By Archbishop Thomas Wenski - The Archdiocese of Miami
Archbishop Thomas Wenski preached this homily March 25, 2022 at St. Augustine Church and Catholic Student Center in Coral Gables. He was there to install Father Richard Vigoa as St. Augustine’s pastor.
Today we celebrate the Annunciation of the Lord when Mary gave her consent to God’s plan and the Word was made flesh in her womb. Earlier today at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Charity, I joined with the Holy Father and bishops throughout the world to entrust our troubled planet, and especially Russia and Ukraine, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. May we all imitate her “fiat.” “May it be done to me according to your word.” The peace that we yearn for and seek – among nations, among families, in our own hearts – is found only when we learn to say: “fiat” to God and to his will for us.
Of course, I am here this evening to formally install Father Richard Vigoa as your new pastor. When a priest is given the responsibility of leading a parish for the first time, I give him the title of administrator. Then, if he does not mess up too badly, I name him a pastor. Father Vigoa hasn’t messed up. He has done very well. I sent him to you after Msgr. [Tomas] Marin died. Father Vigoa was doing an excellent job as my priest secretary. It wasn’t easy for me to give him up. And I hope you all appreciate that.
Now he’s been here for a little over two years – and he brought you through the pandemic. Now, as “pastor,” he has a new title but the same responsibilities, and the same salary. But, by naming him pastor, I am basically saying: You get to keep him for a while longer. As a zealous pastor of souls, he should have no agenda other than to proclaim to you in union with his bishop Jesus Christ – crucified and yet risen from the dead.
Christianity isn’t, as some of our critics have suggested over the centuries, “a pie in the sky” religion, a way of escaping the difficulties and problems of daily life. Our worship of God does not remove us from the world but rather it inserts us in the world in a new way. Yes, as Church, we are called not to be of the world – yet we remain in the world, not to be against the world but to be for it. Christ calls us to transform the world, to make this world more just, more fraternal, more peaceful.
This requires, on our part, hard work: and this is basically the message of Lent and its call for renewed conversion of our minds and hearts, for one cannot transform the world without transforming first oneself.
For the Christian, love is much more than just a sentiment or some passing emotion. For the Christian, love is not about “feeling good” but rather it is about “doing good.” For a pastor, doing good requires that he seek to grow in the exercise of what St. John Paul II called “pastoral charity.” Founded on the Eucharist, pastoral charity leads us to give of our time generously – even when people demand of us our time at inopportune moments; pastoral charity demands a zeal for souls so that no one is considered beyond reach, beyond hope. Pastoral charity looks out for the marginalized, the neglected, the lonely: in other words, the least, the last and the lost sheep. A true pastor feeds the sheep – and doesn’t seek to feed off the sheep.
Father Vigoa, as your pastor, is to be a faithful steward of you, the people entrusted to his care, and he is to dispense to you – with single minded and wholehearted devotion – the means of grace by preaching the Word and administering the sacraments.
Richard, love your people with a shepherd’s heart and feed them, lead them to Christ and teach them gently – by word and example.
Dear people of St. Augustine, Father Vigoa is entrusted with the “care of your souls,” what in Latin is called the “cura animarum.”
This care of souls is a threefold task: first, he must teach you faithfully what the Church believes and teaches. He doesn’t speak in his own name but in the name of Christ; second, he must lead you, like the Good Shepherd, to safe pastures and third, he must bring you to greater holiness. In the confessional, in the Eucharist, in the anointing at baptisms, confirmations and in the care of the sick, Father Vigoa will strengthen you in the grace that will have you grow in holiness before the Lord.
Father Vigoa, I am sure, will serve you well; and he will serve not by calling attention to himself but by calling attention to the Lord; he will serve not by seeking his own interests but by putting first God’s will and his people’s good and well-being; he will serve not by trying to please everyone – for one who tries to do that usually ends up pleasing no one; rather he will serve you best by trying to please the Lord in all things.
Father will renew in your presence the promises he made at his ordination. In these promises, he freely gave the Lord his “fiat” as Mary did at the Annunciation. Mary, in saying “yes” to God, opened the door of our world to hope, she opened the door of our world to God. (cf. Spe Salvi, 49) May her example – the example of her “yes” – inspire Father but also each one of us to say “yes” to God and to open our worlds to God.
Earlier today, we stormed heaven praying for peace in Russia and the Ukraine. These prayers, offered through the intercession of Mary, are not meant to “move God”; they are meant to “move us” so that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We will only know peace through forgiveness and reconciliation.
Soon we will celebrate the Lord’s Resurrection on Easter Sunday. “Peace” was Jesus’ Easter gift to his apostles. “Peace, I leave with you; my peace, I give to you.” May that peace also be his gift to the world this Easter.
