“For a bishop as God’s steward must be blameless, not arrogant, not irritable, not a drunkard, not aggressive, not greedy for sordid gain, but hospitable, a lover of goodness, temperate, just, holy, and self-controlled, holding fast to the true message as taught so that he will be able both to exhort with sound doctrine and to refute opponents.”
–Titus 1:7-9
For the past sixteen years, we in the Archdiocese of Detroit have been blessed with an archbishop who has truly been for us God’s steward, a man of goodness, temperance, justice, holiness, and self-control. Archbishop Vigneron has held fast to the “true message” of the Gospel, and so has been for us a shining example of what St. Paul elsewhere calls an ambassador for Christ, a priestly instrument through whom God has spoken to us (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:20).
Above all, the Lord has communicated His graces to us through Archbishop Vigneron’s sacramental ministry. In offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and in celebrating the other sacraments of the Church, the Archbishop has shared the riches of Christ with all of us in the Archdiocese of Detroit.
In the consecration and blessing of the Sacred Oils every year at the Chrism Mass, Archbishop Vigneron’s ministry has touched the lives of every person who has received the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, every infirm person who has received the Anointing of the Sick, and every man who has been ordained to the diaconate, priesthood, or episcopacy.
In his pastoral leadership, Archbishop Vigneron has helped all of us to “unleash the Gospel,” prioritizing our mission of evangelization so that we might share Christ with all people and pass down the riches of our Catholic faith to the next generation. He has led our local church to financial stability, promoted innovative models of diocesan and parish leadership, and engaged in a highly consultative, ongoing evaluation of the opportunities and challenges of our time and place, helping us respond as “joyful missionary disciples” to the urgent need of the people of our time for Jesus Christ.
I was blessed to serve as Archbishop Vigneron’s priest-secretary for four years, near the beginning of his time as our archbishop. During those years I saw firsthand the Archbishop’s faith, hope, and love, his priestly heart, and his self-sacrificial dedication to the episcopal ministry with which he has been entrusted by the Lord. It is impossible to say all that could be said about a man such as Archbishop Vigneron, or about a time as consequential as his years of service as Archbishop of Detroit, but what follows are a few of the many graces in his ministry for which I thank God.
First, I thank God for Archbishop Vigneron’s piety. This gift of the Holy Spirit is evident every time the Archbishop celebrates the Sacred Liturgy, and is also manifest in his fidelity to prayer. Archbishop Vigneron especially loves the Holy Eucharist, and everyone who has witnessed him offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has been blessed by a model of priestly devotion and love for the Lord.
Secondly, I have learned a great deal from Archbishop Vigneron about abandonment to Divine Providence. Following one of his own spiritual guides, St. Francis de Sales, Archbishop Vigneron strives for serenity as he seeks to do the will of the Lord and to accept from God’s hand all that happens each day. The virtue of hope is especially vital as one faces life’s difficulties, and Archbishop Vigneron is a man of consummate hope in the power and promise of Christ’s Cross and Resurrection.
Next, I learned from Archbishop Vigneron a lesson about priestly fatherhood that I had already learned about natural fatherhood from my own dad. A father shows his love for his family by doing whatever his family needs him to do, at whatever cost to himself. Archbishop Vigneron began his episcopal ministry with many gifts, particularly for preaching and teaching, but has also strived to respond to the call of the Lord and the needs of the people he has been called to serve. This has led him to become an exceptional pastoral leader, one focused on the mission of evangelization and attentive to the difficult responsibilities that necessarily go with responsibility for the lives and welfare of others.
Another way Archbishop Vigneron has blessed us is by enkindling our sense of and desire to exercise the priesthood of the faithful. Every member of the baptized shares in Christ’s priesthood, in His prophetic office, and in His kingship. By means of this priesthood, all the faithful are to offer their lives in union with Christ’s Self-offering, especially in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. Many, many times, Archbishop Vigneron has encouraged us to enter wholeheartedly into this mystery of Christ’s priesthood, especially by emphasizing the moment in the Preface Dialogue of the Mass in which the priest tells us, “Lift up your hearts.” The people answer, “We lift them up to the Lord.” This lifting up of our hearts is a way of offering all that we are, as well as all we think, say, do, and experience to our Heavenly Father, along with the Body and Blood of Jesus.
I attended many Confirmation Masses with Archbishop Vigneron, and he would often preach to the confirmandi that they are called to imitate the martyrs in making of their lives a total offering to God. Each of us shares this call to lives of self-sacrificing love, fidelity, and witness to our faith in Jesus Christ.
From his days as a seminary professor and then rector, and certainly throughout his years as our archbishop, Archbishop Vigneron has preached and taught the Faith with exceptional clarity, precision, pastoral charity, and depth of meaning. No matter what specific topic he has spoken of, his words have always been in harmony with his episcopal motto, Aspicientes in Iesum. In his preaching and teaching, Archbishop Vigneron has kept his own eyes fixed on Jesus and has helped us to do the same. In his ministry, these words of St. Ambrose have been richly fulfilled:
“God’s word is uttered by those who repeat Christ’s teaching and meditate on his sayings. Let us always speak this word. When we speak about wisdom, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about virtue, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about justice, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about peace, we are speaking of Christ. When we speak about truth and life and redemption, we are speaking of Christ.”
Archbishop Vigneron has done all he could possibly do to share Christ with all of us for these past sixteen years. A favorite saint of his, St. John Henry Newman, once gave two sermons on the life of another favorite saint of Archbishop Vigneron’s, St. Philip Neri. Newman concludes the second of these two sermons with words that capture well the aim, the good fruit, and the promise of Archbishop Vigneron’s good and faithful service as Archbishop of Detroit:
“But I would beg for you this privilege … that you should do a good deal of hard work in your generation, and prosecute many useful labours, and effect a number of religious purposes, and send many souls to heaven, and take men by surprise, how much you were really doing, when they happened to come near enough to see it; but that by the world you should be overlooked, that you should not be known out of your place, that you should work for God alone with a pure heart and single eye, without the distractions of human applause, and should make Him your sole hope, and His eternal heaven your sole aim, and have your reward, not partly here, but fully and entirely hereafter.”
Fr. Charles Fox is vice rector of Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit and served as priest-secretary to Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron from 2009 to 2013.
