“God’s love can change any situation,” even as wars and suffering afflict our world, Archbishop José H. Gomez said at this year’s Easter Sunday Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels April 5.
“On that first Easter morning, when Jesus rolled away that stone and walked away from that tomb empty, he changed everything,” Archbishop Gomez said in his Easter homily. “That empty tomb tells us that God’s love is stronger than every hatred and violence and injustice and evil.
“God’s love can change any situation. God can bring life out of death. God can bring meaning and healing out of suffering. He can take the sins and failings of our lives and turn them around.”
Archbishop Gomez celebrated Mass on Easter Sunday with the thousands who came to the cathedral on April 5. The archbishop underscored that the “power of the Resurrection” can change lives, even for people who don’t know where else to turn.
“We don’t have to stay stuck in our problems,” Archbishop Gomez said. “There is a way out. God will set us free. There is nothing that God won’t do for us. There is no sin he will not forgive, no weakness he will not help us overcome. No situation in our life that he won’t help us with.
“But we have to turn to God. We have to believe in Jesus. Just as those first Apostles did.”
The Easter season also brought about significant increases in the number of people in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles — and nationwide — who want to enter into the Catholic Church.
The archdiocese reported 8,598 catechumens and candidates — both those who had never been baptized, along with those who had been baptized but had never completed their other sacraments — a 54 percent increase from 2025 and more than double what was reported in both 2023 and 2024.
During the Easter Vigil on Saturday night at the cathedral, nearly 20 people were either baptized or completed their sacraments to fully enter into the Church.
“Every life is unique, every life has its story,” Archbishop Gomez told the converts during the vigil. “And what happens to us, happens for a reason.
“Tonight your story will be joined to his story, to the beautiful history of salvation, the great story of God’s love for his people.”
The Easter celebration capped a prayerful Holy Week in the archdiocese, beginning with Palm Sunday, the next day’s Chrism Mass, then the beginning of the Easter Triduum with Mass of the Lord's Supper on Thursday and Good Friday.
During the Palm Sunday celebration, Archbishop Gomez told attendees not to fear the crosses in our lives because Jesus Christ didn’t, and turned the cross into something glorious.
“Because Jesus Christ did not save himself, we are no longer prisoners of our past,” Archbishop Gomez said. “Our sins can be forgiven. We can really know God’s love and be free to become the people he created us to be. And of course, we know that the story does not end at the foot of the cross. We know that in the shadow of the cross, we find the light of the Resurrection.
“By his cross, Jesus sets us free so that we can truly know happiness, so that we can truly live an authentic life, as a child of God.”
