Mass for the Jubilee Year 2021

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Archbishop of Los Angeles

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
September 11, 2021

My brothers and sisters in Christ, ¹

It’s a day of great joy for all of us as we gather today for the beginning of the Jubilee.

So today, we have opened the Holy Door of this great Cathedral and together we have crossed the threshold to write a new chapter in this beautiful story of our love for Jesus Christ.

We begin today a Jubilee Year and every Jubilee is an invitation from God to make a new beginning in freedom. Every Jubilee is God’s promise that we are not prisoners of our past or captives of the present.

This Holy Year is not about the past. We look back with gratitude and wonder for God’s blessings, but we move always forward with confidence that God will show us even greater things than these in the future. ²

We heard Moses say in the first reading: “You shall treat this … year as sacred. You shall proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants.”

My brothers and sisters, history is not just a series of random events in time. Our lives are not just one thing happening after the next. The Jubilee reminds us that history has a direction and a destination, and that our lives have a purpose in the plan of God.

Jesus Christ is the Lord of history, and he alone gives meaning to our lives.

Jesus said, “I am the door, if anyone enters by me, he will be saved." ³ In Jesus, God himself has crossed the threshold, coming down from heaven to enter into human history. In Jesus, God comes to show his love for us, to give his life for us, and to unlock the door of heaven for us.

So my brothers and sisters, Jesus is the reason for this Jubilee!

In the Gospel today, he tells us that he comes to fulfill God’s promises, to bring the year of God’s favor, a season of grace and mercy. He tells us that he comes to set us free from the failures of our past, from the prisons of our limitations, weaknesses, and sins. That he comes to open up our hearts and eyes to see the truth, to discover the beautiful mystery of our own lives.

And the beautiful truth is this:

In Jesus Christ, we have the power to become children of God! We can love as he loves, be holy as he is holy, we can share in his divine nature! If we take his hand and follow him, we can walk by his light, and he will lead us to eternity, to the love that never ends.

Jesus is the door that leads to salvation. And we enter that door by faith.

St. Paul tells us in today’s second reading: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved."

As we begin this Jubilee Year, Jesus is inviting each one of us to pass through this door of faith. ⁴ He is calling us to renew our love, to deepen our faith in him, to increase our hunger for the Word of God and the Bread of Life.

For forty hours before we opened the Holy Doors this morning, Catholics all around the Archdiocese have been praying before the Blessed Sacrament in our parishes.

That’s what the Jubilee is all about — growing closer to Jesus and bringing others close to him, too. 

So let’s make this year a year for Jesus! Let us make Jesus the center of our lives— our first thought in the morning, our last thoughts at night, and the reason for everything we do during the day.

My prayer is that this year we will develop new habits of holiness, really making time every day to pray and read the Gospels. Really making time often to be silent and adore him and listen for his voice in the Holy Eucharist.

But our faith with Jesus is not only personal. Our relationship with Jesus is not something we are meant to keep to ourselves.

To be a Christian is to be a missionary. There is no other definition. And the Church has no other reason to exist, except to evangelize. We are here — each one of us — to help others to find the path that will lead all of them to Jesus.

My brothers and sisters, every one of us owes our faith in Jesus Christ to someone who has come before us. That means we need someone to introduce us, someone to tell us about Jesus, someone who will bring him into our lives.

That’s what St. Paul is talking about today in the second reading: “And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone to preach? ”

And this was the reason for Mission San Gabriel — to preach Jesus Christ and to proclaim his love to every heart in Los Angeles, and in southern California! To grow the Kingdom of God in America!

And the mission that began two hundred and fifty years ago with the missionaries and natives — is still far from finished. There is much more work to be done.

So, let’s keep going! Always forward in our mission to bring others to Jesus!

In this Jubilee Year, let us respond joyfully and generously to his invitation, and let us walk through the door of faith and allow Jesus Christ to change our lives by his grace.

So I pray that each one of you, and your families — all of us — will experience many blessings and graces and mercies during this year.

May Blessed Mary our Mother, the Queen of the Angels, help us to walk in the footsteps of her Son, and to love him and tell others about him. In our homes, in our parishes and ministries, in our schools, and in our society.

San Gabriel the Arcángel, pray for us!
St. Junípero Serra, pray for us!
Our Lady of the Angels, pray for us!