Carrying the Best She Has to Give: Susan Gomez’s Quiet Life of Service
From a clean sanctuary to hospital bedsides to the mission fields of Mexico, Sue Gomez serves quietly and gives God her best.
Long before the first Mass of the day at Annunciation Parish in Denver, someone has already unlocked the doors and swept the floors. Most parishioners never think about who does it. Sue Gomez prefers it that way.
She cleans the sanctuary, prepares for Mass and arranges the flowers. Her pastor, Father Christopher Gama, OFM Cap., who nominated her as Disciple of the Month, describes her service as consistent, humble and often unseen. Gomez describes herself the same way.
“I am definitely not a leader and prefer to just do quietly whatever I am capable of doing,” Gomez said. “I just need to know the drill and do it with my best effort. I enjoy making things clean and orderly in God’s house because he deserves the best we have to give.”
That care for the Church flows from time spent with the one who lives there. Gomez regularly prays before the Blessed Sacrament, and she recalls how the Catechism, in the words of St. John Vianney, describes contemplative prayer: “I look at him and he looks at me.” (CCC, 2715). For her, Adoration is like spending time with a good friend. Some days her mind won’t quiet down, and she’s at peace with that.
“When I can’t reach that stillness, I’m okay with it, because I believe that Jesus then speaks to my soul,” she said. “Even though I am unaware of his message at the time, it influences my everyday life as time goes on.”
Father Gama sees that relationship with Christ at the root of everything she does, including how she extends Eucharistic love to the sick and homebound. Gomez brings Holy Communion to Catholic patients at Denver Health and calls it a real gift. When a patient’s face lights up or tears begin to flow, she knows Jesus has touched their heart.
“I am a carrier of the Eucharist and very grateful for that,” she said. “Jesus does all the work. I am very blessed to have a part in it.”
One experience with a patient has remained in her heart for nearly ten years. His name was Salvador, and he was suffering from severe cancer. He received Communion with great joy. One day, Gomez brought him a small crucifix and told him, “You are on the Cross with Jesus.”
Gomez has also served immigrants and their families in many settings over the years. She visited families living in housing provided by farmers. Two immigrant families lived with her own family for two or three months at different times. While serving as parish secretary at St. Augustine Parish in Brighton, she helped shelter immigrants and local neighbors experiencing homelessness in the church basement at night.
Later, as a missionary in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, she told Miguel, the full-time evangelizer she was walking with, that she wished her Spanish were better so she could help him more. His answer stayed with her. Jesus sent his disciples out two by two, he reminded her, so that one could pray while the other spoke.
“Now I am speaking, and you are praying; someday you will speak, and I will pray,” she recalled him saying.
Father Gama says Gomez serves without seeking recognition and that she lives out the heart of a missionary disciple through prayer, charity and faithful presence. Gomez would only say she’s grateful.
“I’ve never enjoyed being in a spotlight. I find it embarrassing,” she said. “I just do what I can because it is a natural response to all the love and mercy God has given me my whole life.”
Congratulations, Sue Gomez, for being named the Archbishop’s Catholic Appeal Disciple of the Month!
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