Title: Episode 15: Sacred Scripture
Archbishop: I'm Archbishop Allen Vigneron of the Archdiocese of Detroit. And this is the Eyes on Jesus podcast.
Mike: Hello, and welcome to the Eyes on Jesus podcast with Archbishop Allen Vigneron. I'm your host, Mike Chamberland,
Mary: And I am your host Mary Wilkerson.
Mike: We are excited to release new episodes once a month, so please make sure to subscribe and review wherever it is that you listen to podcasts. Archbishop, welcome, and thank you so much again for joining us.
Archbishop: Great to be with you, Mike and Mary. I'm so glad to start the new year with you.
Mike: Oh, that's very nice. So Archbishop, how was your last month? How was the month of December for you? How'd you celebrate Christmas? I'd love to hear just how’ve you been? What's going on with you?
Archbishop: Well, like for everyone else — or as for everyone else, I guess I should say being grammatically correct — as for everyone else, it was certainly a very peculiar Advent and a very peculiar Christmas. I don't know about you, the listeners, but it did seem strange not to have the holiday celebrations that have been typically so much part of my life. And then that led to a very peculiar, a peculiarly quiet Christmas. And I tried to take advantage of the quietness to be more contemplative, to be more aware, to think more about the meaning of the incarnation and that God is with us. I think that's one of the important parts of — well, that's the key message for us in the midst of our troubles these days in the pandemic, that he is Emmanuel. My own Christmas celebration, I tried to take very seriously the admonition to stay safe. So it was principally celebrating midnight Mass here at the cathedral and using the privilege I have of offering the Holy Father’s apostolic blessing to the people who were present. I suspect you had Christmases like that too.
Mike: Yeah, definitely. I mean, ours are a little bit more tame or quieter in the same respect. I don't know, how about you, Mary?
Mary: Yeah, ours were as well. Yeah, there wasn't as much family and not as much gathering and, you know, we had to just figure things out. So we didn't get to meet with the grandparents on one side. And that was hard, you know, but we did a zoom call. It was funny, my in-laws delivered presents and then we Zoom-opened them up with them. So we were able to connect. It's just, it's different, but you know, like you said, Archbishop Vigneron, I did find some beauty in the quiet of it. And, and I've really been trying to focus on that, like, the gift that it was to spend Christmas Day with just my children and husband. ‘Cause sometimes you get in this pattern during the holidays, you know, where you're running from place to place and trying to make sure you're seeing everybody. So there was blessing in the strange, you know, so.
Speaker 1 (00:03:00):
Archbishop: And even an awareness as we face this time of trial, it makes it all the more striking. It gives us all the greater kind of gratitude to God, that he wants to be with us in the things that make life very difficult.
Mike: You know, Archbishop, I was going to ask, did you, you mentioned it was a little bit quieter and different. How did you enjoy that quiet? And did you enjoy that difference? As Mary said, she kind of founded a blessing for this year. Did you find it equally a blessing or did you kind of lament your normal activities you do around this season?
Archbishop: I tried to find the grace in it. I'll be honest with you, Mike, but that was a challenge. I really did miss, say Christmas Day, having dinner with my family.
Mike: Yeah, for sure. That's hard. Archbishop, did you actually make — are you a New Year's resolution, man? Do you, do you make resolutions each year at all?
Archbishop: I'm making resolutions all the time.
[laughter]
Mary: On the regular!
Mike: Well, that's good. Any, anything specific for a 2021?
Archbishop: No, I can't say that there is, honestly I don't, yeah.
Mary: I feel like this time in,like, history, we were constantly evaluating, right? Like changes in our lives and yeah, it's interesting. So this time of year also, we are usually send thousands of people to travel to Washington DC for the annual March for life, which is held on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. This year because of the pandemic Catholics across the country instead were encouraged to observe a nationwide prayer vigil from Thursday, January 28th to Friday, January 29th with a live broadcast of Mass, a rosary, and live Holy Hours by bishops from diocese across the nation. Listeners who want to learn more about participating in those can go to the usccb.org and the nationalshrine.org. Archbishop Vigneron, have you ever attended the March for Life in person?
Archbishop: I have. It's very impressive. It's wonderful to see so many Catholics and people of other ecclesial communions and people of goodwill, all standing shoulder to shoulder for a witness to the sanctity of life. What's particularly impressive are all the young people who come for the March to Life. If I could brag a little bit, one of the great gifts I had when I was the Bishop of Oakland was to be part of what on the west coast is called the Walk for Life, on a different date, but it provides an opportunity for people who are just so very far away from the Capitol, from Washington DC, to be able to be very public about our witness to life, and I was glad to be there at the beginning, the first Walk for Life in the West coast. And again, it was an opportunity, particularly with a lot of young people, to give a witness to life.
Mary: So you were there when that started, you helped to start that 
Archbishop: That's right? Yeah —
Mary: That’s awesome —
Archbishop: It was the Pro-Life Office for San Francisco that organized it. And of course, just being the neighbor to the east, across the Bay, we were the likely ally.
Mary: That's great. You know, what can people, in your opinion, do to learn from home more about what it means to be pro-life? Like, as we open that up, especially in our culture, how do we help people to understand what it is to be pro-life, how to open that up in our homes?
Archbishop: Well, I think it's a whole range of activities. I mean, obviously the commemoration on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade puts us in mind of political action. You know, we have a firm conviction that we, the people of the United States govern the United States. And so we all need to be politically educated, what we can do to stop the spread of abortion and what we can do to advance the the right to life to make it to reverse the dissolution of a conviction about the right to life. But I think it's — it then branches out to much wider sensibilities about what we can do to support women who, and men, too, families that are having — experiencing crisis pregnancies. That's a very important part of being pro-life.
I think scientific knowledge is very helpful. Obviously this is something people talk about. I think the science of genetics supports the right to life, makes a great argument about the right to life. I think there are — people can examine their own lives and see what are the places in which they can contribute to a culture of life. And I think parents sharing this good news with their children and helping their children grow in appreciation for the right to life, because that's counter-cultural, that really goes against so many — so much of the dynamic of our contemporary culture, which is pro-abortion.
Mary: Right. It's funny trying to, with my little — my little kids, breaching that with some of my older ones, you know, I have a fourth grader and a third grader, and trying to figure out language that helps them to understand this particular duty of Catholics to speak up for the unborn. And just recently I was talking to my son and kind of explaining, you know, some people think in this country that, you know, if a child is in a womb, they don't necessarily have a right to exist and the horror for my sons — it was just shocking to them. You know, why would anybody think that? You know, and there was a simplicity in the reaction that really convicted me once again of this urgency to stand up for life in all of its forms, right. And it's super important to Catholics, I think.
Archbishop: It is. And it's one dimension of being pro-family in the sense of having a sense that we're responsible for one another. Saint John Paul, when he talked about the feminine charism particularly, said that the mother has a great call to exemplify the acceptance of the other, the child in her womb. And — but we need to be supportive of a woman answering that call of being responsible for somebody else. And I think that's a lesson that certainly is true about the child in the womb, but it's really about the whole of life. That we do belong to one another. We're not isolated elements that are unconnected. I think Pope Francis tries to get at this by his emphasis on the parable of the Good Samaritan. That there are a lot of ways we see the wounded person who fell among thieves, and we're all called when we see that to make that person part of our responsibility. 
Mary: Right. That's great. And hopefully we'll be able to have a real prayerful time. This will invite us, like we were saying with Advent and Christmas, we had to do it in a different way. And so those of us that are used to going to Washington DC, we get to pray in a different way, right? Like, less of a rally together and more of a contemplative understanding our role in prayer, right, with one another.
Archbishop: Yeah. And I think particularly in that sense, to be one with our Blessed Mother, particularly Our Lady of Guadalupe, she's a great patroness for the unborn because of her having herself depicted as pregnant in the tilma as a witness to the sanctity of life. Just to mention Mary, one of the things we're doing, besides what's going on from the USCCB, on the 23rd of January, Saturday at 11 in the morning I'm going to offer Mass for the sanctity of life at the Cathedral, and that's going to be live-streamed. 
Mary: Oh, wonderful. That's good to know so that we can kind of join together locally with you. So.
Mike: Well, Archbishop, today we're really excited to dive in and talk about all things sacred Scripture today. I know you're going to be releasing a new pastoral note called the Power of the Word of God, which is being released on January 24th. And that timing is not a coincidence of course, ‘cause on January 24th, the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, Pope Francis last year established as the Sunday of the Word of God. So coinciding with  both those events, here in the Archdiocese of Detroit, we're recognizing the importance of Scripture in our lives, of course. And I know many people, because of a more recent podcast that's out there, you know, Fr. Mike Schmitz is doing a Bible in a Year, and it just seems like with COVID, and especially some of our civil unrest, I think some people are starting to turn a little bit more back to God and turning to prayer, and seeing that there's a need for something outside of ourselves for resolution. And so many people are turning back to Scripture to encounter God and to fuel themselves with God's own Word and revelation. So we're really excited to get into this topic today. And so to begin with, I wanted to ask you just, you know, your own kind of relationship with Scripture and what the Church teaches about Scripture and just kind of an overall view of that.
Archbishop: I think I wind up — my own way of embracing the gift of the sacred Scripture is through the lens, through the window, the perspective of the sacred liturgy. And I think a lot of that comes from my own ministry. In this point, I again and again wind up being clear that what the sacred Scripture witnesses to, is the same thing that I experience in the sacraments and the other celebrations of the sacred liturgy. And so I go again and again to resources that help me appreciate the sacred Scriptures in their relation to the liturgy. And I've grown certainly over these decades since I've been a priest in my understanding that the real interpretive key to the Scripture is the sacred liturgy. Everything that we read in the scripture is really also about the liturgy, because it's about Jesus, and Christ is made present to us in the liturgy. So I see these two gifts as intimately related and for me, they illuminate one another powerfully.
Mike: Beautiful. Archbishop, I don't know if you wouldn't mind, just speaking a little bit about what the, you know, obviously the Bible is, as a book, as a library of books has been around for a long time. It's, you know — I don't know if it's still the most purchased or most read book. But obviously there's many perspectives on Scripture, especially in today's day and age. What does the Catholic church itself teach about sacred Scripture? If you wouldn't mind just kind of a general overview on that?
Archbishop: Well, I mean, a real good summary of course, about the church's doctrine, her belief about sacred Scripture is found in the Catechism of the Catholic church. I think some basic points, orienting points are, first of all, that sacred Scripture has two authors. It has a human author and a divine author. And that there isn't anything in the Scripture that is not willed by God to be there. This can seem peculiar to us because in our ordinary way of thinking about things, if Mike, if you and I, Mary, you and I, or the three of us were to author something together, we might have to compromise, or we each do a piece of it, but we wouldn't think about that we are all, each of us is totally the author of everything, But that's not the way God works with his human instruments.
So that, say the Gospel according to St. Matthew, or say a letter of St. Paul, like the letter to the Romans, Paul wrote it, it's all Paul. And yet at the same time, there isn't anything in there that God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit did not want to be there. I think that that's the way we have to begin so that through this human agency, God is speaking to us. God takes the initiative out of his eternal silence to speak to us. That's Jesus. And the witness to Jesus in the sacred Scripture, and so that's why it's such a blessing to us. It's a set of writings, it's a book unlike any other book because it's authored by God himself. So, as I said, it's all about Christ. We say in the creed who has spoken to us, the Holy Spirit has spoken to us through the prophets, through the Scripture. The Holy spirit can't say anything other than the Word who became flesh in the womb of Our Lady.
So it's all about Jesus. Everything we read. Now, some of it's a little harder to see how it is about Christ, but it at least — I mean, a simple way is some of the, even the most complex and obscure passages in the Old Testament at least are about Christ insofar as they help prepare for his coming. And again, back to that point, the best way is — not the, maybe not the best way, but the fullest way to think about Scripture is within the context of the liturgy. I mean, we use sacred Scripture. We pray with it in private, we pray with it in small groups, we study it, but it takes on its brightest meaning — I guess that's the best way to put it — when it's proclaimed in the liturgy, because in the action of Christ our head, in his body the Church and liturgy, what is proclaimed is experienced. And so even when we're reading Scripture privately, meditating on it, I think we do well always to remember how it points to its fulfillment in the sacred liturgy. The liturgy and the Scripture belong together. If you take one part away, you really unravel the other part. 
And then I suppose the last point I would make is that there's a grace in every text for every person. If God chose so to speak, and he did, he must have wanted something for me in his speaking. There's a blessing in the Word, the text, the chapter that he wants me to have, and the Holy Spirit will open that up for me on any particular day. That's why praying to the Holy Spirit before meditating or studying the Scripture is so important, you know. Father, what do you want me to hear? What's here today for me? And one of the things that's true about the Scripture is what I hear God saying in a certain verse today might be very different from what I heard last year depending on what's going on in my life. But it applies to my life, and it's a word of comfort, often a word of challenge as well, of course, a word of a call and a comfort for where I am at this point in my history. 
I've talked a long time. What are you all, what do you all talk about? How does it work for you?
Mary: It's so interesting listening to you talk. There's two big things just while you were speaking — that connection to the liturgy, I'm not sure I always focus on that, and that's such a way to kind of open up Scripture wider and deeper than what I sometimes do. And then that other piece that you spoke about, that God is speaking to each of us. In this past year, I've been able to — I've been very intentional about waking up in the morning before any of my kids wake up and spending time with the Word of God — and it is, it's just like you said. There's verses, there's chapters that I've read a hundred times before, maybe not that many, but that come alive in a new way based on my experience of today. It really is like God speaking. You can meditate on that forever. Right, Mike? Do you find that too?
Mike: Oh yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, it's funny, like you, Mary, I didn't really think about that liturgical connection per se as much. However, I do it because I do read the readings of every day. So that is obviously through our liturgical texts and our lectionary that the Church in its wisdom has put forth for us. And I know over the course of three years, you know, much, if not almost all, the entire Bible is heard, if you're reading all of the readings every day. So I know that's been a practice of mine for a while, and I've always found it — you know, prayer life ebbs and flows. There's times where I get deeper into Scripture and my prayer life, and times where, you know, I'll focus more on praying a rosary or something instead. But I know, like you said, every time I've gone into the focus on it and really focus, like, really try to meditate and steep myself in the Word, it's always efficacious. There's always good things that come from it.
Mary: Yeah, it’s like God's personally speaking to me. I really felt that a lot this year, especially with some of the chaos of what we've been living through, that I'm finding I'm to Scripture in a different way than I ever have before. And I think a lot of people are, Mike, you alluded to that in the beginning of the podcast, that there seems to be a hunger from a lot of different areas to be closer to God, and to be closer to his Word. I think that's, that's coming alive. You, Archbishop, in your new pastoral note, you encouraged Catholics to be renewed in their zeal to study the Bible and to teach it even to the very young. What did you mean by that?
Archbishop: To teach it to the very young, I feel we start with that. I think the best way about teaching is to share. Far as I've read, actually even some sociological analysis about useful catechesis, but it says that parents, especially in the fulfillment of their responsibility to be the primary catechist of their children, the formaters of their kids, what works best is not so much telling them what to do, but to do it with them. And I think to model that and to incorporate that for children is one of the best ways that one can help young people, families can help, can form the habit of using sacred Scripture. Spontaneous prayer, read a text, and then offer one's response to God's Word. “This is what I hear God saying, and this is what I say back,” and to invite the other members of the family, the other spouse, the children, grandparents to respond. Is that simple enough, but useful enough?
Mary: I think. You know, what it made me think about when you were talking is the gift — and I always talk about this when I talk to people about the Archdiocese of Detroit — of that, the book that was put forth, the 52 Sundays movement of reading Scripture with your family and then opening it up throughout the week and making Sunday kind of a sacred day. And it's enhanced our family, and it's exactly what you said, Archbishop Vigneron, we read it in the morning on Sunday morning, all the kids gather, first thing, we read the Scripture out of the book and then we use the guided questions to really open it up. And what's funny — because it ties back to the liturgy piece that you're saying — I find when we do that on Sunday morning, when we go to Mass then as a family, an hour later, or two hours later, my children are able to listen differently because we've opened it up at home, you know? So they already own the Scripture versus kind of getting, you know, distracted at mass, or it's hard to stay focused. It sounds familiar to them because we've read it at home first, you know? So that's kind of, that's a neat way to see how it connects to the liturgy as well. You also talk about —
Archbishop: Well, let's stop there a minute, ‘cause I'm going to ask both of you: what do you find is provoked in the hearts of the children in there? I'm fascinated by the way the Holy Spirit works, especially in young children, to attract them to God and to provoke responses from God. What do you see goes on in the hearts of your kids?
Mary: So I can only say that, I think — when I think about when I was growing up, we did not read Scripture at home a lot. In fact, my parents — and I wanted to ask you about this too. My parents were almost... my parents weren't, but their parents, so my grandparents, almost cautioned against reading Scripture privately at home, and then to only do it within the experience of the liturgy. And so I never read it and owned Scripture until I was an adult. So it was just something we did on Sundays, you know, it would kind of go over my head a lot, if I'm being honest. And I feel like for my kids, they're having a different experience because, for instance, this weekend when we're reading about the baptism of Jesus, we're talking about their baptisms and we're talking about the role of John the Baptist and they're making connections in ways that I definitely didn't do when I was a child at all. Like I —it was never something that was — the story of Jesus seemed very far away from me when I was growing up, and I think what reading Scripture in our family has done is it's made the person of Jesus close to them and their experiences. If that, does that make sense?
Archbishop: Does it provoke in them something that's marvelous that you notice in their hearts? What, I mean, I presume it does. But, what do you see?
Mary: Yeah, I mean, well, again, I'm just going to go to 52 Sundays in our experience — the questions that we ask, you know, so saying, one of the questions this week from the baptism of Jesus — and that dates this podcast, but that's when we had just heard that Scripture this Sunday — was, you know, why do you think that the Holy Spirit said, “This is my beloved son?” And one of my kids, Archbishop Vigneron, answers — and they're not being led — says, “Well, because they wanted — the Holy Spirit wanted people to understand that Jesus was God,” like the people that were there, you know? And they came up with that themselves. And so, yeah, I think reading, it helps them to connect in a different way to the story of Christ. Right? What about you Mike? Like when you've done it with teenagers?
Mike: Yeah. I don't have any children at home, Archbishop, but I know my years of doing youth ministry, I feel like what I found — and this needed to be kind of tactfully led by myself as a youth minister or other youth ministers that I saw — but to really, the encouragement of young people to utilize their imagination. And I think any time that that was drawn out well by the catechist or youth minister, whoever, the encouragement to utilize imagination, the encouragement to kind of do a Lectio Divina with the utilization of imagination, that's where I really saw, like, kind of the pop and the sizzle, you know what I mean, going on in the young people's minds, and it spoke into their hearts in a different way, because they really put themselves into the scenes and really put themselves into that perspective rather than kind of reading a dusty old book. And it became more alive and real. And I think it, in and through doing that methodology, utilization of imagination, it helped them to actually not just read an old book, but to encounter Christ in his actual reality. Like, that he's not just a dead literary character, but he's alive today. That's, that's the type of things that I saw in my years of ministry, for sure, with young people.
Archbishop: Well, this is a great act of faith to pick up the Scriptures with this expectation that this is God speaking. And he wants me to hear something in particular that has never been heard before, because it's to be heard today, this day by me. And that requires a great act of faith — again, inspired by the Holy Spirit, he makes it happen — that God really cares about breaking through and communicating to me. In fact, in some sense, it's more important to God than it is to me, for him and me to have this conversation.
Mary: And that leads to me to you, you call Scripture a “dialogue of love” in your pastoral note. And is that kind of what you're talking about when you talk about the fact that it's more important to God, almost for me to have this than for me?
Archbishop: Yeah. And, and the almos —  I mean, we have to be careful when we talk about God the Father, but I mean, we can talk about God the Son who is incarnate and has a human heart and human feelings. And he certainly represents the fullness of the initiative of the Father to draw near to us. And he seeks to woo us. He seeks to draw us into a love affair with him. This is exemplified in speaking of the Church herself as the spouse of Christ, and Christ a spouse to each one of us, each soul is in some sense, married to Christ. And if people are espoused each to other, they need to communicate. I mean, that's why marriages fall apart, because they're — people stop communicating.
Mike: You know, that's one of my favorite things about your letter too, is that you have a whole section in it talking about responding to the Word. And to be honest, I think that's an area, like you were just saying about the dialogue of love, we've often forgotten about. I think we've gotten almost too comfortable with being passively — just reading this, like as a historical text or to study it, like it's any other old book, but I like that you had a whole section on response. And I think because we haven't necessarily called for that enough or invited people to think through that idea of response enough, it hasn't seemed like a dialogue and therefore it hasn't seemed like an encounter. It seemed more like a study of something kind of distant. I know one way that we can do, obviously, that great response is by utilizing Lectio Divina as a great way to learn to pray in a method that helps us to kind of grow in a response. Can you speak a little bit to Lectio Divina and what, how it's played a role in your own life, Archbishop, and what it is?
Archbishop: Well, it's a pretty simple approach that really requires — first of all, beginning, picking up the text with a confidence that there's something today that God wants me to hear. He wants to speak to my heart. And so to meditatively — some people read the whole text through once and then go back and read in a bit until something strikes their attention, and they call the Lectio, the reading. And this already requires an act of faith that God wants me to hear something. And that — an act of confidence that what strikes my imagination and captures my attention is what I should pay attention to. That's not just me. That's the Holy Spirit who dwells in my heart underscoring, kind of highlighting something that I should pay attention to. Then there's the proper called meditation. Some people call it simply savoring, to think about what's captured my imagination, to look at it from several directions, to understand, but I would say not simply intellectual understanding, but to appreciate. To listen. What is emerging out of say, — let's pick an example. 
One that always strikes me is Jesus restoring to life the dead son of the widowed woman of Nain. One thing that captures my attention is just Jesus touching the bier and stopping everyone. Inevitably that is an object of my meditatio, of my meditation. And I think about that gesture as one of great compassion. It's the sort of thing that any friend would do. I mean, you see it, I see it so often when I go to a wake, how people want to touch the the coffin, but here, I mean, I appreciated that this is God the Son who took on flesh so that he could do something like this, that he could be there to touch the bier that this weeping widow is following.
And then whatever — I've offered an example to try and help clarify what's going on. So what captures my attention to examine, to meditate, to chew on what's going on. And then to respond. To have confidence that those insights, that what's been provoked in my thinking and in my feelings have been given to me by the Holy Spirit. And then the third step is to speak, oratio. To respond. In light of what I've seen, what I felt as part of all of this, what do I want to say? How do I respond? Is it simply to say thanks? What are the right things? What needs to be said? I think we're all accustomed to that kind of conversation. Things are presented to us as in our conversation partner, what's the right thing to answer? What fits, what needs to be — what do I need to say to God? What do I need to say to Jesus because of what I've noticed about his compassion? And then the fourth step — and these can be articulated in more detail, but in the letter just talks about contemplatio, contemplation — just to rest in peace, enjoy what's gone on in the conversation. To simply treasure it as a gift that's been given to me. 
And I will say sometimes, what I wind up thanking God for is for the opportunity to have tried to pray, and sometimes not much light comes. But even if there's no strong experience of light, that's the gift God gave me in prayer today, because I'm confident that whenever I put myself in God's presence in prayer, he gives me gifts, but sometimes he doesn't let me feel them. But I believe with all my heart that God wants to communicate with me. And even if I don't feel the communication, he's drawing me in love. So that's a little bit of an example. I will say, one of the ways that — a kind of very particular form of Lectio Divina that I use is the one that's been taught by St. Ignatius Loyola, using my imagination.
Mary: It's funny that you asked that question. This morning I was praying with the daily readings and from the Gospel of Mark, there was a line where I think it was Simon went and found Jesus and said, “Everyone's looking for you,” and exactly what you were just talking about, Archbishop, as I kind of read through that — and actually I was using an app where they read it out loud, the daily reading — that line just kept coming to me. And that fourth step that you talked about just sitting at kind of peace and contemplation with that piece of Scripture for me, that, you know, the disciples telling Jesus, “people are looking for you,” and his response to that — I feel like sometimes as Church ministers, you we're in that situation like “Jesus, people are looking for you!” And so I'm only saying that to illustrate it surprises me in the most delightful way, how, when I choose to be intentional and quiet with Scripture, more often than not, Jesus has —he is, he's speaking to me. He's speaking to me through his Word. And that, it's a cool thing to do. If people listening have not ever really intentionally tried to sit with God's speaking to us, it's pretty profound.
Archbishop: You think about all the weird ways people have tried to divine the mind of God, things like ouija boards or astrology, all of those — I mean, some of it a descent into terrible superstition. But we don't — God has taken the initiative. He has spoken to us. This is the grace of it. It's not like we have to torture the world in order to find out what God thinks and what God's attitudes are. He has spoken to us. And St. Paul says, “Last of all, he has spoken to us in Christ Jesus. And the ultimate speaking is the cross and the Resurrection.” I'm sorry, Mary. I interrupted you.
Mary: No, you didn't. No, that was — I'm really glad that you said that. This is such a good conversation, I think, because it's such an important piece of our spiritual life. And Mike, you've talked with me too about this idea of God searching for us and God wanting to speak to us. And that Scripture often we look at as man's desire to find God, right, but that it can also be looked at as God's desire to find us. So your pastoral note was released on this year's Sunday of the Word of God, or will be being released on that established last year by Pope Francis. Can you tell us more about Sunday of the Word of God and how that came about? We talked a little bit about it last year. I remember, but if you want to speak to it and kind of refresh our memories.
Archbishop: Well, I think it's, so the response of the Holy Father to the Synod that was on the topic about the Word of God and a way to advance all of us in picking up really Pope Benedict's Verbum Domini after that Synod. Really, it continues to be part of the implementation of the Second Vatican Council with its constitution on divine revelation. I think it's quite coherent as a pastoral strategy. And in a world where the Good News is taken less and less for granted and becomes more and more obscure, we have to be more and more responsible personally to be attentive and hear the Word and embrace it.
Mary: And when Pope Francis kind of instituted this day with an apostolic letter, why did he choose the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time? Is there any significance to that in the liturgical year, or is it just a date to kind of...
Archbishop: Well, I think it takes us after the Christmas cycle and it logically picks up on the rhythm of after celebrating the incarnation, before we move into Lent to in this time be aware of hearing the Word of God and responding to the Word of God
Mike: Archbishop, as we can kind of conclude this part of the discussion, I wonder if you might be willing to share, you know, what is your favorite story or passage of Scripture, and what's your kind of preferred way? I know you mentioned the liturgy of course earlier, but do you have kind of your own personal methodology or way that you choose to sit with Scripture? Do you always kind of go into Lectio Divina and use your imagination? I know you kind of referred to earlier, but just kind of, how do you, as an Archbishop of our archdiocese choose to kind of come close to scripture, and also, what is your favorite passage or story that you kind of go to?
Archbishop: Well, two things, so — well, three things that are going on in my life these days about the Sacred Scripture: one is I'm paying more and more attention to being attentive to the Psalms I pray in the Divine Office. And I've been a priest now since, gee, what year was that? 1975 I was ordained a priest. And so I was ordained a deacon in 1973. The Divine Office became, the Liturgy of the Hours, a grave responsibility for me from that year, but I was already praying parts of the Office, for sure. So it's been decades that I've been immersed in the Psalms every day, and I've tried to be refreshed in my use of the Psalms in the Divine Office, and particularly to think, and to let myself be stopped when something captures my attention, whether a phrase in the psalm seems appropriately understood is coming from the heart and mind of Jesus. Recently, and I'm sorry, I don't remember the number of the psalm, but there is a line, “My heart is numb within me,” and I was thinking about how that applies to our Lord in his Agony in the Garden, the numb  — what must have been going on in his heart. And another way that the element, a part of a psalm will capture my attention is to see how it illuminates something that's going on in my life. So that's one way that I'm these days particularly engaged with the Sacred Scripture. 
The second is my daily meditation, and I usually work, usually set my hour of meditation, Holy Hour, center it on the daily readings and let God show me in those readings what he then will provide for me in my daily offering of the Holy Eucharist. So that's the typical way I go about my meditatio, my engagement with  — my prayerful engagement with the Sacred sSripture.
And then thirdly, I find, especially in these last few years, I am spending more and more time reading commentaries on the Sacred Scripture. That's not been  — the last few years it's been particularly important to me. And I would mention two authors in particular. One is  a veteran professor of Sacred Scripture at the Jesuit University in Rome, a man named Venoir, with his commentaries on the letter to the Hebrews, and this has captured a lot of my attention. The other author who has helped me very much in my appreciation in these last years is the Anglican professor who eventually became a Bishop in the Anglican church and now has resigned and gone back to teaching, Nicholas Thomas Wright, N.T. Wright. And I find his commentaries very, very illuminative. And well, actually, particularly I'm finding it helpful to read commentaries on the Wisdom literature, the Book of Wisdom co-held with those books.
Mary: You know, we didn't ask you earlier, and I'm curious now…. you've explained kind of in your priestly formation how you use Scripture, when you were younger, when you were a child, did you read Scripture aside from Mass, or did you just really kind of listen to the Word in Mass? What was your experience like, kind of, as you walked your path to your vocation? Was Scripture a big part of it?
Archbishop: In grade school, Scripture was part of our catechesis insofar as we had a book called Bible History, and I think the textbooks we used were already in use by my dad when he was a student at Immaculate Conception in Anchorville. One of the most important formations I received in Sacred Scripture in an attitude about Scripture came from the direction our parish priest, Fr. Harry Paul, gone to God now some years, brought to our parish in his interest in the liturgical movement. And so one thing that really sticks in my mind is he brought to our parish a form of the Stations of the Cross that were principally based upon the Sacred Scripture. I remember the station “Jesus is stripped of his garments.” And then what was read is the texts, “They divided my garments among them, and for my vesture, they cast lots,” which is an Old Testament text, but applied to the mystery of the life of Jesus. And as I look back on my own formation, that was very important as a way for me to get some foundational orientations about the Sacred Scripture. And I think I've mentioned my own sense of the complementarity, the necessary togetherness of Scripture and the liturgy. I think those childhood experiences were already a part of that. 
When I came to the high school seminary in the ninth grade, one of the books we had to buy was the confraternity edition of the Bible. This is the first time I ever owned a Bible. I think probably the first time I ever had one at my particular use. And I still have that book, I keep it. It's a real precious  — now the cover’s fallen off, but it's a precious thing to me. And I remember as a 14-year-old, just being in awe that somehow I now owned a Bibl. Iit was really a great blessing. And I was blessed in my religion courses in the high school seminary in the ninth grade to have the whole curriculum that year as it was throughout the Archdiocese of Detroit in those years, so we're talking about 1962, was salvation history curriculum. It was, I believe, written by one of the priests of the archdiocese. That was a pretty up-to-date movement at that time. And I think that formation was very important in my understanding of the Sacred Scripture.
Mary: That's awesome. It's good to kind of hear your history of walking with Scripture. I wanted to make sure before we end to say that the archdiocese is doing some really cool things in 2021 with Scripture. If you go to the Unleash the Gospel website, they have all kinds of challenges and they put it together  — Mike and I were kind of looking at it together  — in a really neat way where you can kind of accept a challenge or a commitment to walk with Scripture this year. And some of them there's like, the way they phrased it was through “running the race,” right? So there's like a 5k challenge, and then there's a 10k challenge. And if you want to do the marathon, if you want to do the ultra marathon, different challenges that we have, and I find things like that are really helpful when there's a, hey, your challenge is to sit with Scripture every single day and be accountable to that time. And so I want to make sure everybody looks into that this year, because I think it's going to really enhance our worship in the Archdiocese of Detroit. 
So is there anything else you want to add about Sacred Scripture, Archbishop?
Archbishop: To all of us, we need to join together to give God praise and thanks for this great gift. It's one of the precious, precious objects that he has given to his Church.
Mary: So every month we ask people in the Archdiocese of Detroit to submit questions, and then we have an opportunity to ask them to you, Archbishop Vigneron. If anyone listening would like to submit any questions, please email eyesonjesuspodcast@aod.org. Make sure to include your name and your parish, and, of course, your question. 
Our first question comes from Pam at Our Lady of Good Counsel. Pam says, “Right now in the AOD, you can only officially belong to one parish at a time. If you want to join a second parish, you are taken off the rolls of the first parish. When Families of Parishes begins, can you belong to all the parishes in your family? Can you, or should you financially support them all?”
Archbishop: Mary, one of the problems is, I don't have an answer for that question. I think that's a cash out, a question about consequences for the direction we're taking that I don't know that I've seen articulated, but it's a good question. And I will bring it with me to the people that I consult with, and we'll talk about it.
Mary: That is a good question about the practicalities of Families of Parishes. I think we talked a lot on the last episode about the kind of philosophy behind it, but there are some real practical things that I'm sure people are thinking. So cool, we look forward to that answer. 
Mike: Wonderful. Archbishop, the second question we have here for you is from Marlese, and she asks, “I love that we are trying to unleash the Gospel and increase the number of people who have a relationship with the Holy Trinity. Are there any indicators that progress has been made since this has began?”
Archbishop: I think the indicators are pretty much anecdotal at this point, but they are very strong. Actually I thought it was really interesting to me in my own Christmas cards, how many cards I got from people who I don't know that I ordinarily would get them from, but who, who say that the commitment to Unleash the Gospel has been very important in them, for them in their lives.
Mary: It's been inspiring, I think, and even the language behind it that we all now have this unified language of unleashing the Gospel, so we can see all these different movements. You know, I referred to the Scripture reading of 52 Sundays, it's all thought of, of this kind of collective community growing together through the Archdiocese of Detroit. So that’s neat!
Mike: And I do know that, I mean, it's making a national impact as well. I mean, I know I've heard many people that are  — that have nothing to do with the Archdiocese of Detroit, people that live in various other places, they're seeing what we're doing here in Detroit, they're taking note and they're even utilizing many of the resources that were there we're putting out. So I think hopefully there's a slow but steady progress that’s being made. From my perspective, anyway.
Archbishop: One data point that I have seen is how many connections through email and social media we've made. And Edmundo Reyes tells me that those numbers are very, very significant.
Mary: Well, they do such a good job too, I think within the Communications department, of making sure people can stay connected in a really modern way, which I'm not sure every diocese does that, and I think it really helps us to feel connected to the wider kind of Church in Detroit picture. So.
Edmundo: I know that we should use all of the leadership techniques and natural wisdom that are appropriate for assessment, but in the end it is ultimately going to be the assessment at the last judgment.
Mary: That is correct. We'll be able to see all of that with new eyes when we enter into eternity. So exactly. Very good.
All right, well, Maggie at St. Paul on the Lake asked this question. We've asked it to you before, but I think it's good to reevaluate, especially as we move through different times and culture and years and society, and I don't know, a pandemic. “If you could meet or have dinner with one Saint or Pope in 2021, who would it be and why?”
Archbishop: I don't know that I would have said this even a few months ago, but right now it would be St. Bernadette. I've been led to particularly look at the remarks St. John Paul made when he was on pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1983 for a variety of reasons. And some of you know, some of the listeners know how important to Lourdes is to me in my own devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John Paul is, as always, a brilliant prophetic voice about the meaning of Lourdes and especially about the significance of Bernadette's responsibility as an evangelist, which I think is how she needs to be understood. That God the Son sent his mother to bring good news at Lourdes, and Our Lady then entrusted the Good News in turn to Bernadette.
And she more and more fascinates me as an evangelist, as somebody who unleashed the Gospel for her time and her place. And I think it would be interesting to compare notes with her about what the challenges she faced and where she got the strength to be the evangelist that she was sent to be. I think she was pretty stubborn, self  — and, you know, I presume a lot of the listeners will have seen the Song of Bernadette, the movie, the Oscar-winning movie. She just wasn't going to be intimidated by anybody and they all try to intimidate her. And she was this young teenager and she just knew what she knew, and I find that very, very inspiring. And so I think that would be fascinating. And, and the other part that's very interesting is Our Lady, you know, said to Bernadette that as privileged as she was with these revelations, it didn't mean that her life was going to be easy, that Our Lady said she didn't promise Bernadette joy in this world that was to come in the next.
And to me, Bernadette's heroism about all of that and just her matter of factness, it's all very, very inspiring. You know, they tried to get Bernadette  — I think once she left the convent and came back to Lourdes, but I'm not even sure about that, but she, the people wanted her back and she basically said, “That's not my place anymore.” That more or less she said she fulfilled her responsibility and her place was to be in the convent in Nevarre,
Mike: Archbishop one final question for you today. And this is from Alexandria, from St. Cyril and Methodius Parish. And she asks, “How do you discern how to respond when someone wants to deviate from Church teaching out of a misguided sense of compassion. How do you meet that person where they are at, affirm their desire to show compassion, but still give them truth? What is it like for you as a shepherd of the Church?”
Archbishop: Those are lots of questions, aren't they? And it's very much part of our world today. I think it depends how the situation arises and what the situation is. There's a difference between that kind of challenge emerging at work or at school, casually, or where there can be a real serious conversation. And also whether it's about family and friends or just a passing acquaintance. But always to be attentive to the other person to make the good of that other person the preeminent concern that one has, rather than winning the argument. To understand that if God has brought me by his Divine Providence into this situation so that I can do some good, I can glorify him and I can be his instrument for this, for my neighbor, my brother, my sister, I think, has to begin there. Then to speak the truth, insofar as it can well be heard. To present the truth accurately, of course, the saving truth but in as not accommodating, but as open way as one can offer it.And to affirm that one is offering a hard truth in love. 
And finally, I suppose, to make a personal witness to say, in articulating the saving truth, what it means to me, why I see it as not something that is onerous, but something something that helps me flourish and I believe will help you flourish as well. For myself, I mean this is certainly very much part of being a priest in the 21st century, is people finding it difficult to accept the Gospel when I offer it. But I try to think about the oncologist who is responsible to her patients, hia patients, and how irresponsible it would be to remind a patient who smoked that that's not good for them, even if they like smoking. Sharing the truth is a great act of love. I was talking to a physician about this the other day, a guy who’s my friend said, “Yeah that's part of being a good practitioner of medicine is to give good advice and to offer it in a way that it makes it as accessible as possible so that people will be able to respond to that advice.”
Mary: It's interesting to look at it through a medical lens, you know, because of course a doctor would have to deliver news, but we'd want a doctor to do it, like you said, in a way that's accessible so that the person understands how smoking affects them negatively and wants something different for themselves, you know, versus beating them over the head, you know, with their addiction. So there's a lot you can unpack with that analogy right there, I think.
Archbishop: Well, and what I like about the analogy Mary, is that it implicitly affirms that the message of the Gospel, the doctrine of the Church is not an opinion. It's not something that — it's not an ideology that, you know, you one might be inclined toward this or that sort of a stance on any particular issue, but these are truths and they have a status as reliable as a medical science. THey’re truth. And what would be a greater act of uncharity than to lie to people about the truth, right? I don't  — nobody wants to be lied to, really.
Mike: Well Archbishop, thank you again so much for joining us once more, for listening to these questions and for answering them. It's always a pleasure to be with you. Before we close with your blessing, Archbishop, is there something that we can pray for you? Is there some prayer intention that's on your heart that we, the listeners can be praying for for you in this next month?
Archbishop: Well, we talked about the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, and let's all be united in prayer for the power of the Holy Spirit to overturn that erroneous decision, that false decision about the nature of life in the womb.
Mike: That's very good, will do. And Archbishop, if you wouldn't mind, could you please close us with a prayer and blessing?
Archbishop: Yes. Lord God, we ask you to receive all of our aspirations to draw close to you as you draw us to yourself. We ask, especially, that we will make great use, accept wholeheartedly the blessing of your Word in Sacred Scripture so that the Word will take root in our lives and bear much good fruit. And may almighty God bless you, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
All: Amen.
Mary: And stay tuned for the next episode of Eyes on Jesus, a new episode every month. And if you enjoyed listening, you might also like Detroit Stories, a new podcast from the Archdiocese of Detroit, find it on your favorite podcast app.