Pentecost – June 8, 2025

St. Paul – Lyons, KS

Acts 2:1-11; Psalm 104:1, 24, 29-31, 34; Romans 8:8-17; John 20:19-23

The “Cor Inquietum” Principle

One of the things that happens as you start to make a transition to a new place is that you get a little nostalgic, start thinking of the good times. Over my four years here I’ve shared a lot of stories, lot of experiences—Fr. Michael’s “Greatest Hits!” you could say! (You remember those infomercials? “500 hundred songs on 25 CD’s!”) But some of my “Greatest Hits!” are stories you could all tell now better than I could! And over my last few weeks I want to do a series we can call, “Greatest Hits!” One, because I’m lazy so I’ll just reuse all my material. But two, because these are the things that, as I leave—these are the things I most want to impress on you.

Some of my greatest hits—do you remember “Jesus Sucks Girl”? My first viral homily, ha! This was the girl that grew up with everything there in suburban Wichita (house, dog, phone, car, clothes, softball) and then she went to “Jesus Camp” just down the street there at Camp WaJaTo. And there at Jesus Camp, after a night of time in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, receiving the sacrament of Confession—there, she comes up to me, bawling her eyes out, and says, “Jesus sucks!” And so I ask her, “Why? Why is this?” And she says—insightfully—“I don’t understand this. I’m happy. I’m so happy right now. I’ve never been this happy. This is literally the happiest I have ever been in my life. And I don’t know why!” She experienced how she could have everything in life, and still be sad. But there at Camp WaJaTo, with bad food, cold showers, terrible beds—there, she was happy! And it didn’t make sense to her. I’ve told you about the “Woman Who’s Husband Left Her.” This woman that came to see me one day, crying because her husband had left her and their baby for another woman—all because he thought that, since he had strong feelings for this other woman, he had to leave. And he was torn up about it, miserable, even though he thought he was getting what he wanted! Most famously (aside from the Man from China) I’ve told you about the “Anchorman I met on a flight to Chicago,” the one who had everything he ever dreamed of (fame, fortune, a woman, job)—and yet he couldn’t figure out why he was so unhappy, unfulfilled. I’ve talked even just about my own experiences of seeking to accomplish many things—championships, grades, music—and even when I accomplished them, experiencing this feeling of, “Is this it? Is this all there is?” 

Ok, these are some of my “greatest hits.” But think: the reason I share these kinds of stories is because all of them—they all come back to a very common experience: the experience of getting exactly what we want, achieving our dreams, having our idea of happiness and fulfillment being met—but being left with the feeling of dissatisfaction, emptiness, betrayal. Left with the question of, “Ok.  But now what?”

One of my “Greatest Hits!”, a point I come back to often, is a simple insight I plagiarized from St. Augustine. Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Nothing has struck me quite like this. It’s all there. We go looking for a way to quiet our restless heart—and yet even when we get it, get everything we wanted, our hopes, our dreams—we’re left with the same restlessness as before…if not worse.

But it is there, precisely there that a simple proposal is given to us. Simple: Christ. Jesus Christ isn’t here to tell us to be nice. He is here to rescue; to give us access to a newness, to a fullness of life. And all he asks in return? To follow; to drop what we’re currently holding onto, to drop whatever else it was we thought would give us this newness, this fullness of life (and that usually we know from our own experience doesn’t fulfill on the promise it made—job, sports, cars, houses, vacations)—Jesus invites us to drop them and instead to cling to him, to entrust our lives to him, to follow him. The proposal is that that is where we’re going to find this fullness of life we can’t seem to find anywhere else, no matter how hard we try.

Pentecost: The Culmination and the Beginning

Ok. This insight is one big reason why Pentecost is not just a cool thing that happened that we remember—“Hey, remember when there was that wind and fire and we spoke a bunch of languages??”—no! Pentecost is not just a cool event two thousand years ago. Pentecost is the beginning of a mission. Pentecost is about the work that is being entrusted to us, the mission entrusted to us.

The mission that Jesus gives us—the mission is to bear witness, to be witnesses, to give testimony to what has happened to us! We are called to be witnesses to what happened to us when we encountered Jesus Christ, to give testimony about what Jesus Christ did for us—to share how in Jesus Christ we have found that person for whom our restless heart has been searching. And then—and this is the key—the mission is to invite people into a life-changing encounter with Jesus as well.

Peter: His Journey Is Ours

Do you remember who stands up on Pentecost day to speak? This incredible event of Pentecost happens, and one Apostle stands up to speak, to bear witness, to announce what has happened! Who is it? Peter. Peter is the first disciple Jesus calls, the first to profess faith in him, and the first to stand up.

Think about his story. One day, Peter’s brother Andrew comes and finds him and tells him, “We’ve found the Messiah. Come and see!” And so Peter meets Jesus for the first time. Later on, as Peter is just doing his job one day, Jesus comes walking along and calls him and his brother, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” And still not entirely sure why, Peter drop everything and follows him. And he begins to live life with him, to listen to him, to discover what he’s all about. All the while, little by little, a certainty is growing—“Could this man really be who he says that he is?” He’s curious, begins to follow, begins to follow more and more.

But then one day, after miraculously feeding 5,000 people, everyone leaves—Jesus started saying something about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and people can’t handle it, so they left. And it’s just Jesus and Peter and the other eleven disciples. And right then and there, Jesus asks an important question: “Are you going to leave me too?” Think of Peter! He doesn’t know all the right answers! He doesn’t know everything! But Peter has begun to experience that his restlessness—in Jesus’ presence his restlessness has found rest. And so Peter pipes up and says, “Lord, you’re right, we don’t fully understand you; we don’t even totally understand why we follow you! But we are sure of one thing—only you have the words of eternal life! Our restless hearts find rest with you. Lord, to whom else would we go?” (c.f., John 6:68). Notice: Peter and the twelve may not have known everything, had a great education. But they had a certainty, their experience gave them a certainty: this man, this Jesus, this is the one we’re searching for. “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts have been restless but now they find rest in you.”

And so what does Peter do? He surrenders his life to him, he entrusts his life to him. And this doesn’t mean that Peter’s life is perfect, or that his faith is easy, no! He continue to be imperfect. Denies Jesus. Faces real challenges. But notice! At the center of it all—it is Peter’s surrender, his faith, him saying, “Lord, to whom else would I go?” And concretely, daily, he continues to follow Jesus, to belong to the Church.

My hope is that, if someone came along and gave you a test—let’s say Bishop Kemme shows up and hands out a test to see if you know all the right answers—my hope has never been that you pass some test on “Catholic Facts.” My hope, my goal has always been that if Bishop came, you could respond with the faith of Peter, “I don’t always fully understand. But to whom else would I go? He has the words of eternal life.”

We Are Sent

So back to the mission, the mission for which the Spirit empowers us. What happened to Peter? How does this all work? Did God appear to him on a cloud? No. It all began because (first) his own brother, Andrew—Andrew simply invited him to go see this Jesus guy from Nazareth. And the rest is history! Peter had a life-changing encounter with Jesus, he was called by Jesus, he gave his life to Jesus, and when he received the Holy Spirit he was sent to bear witness to Jesus, to invite people to experience the same life-changing encounter he had.

God isn’t going to appear on a cloud to everyone in Rice County. He is going to send you! You have been given the Holy Spirit—and not to try to be a really, really nice person, a good person, no! You have been given the Holy Spirit to be empowered for the mission!

My “Greatest Hit” this week is a reminder of the insight of St. Augustine: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Each of us is here, all of us are here because we know this to be true. Our mission is simply to invite others to discover this as well, to tell them (like Andrew told his brother Peter), “Come and see. Come and see this Jesus who is the one for whom our restless hearts are searching.”