Statement on the Death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

Statement on the Death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI 
By Most Reverend José H. Gomez 
Archbishop of Los Angeles 
 
Our Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has gone to heaven. In this moment, as we mourn his loss, we celebrate his life, because it was a life given in service to Jesus Christ.  
 
I know there will be more for me to reflect on about this beautiful man and great figure in the Catholic Church of our times. But in this moment, I find myself giving thanks to God for his witness and recalling the words that he spoke in his inaugural homily: “The purpose of our lives is to reveal God to men. And only where God is seen does life truly begin. There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him.” 
 
May Our Lady wrap him in the mantle of her love, and may the angels lead him into paradise, and may he rest in peace.  
 
Pope Benedict XVI, Speech to boys and girls 
Italian Catholic Action, 20 December 2007
 
FOLLOW GOD LOVINGLY EVERY DAY, KEEPING YOUR HAND IN HIS
“It is Christmas and I want to offer you fervent good wishes of joy and serenity, but with these good wishes allow me to express another for the whole year that we will shortly be beginning…may you always walk joyfully on the road of life with Jesus. One day he said: “I am the way” (Jn 14: 6). Jesus is the way that leads to true life, life that never ends. It is often a narrow, uphill road, but if we let ourselves be attracted by him it is always marvelous, like a steep mountain path: the more steeply it rises, the better one can admire from on high new views even more beautiful and extensive. There is the effort of walking but we are not alone: we help each other, we wait for one another, we lend a hand to those who have been left behind…. The important thing is not to get lost, not to stray from the path, otherwise we risk ending in a ravine, of getting lost in the woods! Dear children, God became man to show us the way; indeed, by making himself a child he also became the “way” for you children: he was like you, he was your age. Follow him lovingly every day, keeping your hand in his.”