Author: Father Albert

Daily Collection: The First Day of Ordinary Time

Posted on by Father Albert
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

Posted on by Father Albert
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

Catching Fire – Flames of Love, Flames of Hatred

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aaaaaand we're back! This is the second post in the series on Hunger Games. Last time I tried to look a little at what it means to pursue freedom under oppression. Recall that I tried to emphasize two related but different streams of influence in the overall plot of revolution: violence and resistance - it'll come up again. This time I'd like to consider another question: what is love? It's becomes clear very early on that Katniss' "love" for Peeta was primarily an act in order to save their lives, but Peeta is no doubt in love with Katniss. Right away,...Read More

Hunger Games – The Desire for Freedom?

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May the odds be ever in your favor. What about the evens? I mean, evens are sooo much better. They let you divide by 2, and two is always better than 1! The odds have to pick one, but the evens let another win too! Amiright? Righto, so... I guess I've been doing a lot of watching and thinking lately. You may have noticed my plan to build up for Star Wars episode VII. Well, that got me thinking and I realized that the final installment of the Hunger Games trilogy (quadrilogy?) comes out this weekend! Suddenly I remembered that it was the Hunger Games that first got...Read More