Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles led an interfaith memorial service Dec. 21 for homeless men and women who died on city streets in 2025, and he urged people of goodwill to spread compassion in their communities to honor the deceased and the parable of the Good Samaritan.
In the reflection, shared with CatholicVote by Angelus News, the archbishop began by stating that those gathered for the service at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels do so “to remember our brothers and sisters who died without a home and with no one to pray for them.”
“Each was a child of God, created in love, and created in God’s image. God knew their name and had a plan for their life,” Archbishop Gomez said. “This is what troubles us. Year by year, so many of our brothers and sisters lose their way and end up on the streets; too many cannot find a place in our society and wind up falling through the cracks.”
There are no simple answers to questions of “why?”, and the solutions seem out of reach of public policy, the archbishop said, adding that in these challenges, people encounter the mystery of human suffering and God’s providence.
“For me,” the archbishop said, “the mystery is not only why God allows some people to suffer. The mystery is why some people have compassion in the face of suffering, while others remain indifferent.”
The parable of the Good Samaritan, which was read at the service, “is like a mirror” held before each person’s conscience by Jesus, Who “asks each of us what we see,” according to Archbishop Gomez.
In the gospel passage, Jesus asks which person was the neighbor to the man who was victimized by the robbers; but, the archbishop continued, the Lord poses another, unstated, question as well: “which of these three are you?”
Archbishop Gomez continued: “Love is the measure of the human heart and our love is judged by the mercy that we show to our neighbors, especially the weakest and most vulnerable.”
The priest and the Levite in the parable ignore the victim, actively avoiding him; the Samaritan, in contrast, has compassion when he sees the victim, the archbishop explained, adding that this compassion is not a mere emotion but an experience that spurs him toward actually doing something to help the man. He comes close to the victim, helps alleviate his suffering, and brings him to an inn for recovery, where he personally pays to ensure the man gets critical support. The Samaritan also invites the innkeeper to care for the victim, thereby expanding “the circle of compassion,” according to Archbishop Gomez.
Jesus shows in this parable, the archbishop said, that there are two ways to see others: as a brother or sister with inherent dignity as children of God, or through a kind of “‘seeing’ that leaves us blind, that closes our heart and makes us believe that the poor are somebody else’s problem, not ours.”
“One way of seeing makes us a neighbor, the other makes us a stranger,” he continued. He expressed concern “that we are becoming a society of strangers” at risk of becoming unable to see people how Christ calls each person to see them. This call is especially prevalent at the end of the Gospel passage, according to the archbishop.
The one who was the neighbor to the victim is “the one who showed mercy to him,” Archbishop Gomez quoted from the gospel passage. He said that Christ sends each person out with this in mind, ending His parable with the command: “Go and do likewise!”
This statement should compel people to action, Archbishop Gomez emphasized, saying people should go “and see others as the Samaritan saw them, with eyes of compassion,” and do “as the Samaritan did: picking up our neighbors when they fall, binding their wounds, giving them a place to stay so they can get back on their feet.”
Concluding, the archbishop said he prays that each attendee of the service will resolve, as the new year begins, “to be a neighbor to those in need.”
“Let us go and spread the circle of compassion in our society, inviting others to see as we see, with the eyes of a neighbor,” he said. “Let us do this to honor the memory of our brothers and sisters who died on the streets this past year. Each of them had a name and each of them was a soul beloved by God.
“We pray that they will find rest and comfort now in his loving arms, and that the home they could not find on earth, they will find forever with him in heaven.”
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