Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles, vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, prays the rosary Sept. 18 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels before the 14th Annual Los Angeles Catholic Prayer Breakfast. (CNS photo/Victor Aleman, AngelusNews.com)

By Catholic News Service • Posted September 24, 2018

LOS ANGELES (CNS) — Every “time of crisis” in the Catholic Church “is a crisis of saints,” Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez said in his homily during the 14th annual Los Angeles Catholic Prayer Breakfast Sept. 18.

“It is a crisis of Christians not living out our baptismal promises, not striving for the greater things that we are made for,” he said to the more than 3,500 people in attendance at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angeles.

Brothers and sisters, this moment in the church is a call for saints,” the archbishop said. “It is a call for you and me — to arise and to become the men and women that we are created to be. We are the ones who are called renew and rebuild the church! Each one of us has that duty.”

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Catholics do this “by striving for the greater gifts that God wants to give us — the gifts of holiness and beauty and love and truth,” he said.

Archbishop Gomez added: “If we want a church that is purified and centered on Jesus Christ and his mission — that church begins with you and with me.”

He said the day’s Gospel reading had words that all Catholics need to hear “in light of this summer of sorrow that we have been experiencing in the church” with regard to abuse.

In the passage, the Lord speaks “words of consolation to a mother who has lost her only son. He says: ‘Do not weep,'” the archbishop said

“I know these events have been weighing heavy on all of us, and we feel especially the pain of the children who have been hurt,” he said. “So, today Jesus speaks these words of hope to those children — and to each one of us: ‘Do not weep.'”

He told the congregation that “Jesus does not leave us alone in our pain, he does not abandon us in the trials that we face. We see in this Gospel this morning, the true heart of Jesus, his solidarity with us in our suffering.”

Archbishop Gomez also urged Catholics to give everything to the mother of the Lord, as Jesus did, “and ask her to help us to rise to this moment and to be the saints we are called to be.”