Sermon from this year's Ordination

Fr. Alex Crow was ordained on June 5, 2021. This is the homily Archbishop Rodi gave at the Ordination Mass.
Thank you, Alex, for your openness to the call of God to ordained ministry. Trusting in God, you said yes to God’s call and here at this Mass the Church confirms your decision by calling you to be ordained.
The Church always faces challenges and this past year has certainly been no exception. The Church always needs good priests and the priests of our Archdiocese have been exemplary during this pandemic in keeping the ministries and life of the Church going during unchartered and stormy times. Alex, thank you for your response to God’s call to be one of our good priests. I have no idea what challenges the Church will face in future years, but if we have good priests, the Church will not only survive, it will thrive. As you lay on the floor in front of the altar, know that the prayers of the people are washing over you asking God to guide and strengthen you in your ordained ministry of word, worship and service. I suspect your years of ministry will be, if nothing else, most interesting. 
I recall a professor I had in college who taught a course on world history. I remember in particular something he told us. He said that history teaches that in countries where change had not occurred for a long time, when change finally does come, it tends to be jarring. 
He said further, that those who live in those jarring times cope with the changes, but there often follows a time when there is an effort to restore the imagined past. For a while, he said, these restorative forces are influential, but eventually comes the realization that significant change has occurred and that restoration of the past is not possible. Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back together again. It is then, he said, that something different takes root. 
He gave many examples. Among these examples was that of France. There was little political change in the ancient regime of France and when change finally came in the French revolution, it was jarring. After the revolution had spent itself and Napoleon was gone from the scene, there was a strong effort to restore the past. The monarchy was restored and old institutions revived. But real change had occurred in France and these restoration efforts failed. It was then that France developed a democracy.
That professor was not talking about the Church. He was entirely focused on the history of civil society, but at times I think of that professor as events unfold in the Church. There was limited change in the Church in the time leading up to the Second Vatican Council. When change finally did come after the Council, it was jarring, but those who experienced the changes coped with them.
My college professor would not be surprised that in the Church today there are efforts to restore the Church to an imagined past, and that those efforts are influential. I suspect he would say that real change has occurred both in the Church and in society and efforts to turn back the clock will not succeed. Instead, the Holy Spirit will lead the Church onward, not backward.
Life always goes forward. Life does not go in reverse. There were two criminals who were crucified with Christ. One asked the Lord to put everything back the way it was. “Save us and save yourself,” he said. The Bible does not record that Jesus said a word to him. The other criminal saw that Jesus was going forward. “Remember me when you come into your kingdom,” he said. Jesus invited that criminal to come with Him.
So many times our personal prayers are prayers asking Jesus to put our lives in reverse. We pray that He takes our cancer away from us and put us back the way we were, or we ask Him to remove a difficulty from our lives, etc. We ask for things to go back to the way they were instead of praying to the Lord to show us what He is asking of us, what He wants to do in our lives and where He is leading us. 
This is true of us as individuals and it may also be true of the Church. Even the Hebrew children in the desert asked Moses to take them back to the fleshpots of Egypt instead of on the journey to the Promised Land. We tend not to embrace the unfamiliar and the challenging.
I remember the excitement among people when the Second Vatican Council was first announced. This excitement was not just among young people; it was true of adults as well. In our Catholic world, we realized that the Council was something significant and historic. Yet I also recall that there were those who said that Church history demonstrates that it takes at least a 100 years before a Council has its full impact in the Church. Admittedly the Holy Spirit does not work according to human calendars, but the Spirit works in ways not immediately apparent to us and which take time to reveal the workings of God. 
Alex, in the normal course of things, you will be alive in 2062 for the 100th anniversary of Vatican II. The year 2062 may seem a long time from now, but in 2062 you will still be younger than I am today. Let us not dwell upon that fact. It does remind us that 100 years is not that long. I, who was raised in the Church before the Council, am ordaining you, a priest who will be serving during the 100th anniversary of the Council. Our two lives, God willing, will span much more than 100 years.
You will experience some of where the Holy Spirit is leading the Church as Vatican II unfolds. Remember that the Spirit works in unexpected ways. 
In our first reading from the Book of Numbers (Nm 11:25-29), God promises His Spirit will descend on those in the tent. Yet the Spirit descended both on those in the tent and upon two men who were not in the tent. God didn’t even follow His own instructions. The Spirit does what the Spirit wishes. As Jesus tells Nicodemus in today’s Gospel passage from John: “The wind blows where it wishes.” (Jn 3:8)
The Spirit will work in the Church as the Spirit wishes. Do not be afraid of the Holy Spirit! The Spirit will lead the Church into ways which are unfamiliar and perhaps challenging. Let the wind blow where it will. I am saddened to read blogs on social media written by people who could be characterized as traditional or as progressive, but who are scared of where the Spirit may lead. They are afraid of what Spirit might do.
Trust the Holy Spirit, but as John states in our second reading today, test the spirits. (1 Jn 4:1) St. Paul and the early Church tested the spirits. St. Paul dealt both with the errors of those who wanted to go back to Mosaic Law, which had been fulfilled, as well as the errors of those who wanted to go forward and depart from the teachings of Jesus because they claimed insights they felt they had discovered. Not every spirit is from God. Not every way “forward” is from God. St John warns that “anyone who is so progressive that he does not remain rooted in the teaching of Christ does not possess God…” (2 Jn 1:9) and St Paul says that even Satan can masquerade as an angel of light. (2 Cor 11:14) The faith of the Church does not change, yet the pastoral practice of the Church certainly does. Test the spirits to discern where God is leading.
And so you are ordained today to go forth as a priest of God. Wherever God leads us, wherever God leads the Church, do not be afraid of the Holy Spirit and allow the Holy Spirit to help you to test the spirits so that the Church, ever old and ever new, will always be faithful to God.