In his first homily as Detroit's new chief shepherd, Archbishop Weisenburger invites 'a deep, profound, all-encompassing love'
DETROIT — During a moving liturgy steeped in history, tradition and symbolism, Archbishop Edward Joseph Weisenburger was installed March 18 as the new shepherd of southeast Michigan’s 900,000 faithful and the principal pastor of souls from all walks of life in the Archdiocese of Detroit.
His first message to them was as simple as it was profound: Love Jesus.
Speaking from high in the pulpit of the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Archbishop Weisenburger used his first words as Detroit’s archbishop to express his humility and gratitude for his new responsibility.
“I am very truly humbled to be standing before you,” he said. “This is not a place I ever envisioned myself being. Detroit was not on my radar, but I live by that old saying, ‘If you want to hear the sound of God’s laughter, tell him your plans.’”
Archbishop Weisenburger said he’s been touched by the welcome he’s received since the Feb. 11 announcement that he had been named to succeed Detroit’s retiring Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron.
“I am very deeply grateful for the warm welcome I received, and it’s crystal clear to me that I have been greatly blessed to be asked to be a part of this great and vibrant Archdiocese of Detroit,” said Archbishop Weisenburger, the now-former bishop of Tucson, Arizona.
Approximately 35 bishops from across the country attended the installation Mass, including Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas, bishop-emeritus of Tucson; and Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio; as well as faithful, family and friends from his previous homes in Arizona, Kansas and Oklahoma.
Archbishop Weisenburger spent the first part of his homily thanking the many people who have supported and inspired him, not the least of whom is Pope Francis, whose “prophetic and profoundly loving witness to Jesus Christ and his Gospel inspires me daily,” he said.
Archbishop Weisenburger said he has a deep respect and admiration for the pope, whose personal witness and teachings he called “profound.”
“His profound teachings — and they are just that, profound — and his personal witness of what a disciple can be have moved the hearts and minds of millions around the world,” Archbishop Weisenburger said. “I’m so delighted his health is improving, and I pray that his voice and witness will continue to bless our world for many years to come.”
The archbishop also thanked Cardinal Pierre, the pope’s ambassador, for his “fresh insights and wisdom” among the American episcopacy, as well as “the kindness you have shown me personally.”
He thanked members of his family, many of whom were seated in the front pews of the cathedral, for being a witness of faith to him over the years, as well as many priests, religious and laity who formed, inspired and encouraged him.
“I don’t mean to sound corny or artificial, but the truth is, from my childhood, priests were always my heroes,” he said. “It was what I wanted to be from the time my memories of life began. I witnessed them with their people in the most joyful moments of life and the most challenging moments of life, and perhaps on a subconscious level, even at an early age, I perceived this to be a life of great purpose and meaning.”
Archbishop Weisenburger also thanked Detroit’s auxiliary bishops and visiting bishops, whose fraternity, he said, “reflects something of the fraternity of those first 12 (apostles),” and is a “glimpse of that authentically synodal church, a church that walks together, listens together and references Christ in one another.”
Archbishop Weisenburger saved his last point of gratitude for Detroit’s now-retired shepherd of the past 16 years, leading a long, uproarious applause for Archbishop Vigneron, whom he said has shepherded the Archdiocese of Detroit with “love, humility, immense wisdom and full commitment of his life for 16 years.”
But Archbishop Weisenburger’s principal message was to his new flock in the Archdiocese of Detroit, to whom he will henceforth be a spiritual father and a leader in faith and love.
The day’s readings, which Archbishop Weisenburger chose to dovetail with his episcopal motto, “Ecce Agnus Dei” (“Behold the Lamb of God”), each spoke to Jesus as the Lamb, and as the one who commands his apostles to feed his flock.
The Gospel chosen for the Mass, John 21:15-17, depicts Jesus on the shores of the Sea of Tiberias, tending a charcoal fire with his disciples after his resurrection. After Simon Peter’s threefold betrayal of Jesus the night before his crucifixion, the Lord asks Peter to thrice reaffirm his love.
In reflecting upon the Gospel in preparation for his homily, Archbishop Weisenburger said he invoked the “Jesuit approach to prayer,” which involves placing oneself in the context of the Scriptures “to see what it says inside.”
“Every time I took this text to prayer, I found Jesus looking at me, lovingly, gently, but intensely, asking me, ‘Do you love me?’” Archbishop Weisenburger said. “Brothers and sisters, I might propose that it’s the only question in the end that really matters. Indeed, I think Jesus asks it in every age and to everyone.”
Were Jesus a worldly king, the archbishop surmised, “he would have excoriated Peter for his failings and his betrayal, but Jesus refuses to define Peter by his failings, just as he refuses to define us by ours.”
By his threefold affirmation of love, Peter is given the opportunity to “wipe out the earlier betrayals,” just as Jesus gives the same opportunity to all Christians by their repentance, he said.
Archbishop Weisenburger noted that in the Greek rendering of the passage, the word Jesus uses for “love” is different than the word Peter uses in response.
The word Jesus uses, agape, is the fullest sense of love, the archbishop said: a “deep, profound, all-encompassing, holy love.” By contrast, Peter’s response is philos, which translates as “the kind of love you would have for extended family, friends,” he said, “polite, respectful, but not near the impact of agape.”
Jesus’ question and Peter’s response differ the first two times the question is asked, but on the third occasion, it is Jesus — not Peter — who changes his approach, Archbishop Weisenburger noted.
“The third time, Jesus doesn’t use the word agape. He says, ‘OK, do you have philos?’ And Peter says yes,” he said. “The pressure was building, and I don’t think Jesus was lowering his standards. Rather, I think he very much was taking Peter where he was at that moment in time, and knowing the ministry and life that lay before him, Peter could be brought from philos to agape.
“Could it be that the risen Christ is willing to take us where we are today, and willing to work with us, too?” Archbishop Weisenburger asked.
But while Jesus is patient and kind, the archbishop said, he isn’t satisfied with a verbal answer.
“This text reminds us that there is no true love of Jesus without a willingness to put it into practice,” Archbishop Weisenburger said. “Jesus never responds to Peter, ‘Well done. Good to know you love me.’ Rather, any real profession of love for Jesus is always met with a call: ‘Feed my lambs. Care for my sheep.’
In a subtle reference to his own unexpected calling as Detroit’s archbishop, Archbishop Weisenburger noted that a few verses later, Jesus calls Peter to go “wherever he is called, even if it’s not on his radar.”
“And thus I find myself standing before you today. And seeing Christ in you, I feel as though I owe you my response,” Archbishop Weisenburger told his new flock. “No less than Peter, I, too, am a sinner with plenty of failings, foolish mistakes and errors in my history. And no less than Peter at that point in the Gospel, my love for Jesus is probably still a little imperfect.
“But if we are to begin a new twist or turn in this journey of discipleship together, then I invite you to come along with me, and I will promise to come along with you, and walking together, perhaps we will be led from philos into agape,” he continued.
Jesus’ question to Peter, “Do you love me?” is the same question he asks every person in the Archdiocese of Detroit, Archbishop Weisenburger added — indeed, “perhaps the only question in the end that really matters.”
“And the answer, in our words and in the response of our lives, will make all the difference,” he said. “May the best of answers well up from within us: a powerful, affirmative, ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you, and I will feed your sheep.’”
