many ways that God continues to give us so many beautiful gifts. We are always in his presence, always under his protection.

St. Paul also tells us today: “Brothers and sisters: Live in love, as Christ loved us.”

That is the beautiful possibility that our faith gives to us. We can live in Christ, we can live in his love. But as we know, our faith also gives us a responsibility — the duty to serve the Lord and to share his love with our neighbors. Just like those first apostles.  

The world, my brothers and sisters, I insist on this — needs to know God’s love! And we need to be the ones to tell people, to share this wonderful gift that we have received. Just to talking to our neighbors, like Joshua did, about all the great things God has done in our lives. Just sharing our feeling of his love, of his presence, of his protection in our lives.

So today my dear brothers and sisters, let us thank God for his great love and let’s ask him for the grace to keep following him, to keep serving him with joy, even when things are difficult, to keep trusting in his love and know that he holds the words of eternal life!

And we can do that especially when we strengthen our devotion to the Eucharist. To the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

And let us ask Mary our Blessed Mother to help us to stay close to her Son and to share our joy and happiness and the love of God with everyone we meet.

1. Readings: Jos. 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b; Ps. 34:2-3, 16-21; Eph. 5:2a, 25-31; John 6:60-6.