2nd Sunday of Lent 2024

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
February 25, 2024

My brothers and sisters in Christ,¹

I wanted to share with you that yesterday morning, at the San Gabriel Mission, we celebrated a memorial Mass for our beloved friend, Bishop David O’Connell, who died a year ago this week.

So, let’s keep praying for him and asking him to pray for us, which we know he is doing before the face of God with all the saints and the angels. 

Bishop Dave was a man who was always encouraging us to be better, to strive to be kinder, more loving, to be more faithful to Jesus Christ and more courageous in working for his kingdom.

We can honor his memory by living this Lent with conviction and trying to conform our lives more and more to the image of Jesus Christ Our Lord.

I’m sure that we all have beautiful memories, the ones that met him, of his life and ministry among us here in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

His long years as a priest and then the years when he became one of the auxiliary bishops of the archdiocese. We can be certain that he has received his eternal reward and that he is interceding for us.

Let’s keep him in our prayers and at the same time ask him for his intercession that we can live our faith in a better way.

So as we know, last Sunday we began our Lenten journey with the story of Jesus’ temptation in the desert and his coming out of the desert to begin proclaiming the Gospel of God.

Today we continue that journey in our Gospel passages as Jesus climbs the mountain with Peter, James and John. And at the top of this high mountain, something amazing happens.

The Gospel tells us that Jesus was “transfigured before them.” His clothes turned “dazzling white.” So bright, so white, that nothing on earth could have caused that.

So it is the mystery of the Transfiguration, as we all know. And there, in the Transfiguration, Jesus is showing us who he really is.

Up until this moment in the Gospel, people saw Jesus only as a human being, he seemed like just another person.

Obviously, he was a special person. There is no doubt about that. He could do miracles, he could heal people who were sick. But even so, he seemed like he was another prophet.

And that is why on this mountain, we meet Moses and Elijah and they are talking to Jesus. As we know, Moses is the one who gave us the Ten Commandments and Elijah was a great prophet and miracle-worker.

So Jesus wants to show his disciples he is, not only a true and perfect human being, not only the fulfillment of the Law and the prophets. He is the true and perfect God, the beloved Son of God.

And today we see who Jesus really is. But in revealing his true identity, he also reveals our true identity, who we really are, what it means to be a human being.

And what Jesus shows us today is that we are God’s beloved sons and daughters, each and every one of us. This is the beautiful gift that he gives us by dying for us on the cross and rising for us on the third day.

My brothers and sisters, this is the promise of our faith!

That’s what St. Paul is talking about in the second reading of today’s Mass. St. Paul gives us these great words of hope:

“If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?”

Our Lord has given everything for us! His Body and Blood poured out for us on the cross! He has died for you and for me, and he has died for every person who was ever born or whoever will be born.

Now he calls us to take his hand, to walk with him, to follow him where he wants us to go.

And the destination of our journey is heaven, the land of the living. But as one of the saints said: “All the way to heaven is heaven because Jesus said, ‘I am the way.’”²

So on the road with Jesus, we are called to become more like him, to conform ourselves more and more to his image.

In the Gospel today, God tells us how we do that. From the cloud in the sky, he is speaking to our hearts, and he says: “This my beloved Son. Listen to him.”

So what God is telling us today is that we need to make his Son the “way” for our lives.

“Listen to him” means paying attention to his Son’s words, it means living according to his Son’s teachings; it means following his Son’s example.

Another one of the saints used to pray: “Lord, we are ready to heed whatever you want to tell us. Speak to us: we are attentive to your voice. May your words enkindle our will so that we launch out fervently to obey you.”³

That’s a beautiful prayer.

It reminded me of two things that Bishop Dave O’Connell used to do. And he did this just before his passing — a few days before his passing. One of them was a beautiful presentation to an event with young people. Just having the cross and telling Jesus “I love you. Jesus, I love you.” That’s a beautiful thing that we can do, just in every situation of our lives, remember that we can just tell Jesus, “Jesus, I love you.”

And then in a homily that he was giving here just a few weeks before his passing, there was a beautiful image of our Blessed Mother there and he looked at the image probably a while, he turned around and he says to everybody: “Mary our Blessed Mother is telling you that she loves you.”

So my dear brothers and sisters, today, as we continue our preparation during this Lenten season and accompany Jesus during these 40 days, let us tell him many times: “Jesus, I love you.”

And let us always remember that we have the intercession of Mary our Blessed Mother. May our Blessed Mother Mary help all of us to allow Jesus to “transfigure” our lives and to make us more like him.