Thomas J. Viggiano, III, looks upon his investiture as a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre not as an end goal for a life of faithful service, but rather as another step closer to Christ.

“While being invested as a Knight is a noble honor, it is also an element of one’s vocational journey that is supposed to foster growing in holiness and one’s relationship with our Blessed Lord,” Viggiano, a native of West Long Branch, declared.

Viggiano received his undergraduate degree from Mount St. Mary’s University, Emmitsburg, Md., and his law degree from the Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center of Touro College, Central Islip, N.Y. He is an attorney with the Cassidy Law Firm of Shrewsbury.

The father of three children is a lifelong parishioner in St. Michael, West End, and has been active in many organizations and facets of the parish’s life, especially in the area of sacred worship and liturgical ceremony. The Order’s visible presence in the small parish spans decades.

“I have long been aware of the [Knights], but came to know more about it roughly 20 years ago when my then-pastor, Father Charles B. Weiser, was invested as a Canon in the Order,” Viggiano explained. “Over the years, St. Michael’s has been privileged to have six or seven parishioners invested, and they typically participated in major liturgical events throughout the year (Christmas, Holy Week, Corpus Christi, Christ the King) dressed in their distinctive white and black mantels.”

His nomination into the Order came from an old friend and member of the Order, Viggiano said: Father Daniel Peirano, former pastor of Nativity Parish, Fair Haven, who currently is a full-time canon law student in Gregorian University, Rome.

“It is very humbling to belong to an organization that unites you in a real way to the Holy Places and with the Church in the Holy Land, and that has been in existence serving the need of the Church for nearly a thousand years,” Viggiano explained.