Gospel-Homily for Pentecost Sunday (2026)

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How Do You Know. 

In the early hours on a Pentecost morning, one of the Boston hospitals called me to anoint a man named Tony. When I arrived, the patient’s wife was in the room. Just after I anointed Tony, he took his last breath and passed away. When I was leaving the hospital, I remarked to the nurse who called me, “Tony looks just like Anthony Quinn, the famous actor.” She said, “That is because he is Anthony Quinn. The next day, there was a newspaper article which reported that Anthony Quinn died in a Rhode Island hospital surrounded by his family. I thought that was not accurate. The actor died in a Boston hospital surrounded by his wife and a priest. I thought about that for a moment. Truth is not always easy to acquire. Where do we get reliable information? We can go to science for information. But then they do a study that coffee is good for you. Then they do another study that concludes that coffee is bad for you. How do you know? You can get information from family and friends, but there is the occasional exaggeration, or they didn’t want to hurt your feelings, so how do you know? You can get information from politicians. But politicians want us to be happy, so they often tell us things that we want to hear. So, how do you know? You have to wonder whether, when we get angry, if it is based on bad information.

I was on vacation, walking on a dirt road heading back to camp in the deep woods of Maine. I turned off the flashlight to see how dark it was. I could not see a thing because there were no street lights or moonlight. I wanted to see how far I could get without light. I took two steps, and the thought entered my mind that I could walk off the road, fall in a ditch, and sprain my ankle. So I started to shuffle forward very slowly. Then I pictured walking into a thorn bush. I didn’t want to get scratched up, so I held my hands in front of my face. Then I heard a twig snap. Then I thought about how there are bears in these woods. When I pictured the bear on its hind legs, ready to pounce on me, I had had enough, and I turned on the flashlight. An amazing thing happened when I turned on the light, the bear that was in front of me had disappeared, and so had the branches and ditches. My brain was giving me bad information that was slowing my progress. Once I turned on the light, I was home in minutes.

That is why Christ gave us the Spirit. It is turning on the light; it is a dependable source of truth. Now we no longer have to always ask, “How do you know.” Because now we can know.