Not only did Wednesday mark the start of Lent, the Christian season before Easter, it also marked the end of an era.
Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron, who is retiring, celebrated his last Ash Wednesday Mass at the city’s St. Aloysius Catholic Church on Washington Boulevard.
“It’s very poignant,” Vigneron told the media after the Mass. “It’s a great blessing, too. I thought about all of the other Ash Wednesdays in the beginning of my time here and this is the last before the new archbishop comes. It’s a great privilege to be a priest to the people here.”
Before Easter arrives on April 20 this year, Christians around the world and in Metro Detroit are expected to prepare for the holy day by praying and avoiding temptation throughout the Lenten season.
For 40 days, they are to pray, do penance and give to the needy to mark the period when the Bible says Jesus Christ avoided temptations in the desert.
Sophia Amori, 19, said this Lenten season has a different meaning because it is the Novi resident’s first year at Michigan State University and away from a Catholic school.
“I’m excited about it,” she said. “I think it will make me more independent. I feel like it’s my first Lent as an adult.”
She and her friend, Elizabeth Lilley, 22, of Detroit, attended the Ash Wednesday Mass at St. Aloysius.
Lilley said she has similar feelings about the time.
“I just moved downtown and I’m not at my home parish anymore,” she said. “I recently graduated and this is my first Lent after I’ve joined the workforce. It’ll be interesting to see how I can take my faith into every day life and make Lenten observances.”
During his homily Wednesday, Vigneron said Christians’ journey through Lent “is a reminder that this is not our homeland.”
“We’re strangers, we’re not citizens of this world only,” he said. “Our true homeland is heaven. So we need to put aside those things that distract us … to stay on the journey we need penance, fasting, self-denial. We need to train our wills to put the will of God first.”
He added: “The pope says we do this together, we’re not traveling the path of Lent, the journey of Lent on our own. We travel with companions and each of us sustains and supports one another.”
For those who couldn’t attend Mass on Ash Wednesday, Vigneron said: “My message to everyone is we need to be on a journey of hope together. It seems to me there’s such a sense of hopelessness abroad. The pope has picked up on that and he invites us to be apostles of hope and share that hope with our neighbors.”
He also addressed the turmoil that seems to be everywhere at this time.
“We have to keep the affairs of human life in the perspective of God’s providence,” Vigneron said. “I don’t have a solution for resolving political conflicts but I know they’re not the ultimate conflicts and we rely on God’s providence. He’s pulled us through tough times in the past and he’ll pull us through again.”
Speaking of Pope Francis, the archbishop said everyone is praying for him while the pontiff recovers from double pneumonia. On Wednesday, the Vatican said the pope had increased his physical therapy and was in stable condition.
“Being in the hospital for three weeks is a very terrible ordeal and one that takes a long time to come back from,” Vigneron said. “So we have to sustain him with our prayers. From what I’ve seen in our news bulletins, he is very much at peace and all Christian people and people of good will are very much praying for him and wish for his recovery.”
After serving southeast Michigan’s Catholic community for more than 16 years, Vigneron on Sunday is set to celebrate a farewell Mass at Detroit’s Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament.
He submitted his resignation to the pope on Oct. 21, 2023, when he turned 75, as required by Catholic church law, according to the archdiocese. The pope appointed him to serve as apostolic administrator of Detroit until Archbishop-elect Edward Weisenburger’s installation.
More: Pope Francis names new Detroit archbishop
The archdiocese said it ordained Vigneron as a priest in 1975. He served as an auxiliary bishop in Detroit from 1996-2003 and was bishop of Oakland, California, from 2003-09. Pope Benedict XVI named him the Archdiocese of Detroit archbishop on Jan. 5, 2009.
Vigneron has said he plans to live at the Sacred Heart Major Seminary after retiring.
“I’m looking forward to the opportunity to study more and to be more engaged in teaching the faith,” he said Wednesday. “I’ll have fewer administrative responsibilities, so I’ll have more time for those other elements of the priesthood.”
Vigneron also welcomes Weisenberger, the current bishop of the Diocese of Tucson, as the new Archbishop of Detroit.
“I think he’s going to find a people of God who are alive with the faith and ready to follow his lead in this new chapter of our lives,” he said.
The Lenten season also coincides with a significant time for another of the world’s religions.
Muslims worldwide are celebrating Ramadan, which started Feb. 28 and continues through March 30. Until then, Muslim adults are expected to fast from dawn until sunset. They are also expected to increase the amount of worship, charity and good deeds.
@CharlesERamirez
