Doug Taylor-Weiss and Michael Miller collaborate to create ‘The Champion Hymn’
By William Van de Planque | On Mission
Photos provided by NSOLC from Solemnity events.
CHAMPION, WI — “The Champion Hymn,” a new hymn created in honor of Our Lady of Champion, debuted at the annual Solemnity Mass at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion last Thursday, October 9, 2025.
Bishop David Ricken was the principal celebrant of the Mass, marking the third year that the Blessed Virgin Mary has been celebrated and recognized under the title, “Our Lady of Champion.” Fr. David Wilton, superior of the Fathers of Mercy of Kentucky, concelebrated the Mass among other religious and diocesan priests.
The worship aid for the Solemnity Mass read: “Composed for the glory of God, ‘The Champion Hymn’ is dedicated to the pilgrims who visit the Shrine.”
The hymn was written by Doug Taylor-Weiss, a Catholic convert and former Episcopal minister, and composed by Michael Miller, the director of sacred music for the Diocese of Green Bay.
“A year or so ago, we started talking about how beautiful it would be to have a hymn to Our Lady of Champion,” Miller said. “Everyone agreed it was a good idea, but we didn’t really get down to the business of it until this summer.”
Taylor-Weiss and Miller have known each other for about seven years and have collaborated on hymns on multiple occasions. They met when Taylor-Weiss moved from Auburn, New York, to Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 2018.
At the time, the two were involved in music at local parishes, namely St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Grand Rapids, and Taylor-Weiss became increasingly interested in poetry.
“I went through a period then when I decided that I wanted to learn more about how to write poetry,” Taylor-Weiss said.
He started reading a lot more poetry and joined multiple Catholic literary groups in the area. He also studied poetry during his undergraduate studies at Wheaton College in Illinois.
“I think I was just inspired one day to write a hymn,” he said. “So, I did, and I showed it to Michael. He said, ‘Oh, this is great; let me write some music for it.’”
The next time they collaborated on a hymn for their parish, the subject of which was the namesake of the parish, St. Paul. That time, Miller came to Taylor-Weiss with music for which he wanted Taylor-Weiss to write the lyrics.
Following the creation of the hymn for St. Paul the Apostle Parish, Miller left Grand Rapids and came to Green Bay to work for the Diocese of Green Bay.
Taylor-Weiss and Miller kept in touch throughout the years. This past spring, while Taylor-Weiss was in the hospital shortly after undergoing surgery to remove cancer, he received a call about a new hymn project.
“I’m in the hospital recovering, and I get a call from Michael Miller,” he said. “I just said to him, ‘I’m in the hospital; I had cancer.’ He was like, ‘I’ll call you back.’”
About a month later, when Taylor-Weiss had fully recovered, Miller called him to share the idea of a hymn for the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion and the intention for him to write it.
“Our desire was to have a hymn that drew upon the history of the Shrine in a way that those who sing will be drawn into the spiritual realities that have and continue to unfold there,” Miller said.
“I felt like I’m not worthy to do this,” Taylor-Weiss said. “I’m more of a hobbyist poet… But on the other hand, when you are called to do something, you should do it.”
He had been to the Shrine only one time, a few years earlier, making a short afternoon visit on a family vacation in Wisconsin.
“I said to Michael, when he called, ‘I’ve got to go back,’” he said. “I need to have a much deeper appreciation for this.”
Having done quite a bit of writing and brainstorming, Taylor-Weiss made his second visit, a much longer one, to the Shrine in July 2025.
“It was kind of scary,” he said. “I (didn’t) quite know what to expect or what I’m going to get out of that.”
Taylor-Weiss decided to go to the Shrine without expectations and open himself up to what the Lord had for him there, he said.
“That enormously helped and gave more fuel to the fire so I could finish this hymn,” he said. “The pieces just kind of began to fall into place. I began to see clearly what I needed to do.”
Taylor-Weiss typically begins the hymn- or poem-writing process with a single line. The first line of “The Champion Hymn” was the line that came to him first.
The opening line of the hymn reads: “Mirror of the Resurrected, you reflect the Savior’s face.”
“In the last year or so, I’ve been really attracted to this idea of God’s face,” he said. “I’ve just been seeing it everywhere in Scripture… I think we should all be mirrors of God’s face. We’re made in the image of God. To mirror God is to be like a mirror looking at him and him looking at us in love and have him reflected in us. I thought, ‘For whom is that more true than the Virgin Mary?’”
At this year’s Solemnity of Our Lady of Champion Mass, the texts from the Mass of the Solemnity of the Queenship of Mary were used. These texts were used because on October 9, 1859, Mary revealed herself to Adele Brise as the Queen of Heaven, Bishop Ricken said.
“I know that some people fear getting too caught up in Marian devotion and not going directly to Jesus,” Bishop Ricken said during his homily at the Solemnity Mass. “I would like to assure you that if you are beholding the face of Mary and honoring her in prayer, her only purpose and always her goal — even as the Queen of Heaven — is to reflect, to mirror Jesus Resurrected to you and to lead you closer to him.”
Taylor-Weiss was born and raised in Grand Rapids. After graduating from college, he was ordained an Episcopal minister in Chicago and served at Episcopal parishes in Dayton, Ohio, and Auburn, New York, where he lived for over 20 years. It was during that time in New York that he became Catholic.
“I, over a long period of thought, eventually drifted closer and closer to the Catholic Church,” he said. “I began to be more and more attracted to certain Catholic doctrines and eventually just began to believe that the Catholic Church was the true Church.”
“I thought, ‘If God is really alive, if Christ is really risen and all these things I say I believe, then there should be miracles,” he said.
He looked at the Catholic Church and realized that “it was all about miracles,” he said. “To become a blessed and then to become a saint, you have to have verified miracles. The infallibility of the pope is a miracle. The Eucharist itself is a miracle. I thought, ‘That’s interesting. There is this church around that believes in miracles.’”
He took an early retirement from Episcopal ministry in 2014 and entered into full communion with the Catholic Church in 2016 in New York state.
This year’s annual Solemnity of Our Lady of Champion Mass at the Shrine drew thousands to participate in the celebrations. These began with the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary on Tuesday, October 7, followed by presentations of the historic Peshtigo Fire from the Belgian Heritage Center the next day.
“Mary is drawing her children here to Champion to experience her presence, her love for them, and to have a respite from the difficulties and trials of their lives in this world today,” Bishop Ricken said.