Homily | May 13, 2026 | Your Restless Heart Is Pointing To God | (Episode 122)

Today in the first reading, Saint Paul walks through Athens and discovers an altar with the inscription to an unknown god.

Think about that for a moment.

Athens was the intellectual center of the ancient world.

These people were educated, sophisticated, philosophical.

They had temples, statues, ideas, systems of thought.

They were searching for meaning everywhere.

And yet hidden in the middle of all that intelligentsia is an admission we still do not know.

So just in case, here's an altar to an unknown God.

Honestly, that altar still exists today.

People are still searching everywhere for something to feel that emptiness inside.

Some look for success, some look for it in money, in relationships, and things, in pleasure, in status, some in endless distractions.

We live in one of the most technological advanced moments in all of human history, and yet so many people are still restless, anxious, exhausted, and spiritually lost.

Why?

Well, because a human heart was made for more than what this world can give.

You know the famous quote from St.

Augustine.

He said it best, our hearts are restless until they rest in you, Lord.

What Paul recognizes in Athens is that beneath all the confusion, beneath all the noise, beneath all those false gods, there is still a real hunger for God.

And Paul does something very important.

He does not begin by insulting them, he begins by recognizing the search.

He tells them, The God that you are searching for is not far away.

In him we live and move and have our being.

That line is beautiful.

God is not distant, he is not hiding, he is not absent from our lives.

Even when people do not fully know him, they are often searching for him without even realizing it.

And then the gospel gives us the answer to that whole search.

Jesus says, When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you to all truth.

Notice Jesus says all truth, not a truth, not your truth, not whatever truth is convenient or whatever truth the world is trying to sell you.

The Holy Spirit leads us to truth.

And that truth has a face, Jesus Christ.

The world tells us to look inward and invent ourselves.

Jesus tells us to surrender ourselves.

The world says take changes.

Jesus says truth sets you free.

That is why some people mocked Paul when he preached the resurrection.

Because once you accept the Christ, that Christ truly rose from the dead, everything changes.

It means life has meaning.

It means eternity is real.

It means we were created for more than this world, for more than comfort, for success, for survival.

Maybe the most dangerous line in the reading is when some people say, We should like to hear you on this some other time.

In other words, later, not now, we're kind of busy.

That is one of the great temptations of the spiritual life.

Postponing conversion.

It's about convenience.

But the gospel always calls for a response now.

And scripture says that while some walked away, some did join him and became believers.

That's how faith spreads.

One heart at a time, one soul at a time, one person finally realizing the unknown God.

That unknown God that they have been searching for their whole life is Jesus Christ.

Today set your heart on him.

Allow him to set your heart on fire, to know the true God.

That God who is Jesus Christ sets you free in truth.

Amen.