Author: Father Albert

Daily Collection: St. Hilary of Poitiers

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Collect from the optional memorial of St. Hilary of Poitiers, Bishop and Doctor Collect: Grant, we pray, almighty God, that we may rightly understand and truthfully profess the divinity of your Son, which the Bishop Saint Hilary taught with such constancy. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son... "Grant, we pray, almighty God, that we may rightly understand and truthfully profess the divinity of your Son" - Jesus Christ is God and every generation has had trouble accepting this fact, so the Church prays for us to not only accept it, but actually profess it in the face of worldly denial. "which...Read More

Shall we drink?

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Tue 1st week OT, Year II Alexander Albert Notre Dame Seminary “What is this? A new teaching with authority. He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” I don’t know about you, but I often wonder whether my preaching would produce more converts if I could just throw down a miracle when I needed to make a point. I often wonder about this as a pray with the New Testament stories of the miracles of the Apostles. Healings, exorcisms, supernatural knowledge, speaking new languages… Me, I’ve never seen… much less performed an outright miracle. This sometimes pains me and I...Read More

Daily Collection: The First Day of Ordinary Time

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Collect taken from the mass of the day, Monday of the First Week of Ordinary Time  Collect: Attend to the pleas of your people with heavenly care, O Lord, we pray, that they may see what must be done and gain strength to do what they have seen. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son... "Attend to the pleas of your people with heavenly care, O Lord, we pray" -Short and to the point, the Church begs of God to hear us and care for us. Yet, the request the Church is about to make of us is not for our own...Read More

Daily Collection: December 23

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Collect taken from the mass of the day. Collect: Almighty ever-living God, as we see how the Nativity of your Son according to the flesh draws near, we pray that to us, your servants, mercy may flow from your Word, who chose to become flesh of the Virgin Mary and establish among us his dwelling, Jesus Christ out Lord. Who lives and reigns... "Almighty ever-living God, as we see how the Nativity of your Son according to the flesh draws near" - We know that Christ is also the eternal son of God, so the Church is careful to recall that Christmas...Read More

Episode VII: The Call of the Force?

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{Spoiler Alert} May the Force be with you! And with your spirit! The long awaited return of the franchise has finally arrived and our journey through the Star Wars movies is complete, for now. Now the whole world can debate whether or not our beloved Star Wars will do well in the hands of Mickey Mouse and companions. I have some thoughts on that subject, but that's not the point of this blog so I'll leave that to reviewers and fans and stick to my own task. First of all, thank goodness that Luke still serves the light. This avoids casting shadows...Read More

Episode VI: Evangelization of the Jedi

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I can sense his presence... Episode VII is near and I must go to face him! But first, I must complete my training with the first six episodes. Last time, we left off at Luke's poor decision and failure to actually help anyone. Return of the Jedi fast forwards a bit and lets the viewer assume that Luke returned Dagobah to complete his training with Yoda. The first scene involves the whole crew working to save Han Solo. In "A New Hope," we saw that Han Solo had some development a something of a conversion. Here we see the completion of that conversion...Read More

Episode V: The Impulse Strikes Back

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{Spoilers (as always)} Welcome back to my journey through Star Wars. Last time I took a look at the hope we had for Han Solo and Darth Vader. Now I'm taking a look at Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. Just two things come to mind in this movie before we move on to the next: First, Lando betrayed his friend because he was afraid of Darth Vader and wanted to keep his business running. His first impulse was to protect what he had, but in the end, he very nearly loses something much more valuable. From a worldly point of view, its...Read More

Episode IV: A New Hope, but for Whom?

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A long time ago  On a Blog not that far away The Ephesian began his journey through Star Wars His path has taken him through temptation and the value of confession. Today we join him on that journey where he meets Luke Skywalker and discovers that it really is possible for people to change, that there is hope after all. {Spoiler Alert for IV, V, & VI} A New Hope! Who exactly is finding new hope? The movie suggests that it is the rebels who find a new hope, but I want to suggest a slightly different take: Han Solo and Darth...Read More

Mockingjay Part 2 – Hope for What?

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{Spoiler Alert} At Last! Here we are at the end of this series on the Hunger Games. I followed the movies, so this is the second part of Mockingjay. Recall that throughout the series I've been following two threads of influence: Love/resistance vs. hatred/violence. When I got to part 1, however, these two shifted focus a little into the difference between hatred/cruelty vs. "just war." Indeed, those two trains of thought emerge almost explicitly right at the beginning of this movie, which takes us quickly to the battle in District 2 against "The Nut," an important military compound. They can't get in...Read More

Mockingjay Part 1 – O Cruel Fate

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Welcome to the third installment of my series on the Hunger Games. Anyone who read my last post on Catching Fire and then watched this movie just might get the idea that I somehow support the Capitol. This is because they spend a great deal of time and energy trying to convince the districts to lay down weapons and resume peace. I too advocated for peace as a hypothetical alternative to the way the story actually turns out. Yet, there are two key differences: context, and hypocrisy. First of all, my idea was a hypothetical that only would have worked if taken up...Read More