A letter from Archbishop Vigneron: “Ten Basic Truths”

February 3, 2021

Dear Brothers, Dear Fathers,

At the end of last week, I was reflecting on the shape I want to give to my preaching this Lent.  Where do I start on Ash Wednesday?  What course do I want to mark out for myself as I step up to the ambo through the Forty Days thereafter, until we get to the Pascal Vigil?  What are the basic themes I want to sound?  My prayer led me to judge that I was called to be serious and organized, not haphazard, in answering those questions for myself.  That conviction led on to a further point: Should I share the result of my reflections with you, my co-workers in the vineyard that is the AOD?  The light I got to that question is “yes,” not indeed because what I’d have to share comes as a novelty (It’s not.), but because it is a way for me to accompany and support you in our common mission of evangelization – with the pressing task for us to be voices for the Lord, “Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1: 15).

Some of you who have been with me in the classroom know that one of the approaches that I find most effective is to structure what I have to say around basic points that give a sort of architectural frame to my thoughts.  I used this approach, for example, in Unleash the Gospel, structuring my message around “guideposts.”  In what follows, I’m using that strategy again: offering “Ten Basic Truths” (actually 1+10) that seem to me to be essential for our mission of being “ambassadors for Christ,” with God “appealing through us” that the faithful take hold of the graces of repentance offered during this “acceptable time.” (cf. 2 Cor. 5: 20; 6: 2).

I hasten to acknowledge two particular limits of what I offer.  First, I claim that these are “some basic truths,” not “the basic truths.  You may judge that some other themes have a priority, and I’d not necessarily gainsay that.  What I offer are basic truths that, in my pastoral experience, seem to merit being expounded to our people.  Secondly, my “Ten Truths” are necessarily schematic, not only because I make no claim to have listed all those that form the basis for preaching repentance, but because all I can do here is sketch a truth, naming it and offering a brief commentary.  Anything more ambitious, explaining grounds and implications, would be working up a full-blown monograph on the topic, not at all what I’m aiming for.

And, for a final word of introduction, I acknowledge that I’m not presenting anything you don’t already know and haven’t been putting into practice through your years of ministry, long or short as they may be.  But, it’s a reminder, one I’ve formulated for myself, and one I’d like then to share with you, brother to brother.

Ten Basic Truths

Foundational conviction: God has created each of us for a supernatural destiny.

“…The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will…” (Eph 1: 3,5).

Those of you who are familiar with the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola, will recognize that I’ve borrowed this point from him. The path we are called to embark on only makes sense in the light of the goal that lies at the end of that road. I am convinced that all preaching of repentance must be shaped by the clear conviction about why we are called to repent – called so that we can fulfill our destiny to be the Father’s own adopted sons and daughters, to be by grace what Jesus is by nature. While it’s accurate to say that we’re made for heaven, that might seem bland, unless we testify to the marvel of what heaven is, sharing in the life of the Holy Trinity forever.

The announcement that God offers us this happiness, which is so far beyond what we deserve, finds an echo in the hearts of our listeners. It may sound too good to be true, but the goodness of it has its own power to persuade, to persuade one to set out once more on the path of repentance.

1^st Truth: Failure is possible.

“And to this people you shall say: Thus says the LORD: See, I am giving you a choice between the way to life and the way to death” Jer 21: 8.

My invitation to repent from sin only makes sense if there are consequences to one’s actions. An essential part of my preaching must be pointing out that God only shares his saving communion with those who chose it. God made us free, free to determine what sort of character we would take on ourselves by our actions. Eternal life is eternal friendship with the Lord, and he doesn’t force that on anyone. In fact, for those who chose by their sins to rebel against God’s will for us, being with him would be a very hell. Heaven and hell are real possibilities. God doesn’t so much “send” sinners to hell, but rather respects their free choice to be his enemies. Heaven and hell are real possibilities.

2^nd Truth: God’s plan for our happiness has been mangled, but not beyond repair.

“Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, you shall not eat from it, … by the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground, from which you were taken; for you are dust and to dust you shall return” Gen 3: 17, 19).

As I reflect on this truth, it strikes me that this is probably the easiest one to get across to my hearers. Everyone has some personal hurt, some suffering, some tragedy, and then there are the ills of our society. There isn’t one person in the congregation in front of me whose brightest hopes have not been blighted at one time or another. The Good News we invite our people to embrace through repentance in Lent is about the solution God in his compassion offers us to the problem of evil. It is by acknowledging the bad news that the Good News looks really good.

3^rd Truth: Sin is the problem.

“… through one person sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all, inasmuch as all sinned” (Rm 5: 12).

Building on our acknowledging the problem of evil, whether moral or physical, I need to be clear about the diagnosis. God did not make suffering and death; he is a God of the living, bountiful in sharing life. The blight in human existence is caused by separation from him. “Sin entered the world,” as St. Paul says, the Fall happened because our First Parents believed a lie. They insisted on finding happiness their own way, not God’s way, and in so doing they ruptured their friendship with him, the very relationship on which their happiness depended. What Satan beguiled them into thinking would make them happy brought them, and all of us coming after them, misery.

4^th Truth: We are all sinners.

“If we say, ‘We are without sin,’ we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 Jn 1: 8).

After helping my congregation think about our inheriting a world “mangled” by sin, I need to point out to them that all of us ratify this rebellion of Adam and Eve by our own personal sins. We are born with an appetite for rebellion, with a hunger for what is toxic (with concupiscence, though I doubt that I’ll use the word). We, too, want to put ourselves in the place of God, would be “god-lings” with rule over our own lives. This is sin: in my thoughts and words, in what I do or fail to do, to act contrary to God’s plan for my flourishing – to think I know better. And the results are always harmful to oneself, to the point of being catastrophic if the lie is grave. We are all sinners, so everybody needs my call to repentance.

5^th Truth: We need help.

“If you, LORD, keep account of sins, Lord, who can stand?” (Ps 130: 3),

Our own experience confirms that we are powerless to remedy the damage sin works in our lives. Try as we might, we cannot construct a paradise on earth. Life always ends in death. And as for our aspirations to virtue and holiness, we make St. Paul’s words our own, “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want” (Rm 7: 19). Our personal impotence to maintain a right relationship with God, or to restore the bond with him that is fractured through sin, or to repair the evil fruit of these evil choices means that of ourselves we are lost. And so I offer repentance, turning to Christ, as the Good News everyone needs to hear.

6^th Truth: God has intervened in person to deliver us from the wreckage.

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption” (Gal 4: 4-5).

From the first confrontation with Adam and Eve after their rebellion, God promised a remedy for the wreck caused by sin. Anyone of us, using a seemingly shrewd calculation of weighing “pluses vs. minuses,” might have thought it better to end the human race and make some sort of a fresh start; God, however, remained faithful to his purpose, faithful to his creation by becoming part of it, in order to win it back. According to a plan that unfolded across the ages, in the fulness of time he sent his Son to deliver us from the tragedy of our own making. The motive: love – that pure, unmerited love that goes by the name of “mercy.” In testifying to this truth I’ll have made the turn from presenting the reality of the problem to proclaiming the solution. The congregation might have thought this too good to be true, and my joy is to assure them they’re wrong. God want us back home with him, and so badly that’s he come for us himself.

7^th Truth: The cross is just the right sort of remedy.

“[Caiaphas] prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God” (Jn 11: 51-52).

The heart of the call to reconciliation is a call to come to “Christ Jesus, and him crucified” (1 Cor 2: 2). It is here that the remedy for sin and death is to be found. In preaching that truth this Lent we continue the ministry of St. Paul. Our people are no less blessed than were his Corinthians, to hear this Good News that Jesus has won for us the forgiveness of sins and life eternal. I particularly want to help them understand that in the death of the Word-made-flesh there is now a man who has offered to the Father the perfect love that he deserves from his Son. In our being joined to that filial self-giving our rebellious self-centeredness is overcome. Now, we, too, with Jesus can say “Abba, Father,” and mean it. This is grace.

8^th Truth: To receive the offered deliverance, we must change

“I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all perish…” (Lk 13:3).

Jesus was clear from the start: accepting the Good News of our deliverance requires that we repent. The gift of new life must be lived out. If we are adopted as God’s sons and daughters, we must live the very life of God the Son, the life of total self-abandonment to the Father, the life of unconditional obedience to his will. We must change by letting the Holy Spirit transform us, so that we have the heart and mind of Jesus. We must change so that we recognize that this new life in the Holy Spirit is better than one’s life in the world, that it is better to lose the whole world than to lose Jesus, that death is better than mortal sin. This change will cost, will not come easily. But this change is necessary, and its fruit is such a blessing that I must not hesitate to invite others to pay whatever price that it costs.

9^th Truth: The narrow way is found in the Church

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few” (Mt 7: 13-14).

Jesus speaks with unflinching realism about the process of change that leads to the salvation proclaimed by the Gospel. The way home to the Father will not be easy; it wasn’t for him, the Only Begotten Son; it won’t be for us, sons and daughters by adoption. In my preaching, certainly I must emulate Christ’s “truth-telling.” I must also testify to his mercy in having clearly marked out this way for us, and, even more generously, in having given us his own strength to walk the narrow road. This knowledge and this grace are ours in the Church, especially in the Scriptures and the Sacraments. In the Church we walk this narrow way together; we are part of a community that has repentance as a “life-style commitment,” a project that I invite the congregation to take up with all the greater intensity in Lent.

10^th Truth: For the baptized, the confessional is the gate to get back on to the narrow way.

“He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them…’” (Jn 20: 22-23)

In fulfilling my mission as an ambassador for Christ, urging repentance and belief in the Gospel, I cannot fail to invite the faithful to come to Confession this Lent, and to make a resolution to celebrate the Sacrament regularly all year long. The Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation is the sacred moment established by the Lord precisely for his disciples to be renewed in the grace of repentance. For Catholics, the confessional is the most effective gate on to the narrow road that leads to life. We neglect to use it at our peril, our eternal peril.

Closing

“When I say to the wicked, ‘You wicked, you must die,’ and you do not speak up to warn the wicked about their ways, they shall die in their sins, but I will hold you responsible for their blood.” (Ezek 33: 8).

A priest-friend once offered a folk-proverb as a colloquial paraphrase of the Lord’s word to Ezekiel: “If a watch dog doesn’t bark, get rid of it.”  When I remember that I am consecrated to be a sort of “watch dog” for the Lord’s flock, I find the confidence to say the “hard saying,” to speak that challenging message of repentance and conversion, with the promise of heaven and the prospect of hell, that the Lord has entrusted to me.

I realize that I don’t need to choose between urgency and charity, any more than oncologists offend against compassion by explaining the seriousness of their patients’ condition and advising on the path to healing.  I do the faithful no favors by hiding the truth from them.  In fact, I sin against pastoral charity if I fail to preach the whole of the Gospel in its integrity.

I must never forget that people today know something is wrong, wrong with the world, wrong with their lives.  Often, they are bewildered because they don’t know what to do about it.  To preach the Gospel of repentance is to offer Christ’s own light about the cause of this chaos they experience, viz., sin, and about the deliverance from it, viz., the grace won by his victory on the cross.  Preaching repentance is offering real and lasting freedom.

A prayerful and devout Lent is the path to this freedom.  I ask the Lord to make me effective in inviting the faithful to set out again on this path.  I ask the Lord to give you that same grace.  Let each of us ask this grace for all of us, and so, by winning souls for the Lord we will win our own.

Fraternally yours,

The Most Reverend Allen H. Vigneron
Archbishop of Detroit