SPEAKER_00: You will remember on holy night, holy Thursday night, Peter stood in the courtyard of the high priest warming his hands by a charcoal fire, and he looked like every frightened human being in history.
SPEAKER_00: A servant girl, not a Roman soldier, not a member of the Sanhedrin, a servant girl asks him, Were you not also with Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: And Peter the Rock, the leader of the twelve, the man who had earlier had sworn he would die before betraying Jesus, looked her in the eyes and said, I do not know him.
SPEAKER_00: Three times, three denials, the cock crows.
SPEAKER_00: Peter runs into the night and weeps.
SPEAKER_00: Now if we fast forward fifty days, same Peter, same Jerusalem, same people, same danger.
SPEAKER_00: Now he stands in the middle of the city and opens his mouth.
SPEAKER_00: He does not whisper, he does not apologize, he does not soften the message, he preaches.
SPEAKER_00: And he preaches to thousands.
SPEAKER_00: He tells them that Jesus Christ is risen.
SPEAKER_00: He tells them to repent.
SPEAKER_00: He tells them to be baptized.
SPEAKER_00: And three thousand people converted in that afternoon.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the question Pentecost asks every Christian.
SPEAKER_00: What happened to Peter?
SPEAKER_00: What happened between the coward by the fire and the preacher in Jerusalem?
SPEAKER_00: What turns cowards into martyrs?
SPEAKER_00: What turns fishermen into apostles?
SPEAKER_00: What turns eleven frightened men hiding behind locked doors into the movement that changed human history?
SPEAKER_00: The resurrection?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we saw, we know that Peter saw Jesus post-resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, they went back to their normal lives.
SPEAKER_00: They went back to fishing.
SPEAKER_00: He saw Christ alive, he touched him, he ate with him, but he was still hiding.
SPEAKER_00: Was it belief?
SPEAKER_00: Well, they already believed.
SPEAKER_00: Was it courage?
SPEAKER_00: Well, courage is built over years.
SPEAKER_00: These men changed from one moment to the next.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one answer: Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit came, and he did not simply visit, he moved in.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Christianity is different from every other religion in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Most religions shape their way by saying, God is there, you are here, now you must climb, pray harder, meditate more, reach upward, find him.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity turns it upside down.
SPEAKER_00: God comes down.
SPEAKER_00: He becomes a child, he walks the roads of Galilee, he dies on a cross, he rises, he ascends back to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And then on Pentecost, he does something almost unimaginable.
SPEAKER_00: He moves into the human soul.
SPEAKER_00: Saint Paul says, Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: A temple.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem was in a temple, the most sacred place on earth.
SPEAKER_00: Only the high priest entered it.
SPEAKER_00: Once a year, people removed their sandals before the presence of God, and now God has made his dwelling in baptized souls.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit lives in your temple, not symbolically, not poetically, literally.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the church calls the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Indwelling.
SPEAKER_00: God making his home within.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is not a guest.
SPEAKER_00: He's not visiting, he's not renting a room.
SPEAKER_00: He has moved in.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the question Pentecost asks.
SPEAKER_00: Are we living like it?
SPEAKER_00: Because I think one of the tragedies of modern Catholics is this.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is the forgotten person of the Holy Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: We pray to the Father, which is good.
SPEAKER_00: We pray to Jesus, excellent.
SPEAKER_00: But when was the last time we actually prayed to the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: When was the last time we stopped and simply said, Come, Holy Spirit, come?
SPEAKER_00: When was the last time we listened?
SPEAKER_00: Because the Holy Spirit is closer than people realize.
SPEAKER_00: The Hebrew word is rua.
SPEAKER_00: The Greek word is pneuma.
SPEAKER_00: The Latin word is piritus.
SPEAKER_00: They all mean the same thing breath.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit is the breath of God.
SPEAKER_00: God breathes into Adam and he lives.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus breathes on the apostles and says, Receive the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: At Pentecost, the Spirit comes like a mighty wind, and the church is born.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is closer to us than our own breathing.
SPEAKER_00: Every prayer, every act of faith, every movement towards goodness, every time a person forgives someone, every time someone comes back to confession, every conversion, every vocation, every saint, every fight against temptation, the Holy Spirit is there.
SPEAKER_00: Working quietly, faithfully.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe somebody here today is carrying something heavy: fear, sin, grief, anxiety, indifference, perhaps even a locked room in your soul.
SPEAKER_00: Remember where the gospel began.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel began with locked doors.
SPEAKER_00: That was the first church, locked, fearful, hidden.
SPEAKER_00: And then the risen Christ walks right through those walls.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that is Pentecost for some people here.
SPEAKER_00: Christ walking into your locked room and saying, Peace be with you.
SPEAKER_00: Then breathing his spirit again, a new beginning.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's a challenge for you.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want anyone leaving here today saying, Oh, that was a nice homily, which is nice to say, but today, Pentecost demands something.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the assignment for this week.
SPEAKER_00: You have homework.
SPEAKER_00: Every morning, before you grab your phone, before your emails, before the coffee, four words.
SPEAKER_00: Come, Holy Spirit, come.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: Four seconds.
SPEAKER_00: But do not underestimate four seconds surrendered to God.
SPEAKER_00: Say it before the difficult conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Say it before a doctor's visit.
SPEAKER_00: Say it before confession, before communion, before that meeting, before temptations, before any decision that you make.
SPEAKER_00: Come, Holy Spirit, come.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Spirit is courage, the Spirit is wisdom, the Spirit is strength, the Spirit is love.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to end where we began.
SPEAKER_00: What happened to Peter?
SPEAKER_00: The same thing that happened to every baptized Christian.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit moved in.
SPEAKER_00: The fire is already there, the breath is already there, the wind is already there.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is not that God is absent.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that too many Catholics live as if the temple were empty.
SPEAKER_00: It's not empty.
SPEAKER_00: He is there right there, right now, in your soul.
SPEAKER_00: Pentecost is not the feast of waiting for the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Pentecost is waking up to the fact that He is already there.
SPEAKER_00: So throw open the doors, open the windows, let him into every locked room.
SPEAKER_00: And when the Holy Spirit asks the question he's been asking saints for two thousand years, will you let me make you holy?
SPEAKER_00: You need to say yes.
SPEAKER_00: Say yes today.
SPEAKER_00: Because the same spirit who turned Peter into a coward turned Peter into a martyr and an evangelist.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same spirit that lives in this church, in this parish, in the pews that you're sitting in, lives in the souls of the people here.
SPEAKER_00: And if that spirit could change Peter, imagine what he can do to you if you finally say yes.
SPEAKER_00: Come, Holy Spirit, come.
SPEAKER_00: Lead me, show me the way.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.