As God Would Have It / Como lo quiere Dios: Homily for Vespers, prior to the Ordination of +John Jairo Gómez as 2nd Bishop of Laredo (29 June 2026)

As God Would Have It / Como lo quiere Dios Homily for Vespers,prior to the Ordination of +John Jairo Gómez 2nd Bishop of Laredo (29 June 2026)

(I wish first of all to offer a personal thanks to Bishop Tamayo.)

I have known the bishop-elect, John Jairo Gómez, since he entered the theological seminary in Houston quite a number of years ago. I was teaching there at the time, and I was younger then, though I’m not so sure he was. En los años que lo he conocido, me parece que no ha cambiado. Madurado, sí; pero sigue siendo el mismo: sencillo, cumplido, respetuoso, inteligente y sobre todo, hombre de caridad. Ama a Cristo y a su Iglesia.

A bishop has a lengthy job description, such that no one could really list it to him completely, nor explain its dimensions. This is so because the many preoccupations and responsibilities of a bishop are hidden within the first and primary charge given to him in 1 Peter 5,2: Tend the flock of God in your midst, (overseeing) not by constraint but willingly, as God would have it.

Apaciente el Rebaño de Dios, que le ha sido confiado; vele por él, no forzada, sino espontáneamente, como lo quiere Dios. Be a shepherd, as God would have it. Como lo quiere Dios. Secundum Deum, says the Vulgate, translating the Greek κατὰ θεόν. It is all there, in that simple phrase. If you know how God would have it, how he does things, then you implicitly have the rest of the job description.

Con esta breve agregación de palabras, apaciente como lo quiere Dios, el obispo recibe la totalidad de su carga. En el lenguaje de la fe, las formulaciones más sencillas contienen dentro de sí todo el desarrollo y detalle de la vida en Cristo. Así como cuando el Señor, dirigiéndose al mismo San Pedro, pregunta. ¿Me amas? Apacienta mis ovejas (Jn 21,17).

En la exhortación de San Pedro a los pastores percibimos su propia transmisión a las nuevas generaciones de lo que él había recibido del Señor. ¿Y cómo entendió San Pedro lo que había recibido del Señor? Tal vez como una carga especifica de lo que el Señor Jesus les había dicho a todos y a cada uno de sus discípulos: ámense unos a otros como yo los he amado (Jn 13,34).

Tal como lo quiere Dios equivale decir, tal como Jesús lo hizo. Se trata del contenido de su pastoreo, y también de su estilo y forma. En la vida de Jesús, su estilo es el contenido, y el contenido, el estilo.

When Simón Peter exhorts that the bishop love as God would have us love, como Dios lo quiere, he urges that we love as Christ has loved us. For the Church received from the Lord, and has transmitted through the ages, the simple truth that the manner of Christ’s love is the visible expression of the Gospel he announced. Through this he reveals the heart of the Father. This love of the Father has been spoken into the world in the flesh and blood taken up by the WORD, and then poured out to us during the course of his earthly life, culminating in his Passion, death, and Resurrection.

The charge, love as God would have it, is beyond us, and would be impossible to fulfill were it not for the fact that the Lord gives what he asks for. As for the whole Christian people, so also for their poor servant the bishop, we know that this manner of love is not something we must first perfect and give, but rather something he has first to us given, and which we must continually receive in order to give. The giving is expressed in the words of Scripture love one another, but is not precisely the same thing as the saying or receiving of these words. The words encase the mystery so that we never lose sight of them. St Paul speaks of this in Romans 5,5, the charity of God has been poured into our hearts.

The words name the thing, but the thing is the love beyond words. This love has been poured out to the whole body. And the receiving of it, the living and preaching, and conveying of it is the fruit of the Mystery of the Faith. The new and eternal covenant began with the speaking that is Christ’s flesh, and the outpouring into us that is his gift of the Spirit. Only after that were the disciples able to speak of it efficaciously, of what had been given, what has been and is being received and transmitted.

For a bishop this is central, because he must announce this Misterium fidei; teaching it, and enacting it in the Eucharistic sacrfice, he cultívates it in the ordered witness of each and every member that adorns Christ’s body the Church. The bishop, and the Church entrusted to him, are handing on the Paschal outpouring, a way of life that witnesses to the truth that the love of God, vibrant and alive, has been poured into our hearts.

The entire Church lives out the faith through the charity poured into our hearts. The bishop receives this charity in the communion of the Church, and he lives it within his particular vocation for the sake of the Church; yet, he does not live it alone; he always lives it in communion with and at the service of the whole People of God, just as God would have it. Caritas Christi urget nos, St Paul says (2 Cor 5,14). Indeed, the bishop serves so that this life, poured out upon us, may flourish within the body of believers. He gives his life to this flourishing that God so desires. Where charity is weak, he works to strengthen it, where it is strong, he learns and teaches from it and about it: Así como lo quiere Dios.

The Lord spoke to us about his love for the Father, and his love for us. We might sometimes think he was speaking of two different kinds of love. But no, the love of Christ is one, and it is present in its totality in everything he said and did. When he went to the mountains to pray, it was an act of love directed to the Father and yet simultaneously an act of love for us; for, unlike the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son, Christ Jesus loves what is in his Father’s heart; and we are in the Father’s heart. And so the bishop must go to his chapel, close the door and pray to the Father in secret. He must do this so that in the silent communion with the Father he might truly know the Father’s heart, revealed in the Son, received in the Spirit. He must know that his people are there.

And when the Christ of the Father stopped at the Samaritan well and healed the woman (figura de la Iglesia) waiting there of her fears, her guilt, and when he satisfied her deepest thirst, he was directing himself to her because he loves the Father, knows the Father, and thus desires that all might have life and have it abundantly. Porque así lo quiere Dios. This is summed up in Jn 10,15, where the Lord says: As the Father knows me, so I know the Father; and I lay down my life for my sheep. St Gregory the Great explains this passage beautifully in one of his homilies: [the Lord Jesus speaks] As if to say openly, “The proof that I know the Father and the Father knows me is that I lay down my life for my sheep; that is to say: in the charity with which I die for my sheep, I demonstrate my love for the Father.”(1)Here, then, in the gloss of St Gregory, is the job description of the bishop, and of his people, each living it within the circumstances God provides.

The bishop must know the Father. And to know the Father, he must know Christ. He must feel in his bones how the charity with which Christ lays down his life for the sheep, shows his love for the Father. This is what it means to say to a bishop that be must tend to the sheep as God would have it / Así como Dios lo quiere. Within this magnum sacramentum we realize that the life of God poured into our hearts is not so much a list of specific things to do, but a rather a way of doing all the good things we are called upon to do. The way for us in Christ is to love God with all our mind, heart and soul, knowing that this is inseparable from the love and service we give one another. If we love the Father in the charity of Christ, we will love and serve one another in the charity of Christ, espontáneamente, de buena gana, as God would have it.

A bishop must know his people, he must know the poverty of our human riches, and the riches found in our human poverty. He must weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice. He must touch the lepers to heal and console, and be willing to stand firm in the face of threats to his flock. He must speak a word to the weary lest they lose heart. His pastoral priorities are already given to him in the answer the Lord gave to the disciples of the Baptizer: Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me” (Mt 11, 4-6). Our blindnesses are many, our deafness severe. The bishop must help us love one other, for Christ’s sake.

In closing, Most Reverend Father, a Word to your people, to your priests, and to you. Al pueblo de Dios, oren por su obispo, como lo quiere Dios. Pray that he may know the intimate love of the heart of Jesus, and thus know the heart of the Father. Pray that in darkness he might have firm faith, and in sorrow the consolation of the Holy Spirit. And that by his obedience to Christ, he may know joy in his self-giving service to you, in his daily laying down of his life for you. (2)

To the priests: Padrecitos, tengan paciencia con su obispo, no porque sea joven, sino porque es obispo; y por oficio les dará aún más razones para pedir paciencia. I ask that you be patient and forebearing. We are only men, who need to beg for God’s mercy and light to govern wisely. Help him by praying for that same mercy, light and wisdom. You are his principal support in the work of shepherding. Juntos con su obispo, les pido que no se olviden de los pobres, los pequeños y maltratados, porque olvidar de ellos es olvidar a Cristo, y a los que él ama en el corazón del Padre. Apacienten el Rebaño de Dios, que les ha sido confiado; velen por él, no forzada, sino espontáneamente, como lo quiere Dios.

Señor obispo-electo, mañana se consagra. La totalidad de la Iglesia, cuerpo y alma, se une en oracion con usted y por usted. El Pueblo de Dios sabe de la caridad de Cristo, y sabe que esa caridad sostiene la misión y carga que Dios y el Santo Padre León XIV le han confiado. Con la mitra llega una cruz de dimensiones misteriosas. Tengan valor: dice el Señor, yo he vencido al mundo (Jn 16,33). Respáldese en la fe de la Iglesia, esa fe que encuentra fuerza en la victoria del Resucitado. A causa de esa fe, y la caridad por la cual opera, el Pueblo de Dios a su alrededor, comparte con usted y su familia la alegría de este momento. Que Dios le dé valor para apacentar a este pueblo, con caridad, tal como Dios lo quiere. Amén.

+df

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Notes

1. Gregory the Great: in Evangélia (Hom. 14, 3-6): Unde et in hoc loco Dóminus prótinus subdit: Sicut novit me Pater, et ego agnósco Patrem, et ánimam meam pono pro óvibus meis. Ac si apérte dicat: In hoc constat quia et ego agnósco Patrem, et cognóscor a Patre, quia ánimam meam pono pro óvibus meis; id est, ea caritáte qua pro óvibus mórior, quantum Patrem díligam osténdo.

2. See Augustine, Tract in I Ioannem, Sermo 7,10: Qualem faciem habet dilectio? qualem formam habet? qualem staturam habet? quales pedes habet? quales manus habet? Nemo potest dicere. Habet tamen pedes; nam ipsi ducunt ad Ecclesiam: habet manus; nam ipsae pauperi porrigunt: habet oculos; nam inde intellegitur ille qui eget: Beatus, inquit, qui intellegit super egenum et pauperem (Ps 40,2). Habet aures, de quibus dicit Dominus: Qui habet aures audiendi, audiat (Lc 8,8). Non sunt membra distincta per locos, sed intellectu totum simul videt qui habet caritatem. Habita, et inhabitaberis; mane, et manebitur in te.