A long time ago, I made a promise to myself to talk about one particular day every five years.  I have been here ten years, so some of you have heard it before. And if you have, just go into a contemplative coma (laughter) because it will only last 12 minutes.

It’s an important day because it’s a kind of reminder of the ‘golden days’ of the church for you and me.  Anyhow, the day was 50 years ago – 5-0 – 50 years ago this month – New York City.  Twenty-eight guys were ordained priests.  Twenty-eight of us were ordained priests this time in May 50 years ago.  

The night before, in the seminary, nobody observed the rules.  I mean nobody who was going to be ordained the next day observed the rules. Some of us had never broken a single rule.  (Laughter)  Others, more spontaneous and human, had occasionally broken this or that disciplinary rule but some of us didn’t; but that night everybody did.  Some sat on the windowsills of their rooms in the seminary and played a guitar; and others went down and played cards.  Some got together in the Recreation Room and just sang.  Anything, anything to forestall the inevitable hour when the inevitable hour would arrive.

If they came out of college, some of them had been studying about four to five years.  If they entered at the age of 14, they had been studying for 12 years.  But in any event it was a long time and now it was here.  It was a golden age; it was a golden age for us and for you, for people in the parishes.  Anyhow, the bell rang at 5:30 and we were all ready and we tore down the stairs of this big, big seminary in Yonkers, New York, and we ran out the big doors and there the bus was waiting, the bus to take us to Manhattan.  Now we had gotten on that bus from Yonkers to Manhattan many times for various celebrations in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  But this was the only time in all those 48 minute rides that inside the bus there was total and absolute silence.  It was just absolutely quiet, the only time.  It wasn’t a stress silence, it was euphoric, and it was absorbed.  Anyhow, we got to the Cathedral and they brought the bus around the side and then there appeared the Master of Ceremonies, a very small Monsignor, very, very small.  He was a troll!  (Laughter)  He’s deceased; he’s gone to Heaven; he can’t be heard now.  And he had a clicker and he would give us directions for the three hour ceremony by clicking his little clicker.  He was quite officious about the whole thing too.  

'Click' and we had to go down the stairs, the side stairs to get ready for the ceremony.  They brought us to the catacombs of the Cathedral, I mean Gothic shadows, and there was this long table – 28 of us, 14 set ups here and 14 set ups here, So as we are putting on the vestments (these are vestments), as we’re putting them on one by one we can face each other.  And I was looking around, couldn’t talk, but I was looking around at some of the guys and I thought, "He’s too quiet.... He’s a scientific metaphysician. He’ll have his nose buried in books all through his priesthood.  That one’s too athletic; he’ll be playing basketball all through his priesthood.  That one is too mousy and shy and will never say a word."  And as I got to that point I suddenly recognized that some of them were looking at me (laughter) with pretty much the same expression.  

The Monsignor comes back. ‘Click’, we turn this way. ‘Click’, we face this way, and then, ‘click’, we march out of the catacombs and up the side steps and out here to the body of the Cathedral.  It was packed!  I mean there wasn’t an empty seat. It was standing room only.  It’s a huge Cathedral.  Three hours long.  I don’t recall hearing one cough, not one cough in three hours?  Anyhow, we all come out and ‘click’ we climb up onto the sanctuary floor. ‘Click’, we spread out, and we kneel. ‘Click’, we prostrate flat on our faces, all of us, 28 spread out throughout the sanctuary.  It was cold, an ice cold floor.  I could still feel it was cold. 

Behind us was the great Cathedral choir and it is one of the great choirs of the world; and they began to chant in glorious Latin, the Litany of the Saints; all the wonderful women and men throughout 2000 years of our Catholic faith,  the names rolling over us like a kind of tidal wave.  It was a little scary when you think of all these heroic saints and then, ‘click’, kneel, ‘click’, stand up, ‘click’, go to your places.  Fourteen of us here facing each other, fourteen of us over there facing each other in these little chairs sideways and up there is the Cardinal who is going to do the ordination. 

Then the Cardinal calls out in Latin the following message.  He says it to the Head of the Seminary who is a Bishop, who ran the seminary and was supposed to know us academically and spiritually. The Cardinal said in Latin from up there,  "Are these men worthy to be ordained priests of the Roman Catholic Church?"; Then he responded in Latin, "As far as human fallible weakness can judge, they are."  I mean isn’t that great!  See how they covered all the bases like they checked it out with Canon lawyers.  As far as we can tell, I guess so.  And then they call out your name, one by one.  Now I’m early in the alphabet so I was early up there and they called out my name in Latin,  "Mickaelee Dibblay."  Dibblay???  (Laughter)  Twelve years I have been studying for this and that’s the best they can do?   Anyhow, Mickaelee Dibblay responded. 

It’s done one by one and I came up and I knelt and the Cardinal, like most American Cardinals, you know this. It’s just common sense. They are Cardinals because they are brilliant managers; they’re brilliant economists and managers and builders.  That’s what they had to be in the early days of the Catholic Church in this country.  Set up schools; set up the business; pay the taxes.  And I thought this man who was going to ordain me was a good man but strictly a businessman; but when I knelt in front of him and looked into his eyes they were wonderful, they were almost tremulously spiritual.  Deep, deep kindness in Cardinal Spellman’s eyes, like he could reach right down and read my heart.  And then he took his hands and he put them on my head.  Now that’s how you ordain somebody. 

There’s a lot of study but the ordination is simply this:  the Bishop or the Cardinal does this – he presses down on your skull.  Now, I had hair then (laughter) but I could still feel the pressure and I looked into his eyes and they were very warm and welcoming.  It was deeply spiritual.  And then I went back to my perch and all the other guys got ordained and then we spread out in a semi-circle and we said our first Mass.  You say your very first Mass that day with the Cardinal and then all the priests you’ve known, the priests you’ve admired and respected, the parish priest who paid the rent when your father was drunk, the parish priest who went to jail to visit relatives in the slammer, the parish priest whom we loved in those days, guys who were dedicated, mostly worked with immigrants and the poor.  And they were all invited.  And they’d come up behind us. We couldn’t see their faces because they were behind us, but they pressed down too as if "welcome, welcome, welcome." 

Then we had our Mass and we had all our vestments on by then and the clicker appeared out of the shadows. ‘Click’, and we all lined up again in twos.  We go down the main aisle in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a long, long glorious march. Right outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral (if you’ve ever been to that area of Fifth Avenue in New York City) there is, right across the street from the main doors, a huge golden statute of Atlas who looks the way I have always wanted to look (laughter) with pectorals and abs and a huge muscular back, and he’s holding on this muscular back, he’s holding the globe.  He’s grunting and sweating; the sculptor was wonderful about delineations in the facial muscles.  He’s grunting and sweating under the weight of the world. 

And I thought as I stepped out into that blazing sunshine that Saturday morning at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, looking at Atlas, I thought, "What have I done? What am I carrying?"  I mean Atlas is carrying the easier load I think because suddenly it was and it should have been a little scary.  

But up pops you know who. ‘Click’, and he said (in English),  "Decorously, gentlemen,  proceed back to the chambers."   But none of us was decorous at that point.  We all tore down Fifth Avenue, tore down Madison Avenue, tore down Lexington Avenue, flipping off our vestments because waiting for us in a Catholic High School that Saturday morning, no classes, empty high school, were rooms assigned to each one of us, 28 rooms assigned and with a little label on the door "Rev. Michael Dibble." Well, the Dibble kind of ruins it, but the Rev.  (Laughter)  It’s a great feeling and you walk into this room and your family is there.  

Okay, the buzzer.  It means wind it up.  We’re almost done.  

Your family is there and they stand up and they say, "It’s a great minute, it’s a great minute!" They stand up, you know, fathers and mothers who have worked long and hard, paid bills and stayed loyal to you and to the church and to Christ, brothers and sisters who are still a little befuddled.  They all stand up but they say, "Could we have your blessing, Father?  Father, could we have your blessing?"  It’s a great moment.

A week later you get your assignment, your first parish, your first job.  They sent me 70 miles north of New York to a country parish.  I found out later the faculty had a meeting on each of us, but when they got to Mickaelee Dibblay they said, "He’s such a nervous wreck, send him to cows."  (Laughter)   They sent me to farm territory (cows and sheep and stuff) and then they sent me to teach, which I loved.

Okay, that was 1960.  1970, a decade later, 28 guys ordained, 14 gone.  14 gone. I don’t mean dead. I mean they fell in love.  I mean some of us in those days did not date after the age of 14.  We didn’t.  We kept all the rules: do not date, do not go to a dance, if you work on a beach in the summer, wear thick sunglasses (laughter). So when these guys after all of this seclusion which the Church meant so well (It had good intentions.).... But after all this seclusion, these guys go to work in parishes of the very poor and they are very demonstrative when they are grateful, and they meet the gender that is opposite to the masculine gender, and they fall in love.  They fall in love.  They got dispensations.

They love the Church. They're honorable but they fell in love and they got married.  And now some of them are grandparents, right? And they want to come back.  A lot of them would love to come back.  No salary. They would do it for free, such as the salary is.  (Laughter)  They say they would love to help out with Mass, with Baptisms, with confessions.  Thank God we have Deacons. Thank you, God. In your wisdom, we have Deacons.  But if some of these guys who still love the church (Their only error was to fall in love with adult women) want to come back. I think they should be allowed to.  

A young man came up to see me in these recent few months, a young man, a senior in high school.  He said, "I think I want to be a priest." And I said, "okay, but please date, date, date a girl. Go to a dance. Take her to a movie."  I think he will.  In any event, I’m going to shut up now for awhile.  Just for a minute would you think of somebody in your life, maybe when you were younger, some priest, nun, brother or just anybody who made you smile or made you a little happier that you are a believer in Christ and his Church.  Just for a minute.  In quiet, you and I.

Amen.

rjs