As I write this, I have just come from celebrating the Eucharist for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time.

This year, we heard the beautiful Gospel story of the Wedding Feast at Cana. And it is no coincidence that the first public event that Jesus attends after his Baptism is a wedding.

At Cana, Jesus is sanctifying the ancient natural institution of marriage. He is lifting up marriage and showing us what God intended for marriage from the beginning. Marriage is far more than a civil union. Jesus shows us that God intends it to be a “Sacrament,” a sign of his presence and plan for…

As I write this, I am praying and reflecting and getting ready to celebrate our annual Requiem Mass for the Unborn.

Every year, near the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, we gather to remember the victims of abortion. This year, our Requiem will be held at 6 p.m. on Saturday evening, Jan. 19, at our Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. We will also be live-streaming the Mass through my Facebook page.

I hope you will be able to join us to pray for all the little ones whose lives have been lost and ask God for the grace to keep…

These first days of this New Year give me hope that 2013 will be the time when our leaders finally come together to enact a just reform of our immigration policies.

This is the end of “National Migration Week” (Jan. 6-12). And this year, my brother bishops and I in the United States are stressing the urgent need for comprehensive reforms that would end deportation policies that break up families and that would offer illegal immigrants a path to make restitution and become citizens.

It is long past time for our nation to address this issue. So I urge you to become involved in the…

I hope that you all had a joyful and blessed Christmas. Thank you for all your prayers and good wishes that you sent me during this beautiful and sacred season.

We need to enter this new year with the confidence of Christmas. Our God is near. He has come to share our lives. He will never abandon us and he is nearest to us in our times of sorrow and suffering.

We need to walk with the confidence and the freedom of being children of God. Our Father listens to our prayers. He does not always give us what we ask for. But nothing is impossible with God. And in everything he is working…

Every Christmas is the chance for a new beginning. The journey of Advent leads us to the manger in Bethlehem and encounter with the Child who makes all things new.

In this wonderful season, in the midst of all the festivities and sharing with our families and loved ones, each of us must make time to reflect, in a deeply personal way, on what Christmas means to us.

Each of us needs to ask: Who is this Child we find sleeping in his mother’s arms? What difference does his coming make in my life?

These are the essential questions of the Year of Faith proclaimed by our Holy Father…

Editor’s note: On Dec. 12, Archbishop Gomez began a new tradition at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels — celebrating midnight Mass for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, following the traditional celebration of las mañanitas, an evening of song and dance in honor of the Virgin. The following is adapted from the Archbishop’s homily, which was delivered in Spanish.

For the first time, tonight we celebrate this glorious feast in the presence of the precious relic of the holy tilma that bears Our Lady’s miraculous image! This is the only relic of this kind in our country or…

Advent is always a season of Mary.

On Dec. 8, we celebrate the holy day of her Immaculate Conception and then, four days later, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

As many of you know, the apparitions of Our Lady to St. Juan Diego actually began on Dec. 9, 1531. In those days, that was the day when the Spanish Church celebrated the Immaculate Conception.

In my mind, there is a deep connection between these two feast days.

In God’s plan of salvation, Mary was conceived without original sin to announce the world’s “new creation” in the coming of Jesus. Many centuries…

This Sunday we begin a special Advent — Advent in the Year of Faith.

This whole year should be a time for asking about the quality and strength of our faith.

We live in a society that has lost its concept of human nature. People no longer live with a sense that there is one answer to the questions of where we come from and what we are here for.

We are encouraged in many ways to “compartmentalize” our lives. We are encouraged to define our personalities in different ways — according to the products we buy; the shows we watch; the teams we root for; our political parties;…

I am writing you this week from Baltimore, where I am gathered with my brother bishops for the annual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

This is an important time each year for us as leaders of the Church to talk about the issues that face us in our mission. In light of last week’s national and state elections, this year’s meeting is especially important.

Many of the issues we are discussing have direct relevance for our local Church in Los Angeles and California — such as the need to strengthen our witness to the sanctity of marriage, to reform our nation’s…

We should make this Year of Faith a time of spiritual growth and renewal.

Our life of faith needs to be renewed all the time because it is a relationship.

Relationships are living things. And like all living things, our relationships will either keep growing and getting stronger or they will wither and fade.

Our friendship with Jesus Christ takes commitment and a lot of work — just like our human relationships with our friends, spouses, parents or children.

We need to always be making time to be with Jesus. We need to always be trying to know him better — his attitudes and…