Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2009 / Archbishop tells students schools exist to help them 'keep promise to God'
Archbishop tells students schools exist to help them 'keep promise to God'
by Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published February 13, 2009
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Larry A. Peplin | The Michigan Catholic
During his homily, Archbishop Allen Vigneron told the students that, at Mass, they make a promise to give their futures to God. |
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Larry A. Peplin | The Michigan Catholic
Students from several schools brought the gifts to Archbishop Vigneron during the offertory. |
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Larry A. Peplin | The Michigan Catholic
Michael Mott, from Our Lady of Sorrows, plays the trumpet. |
Detroit The new archbishop this week told Catholic school students that the whole reason they have their Catholic schools is to help them keep the promise they made to serve the Lord.
"You made a promise that your future belongs to God," said Archbishop Allen Vigneron, addressing students from Catholic schools throughout the Archdiocese of Detroit during a Feb. 10 liturgy at the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament. "And yet
how can you keep that promise if we don't help you? That's why we study math and reading and social studies, and maybe some of you are even doing calculus some of you look old enough to do calculus. It's so that, whatever the future holds for you, in your vocation or in your career
in all of that, you will have what you need in order to keep your promise, give your future as a good gift for God."
About 700 students from the Archdiocese of Detroit's 106 Catholic elementary and secondary schools filled the pews of the cathedral for a Mass to celebrate Catholic education. More than half of schools in the archdiocese were represented at the Mass. The students participated as altar servers, gift bearers, lectors, and in the choir.
Twenty-seven priests joined the archbishop at the altar, as well.
Usually, the annual liturgy for students at the cathedral is celebrated during Catholic Schools Week, a nationwide celebration of Catholic schools sponsored by the U.S. Bishops and the National Catholic Educational Association. This year, that week was celebrated Jan.25-31. Locally, however, plans changed when it was announced that Archbishop Vigneron was being installed as archbishop of Detroit that week.
The liturgy typically is celebrated either by the archbishop or an auxiliary bishop.
"We are just thrilled that the archbishop took the initiative to reschedule the Mass so he could celebrate it for us," said Susan Leslie, associate superintendent of schools for the archdiocese, who organized student participation in the Mass. "We just want to make him feel at home, to let him know how much everyone thinks of him in the archdiocese, especially the kids."
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Larry A. Peplin | The Michigan Catholic
Students from St. Lawrence school in Utica join other students in prayer during the Mass Tuesday. |
As Archbishop Vigneron is the first chief shepherd of Detroit to have been raised in the diocese, he also became the first product of an Archdiocese of Detroit Catholic grade school to address the students as their archbishop he attended Immaculate Conception School in Ira Township.
He wasted no time connecting with the students, either.
"I'm very sorry that you had to skip your math and social studies classes to be here," Archbishop Vigneron quipped at the beginning of Mass, drawing laughs from the students. "But I'm very grateful for the sacrifice you have made."
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Larry A. Peplin | The Michigan Catholic
Students from Orchard Lake St. Mary's Preparatory approach the cathedral for the Mass. |
This year, Catholic Schools Week centered on the theme "Catholic Schools Celebrate Service." In addition to service projects typically performed throughout the year at Catholic schools, many of the schools in the Archdiocese of Detroit did extra service projects to celebrate Catholic Schools Week.
In his homily, Archbishop Vigneron told students that, through the Mass, they pledge their service to God.
"The Mass is always a promise to God," he said. "Part of what you do and only you can do it, nobody else can do it for you part of what you do is give God your future."
Following communion, Fr. Daniel Nusbaum, director of the archdiocesan Department of Education, and Sr. Mary Gehringer, OSM, superintendent of schools, each briefly addressed the congregation.
"It has been a giant ministry of the Church to teach and learn the ways of Jesus," said Fr. Nusbaum, calling the vocation of education "a promise of the highest importance" in the archdiocese.
Sr. Gehringer called the schools Mass her "favorite occasion," and thanked Archbishop Vigneron for celebrating the service. She also thanked him because his installation Mass caused the school's Mass to be rescheduled and "this is the first time we have not had a blizzard," she joked.
She then led the congregation in thanking priests, principals, parents and the students themselves, and stressing the Christian service done by the schools in their own community.
As Sr. Gehringer called their names, students from each school then approached the archbishop with cards and gifts, many giving him written pledges to do service projects at their school. In return, the archbishop presented representatives from each school with a poster bearing the image of a circle of hands, and quoting Matthew's Gospel: "Your light must shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father (Matthew 5:16)."
Students at the Mass said they were grateful to be a part of the liturgy.
"It's nice to represent our school and to see the new archbishop," said Mary Grace Bauer, 15, a sophomore at Regina High School in Warren, "and that we come together as a Catholic community."
Jasmine Garrett, an eighth-grader at Christ the King Elementary in Detroit, said the Mass was an occasion for everyone to learn more about the Lord.
"Everybody must know about God and learn about God," said Jasmine, 14. "And when we come together and share the Word of God, it shows that we're one big, giant community or family."
Reflecting on the theme of service and Catholic schools, Brandon Miller, an eighth-grader from St. Michael School in Monroe, said the Mass is a way to remember to serve God along with service to the community.
"We help and serve each other, and we come here to serve God and follow in his love," said Brandon.
Educators, too, welcomed the chance to participate in Mass. Michael Reece, principal of Our Lady Star of the Sea Elementary in Grosse Pointe Woods, said it helps teachers and students alike appreciate the broader Church community. "Sometimes you can get kind of lost in your local site and you can forget how you're connected to the Church as a whole," Reece said. "(For students) to see others like themselves and how they live their faith, I think that helps them develop a deeper faith."
Reece could speak, too, as a Catholic school parent seven of his 10 children currently are Catholic school students. In that light, he said the schools Mass was a "real affirmation" for those who believe in Church schools.
"You see they believe in what Catholic education provides," he said.
At the close of Mass, Archbishop Vigneron thanked the priests and the teachers, principals and parents for their roles in Catholic education, which he said was one of the greatest callings a man or woman could have. He singled out the principals and priests, asking them to stand.
"I say 'thank you' now," the archbishop said. "But you can be sure, at the end of time, it will be Christ that thanks you."
Noting that the choir made up of students from Our Lady of Sorrows School in Farmington ended a communion hymn with a bold "yes," Archbishop Vigneron told students it takes "a tremendous amount of generosity and courage to say 'yes' to God."
He also said he believes some of the students in the congregation were called to the religious life and to the priesthood, and asked them to "put that question to God in your prayer, and ask him if that's your call."
Those who discerned and said "yes," he said, would be happy with their lives.
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