Thursday after Epiphany: Mass for Those Affected by Wildfires

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
 Archbishop of Los Angeles 
January 9, 2025

My brothers and sisters, 

As always when we celebrate Mass we gather with gratitude to God but today we especially gather with heavy hearts. 

These are difficult and challenging days for our city and county and our local Church. As we pray, the wildfires keep burning around us and, as we know, the damage continues to be devastating. 

Thousands of our neighbors have lost everything: their homes and livelihoods, their parishes and  schools, and their communities.

We are reminded today how precious every life is, and how fragile. We are reminded also that we are brothers and sisters, that each of us — we all belong to the family in God.
 
St. John tells us today in that first reading of today’s Mass: “Beloved, we love God because he first loved us.” 
 
In times like this, we can be tempted to question God’s love for us, to wonder where he is while good people are suffering. 
 
Why does God let evil things happen? Why does he allow natural disasters like wildfires and hurricanes, and earthquakes and floods? 
 
There is no easy answer. But that doesn’t mean that there are no answers. 
 
We hear the answer in the Gospel today. Let us listen again to the words of Jesus: 
 
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor … to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind; to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”
 
Jesus comes into the world, as we know, to bring good news, to bring the glad tidings of God’s love. He comes into our world as the love of God made manifest, as the love of God in human flesh. 
 
This is what we are celebrating in this Christmas season. 
 
Jesus told us that there is not a sparrow that falls from the sky that God does not know about and care about. And then he reminds us: You are worth more than many sparrows.^[1] 
 
Brothers and sisters, you are loved by God, so much so that he gave his only Son for us. You are worth the price of God’s own Son. 
 
In times like this, we need to remember this beautiful truth. 
 
We don’t know why these disasters happen. But we do know that Our Father holds this world, and each of our lives, in his loving hands. And we do know that everything he does, he does out of love for us, and for our salvation. 
 
It is not an easy answer, but it is the truth. 
 
Because God has loved us first, we can love as we have been loved, and we can love as he has loved us.
 
So my brothers and sisters, love is what is asked of us in this moment — in this challenging moment. As St. John tells us today: “Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
 
In this moment, God is calling each of us to be the instruments through which he shows his love and compassion and care to those who are suffering. 
 
We must be the ones who bring comfort to our neighbors in this time of disaster. And we must be the ones also who stand by their side and help them to rebuild and go forward with courage and faith and hope in God. Let us pray for them.
 
Let us also pray for our firefighters and first responders. Let us feel first that love of God for each of us, then the call to love our brothers and sisters who are suffering in a very special way during this time. 

Let’s renew our commitment in this holy Eucharist. Let us always feel the love of God in our lives and help other people to feel the love of God and also feel our love for each one of them, especially now when they are suffering. 

And may our Blessed Mother Mary, the Queen of Angels, be a mother to all us.