Category: Homilies

I post the text and audio of my Sunday homilies here for anyone who wants to go back to something they liked or catch something they missed. I sometimes include links to resources that I mention, so that you aren’t left guessing how to follow up on anything I may have challenged you to do.

I put up every weekend homily and the homilies for special feast days like Christmas or the Assumption.

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The Liberating Burden

Posted on by Father Albert
Homily for 14th Sun OT, Year A Fr. Albert  St. Peter Catholic Church, New Iberia [audio wav="http://box5246.temp.domains/~alberuc3/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/The-Liberating-Burden.wav"][/audio]   Is it heavy enough for you? Are you weary from carrying it? The weight of your own importance, the burden of your pride. Do your shoulders hurt from the load of vanity, of keeping up appearances? Is your back sore from leveraging control over politics, or relationships, or even traffic? It’s work enough controlling ourselves, yet we so often insist on seizing responsibility for anything but the one thing that is actually ours. "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and...Read More

Reasonable Fear

Posted on by Father Albert
Homily for 12th Sun OT, Year A Fr. Albert  St. Peter Catholic Church, New Iberia [audio wav="http://box5246.temp.domains/~alberuc3/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Reasonable-Fear.wav"][/audio]   “Fear no one!” This man has just told his Apostles that they will be slandered, persecuted, and hated. He said that brothers will have their own brothers killed and that there will even be children who have their own parents put to death. And then this man, this Jesus has the gall to plainly say, “fear no one.” Can you imagine if your own son or daughter were to have you executed? Would the command, the advice to “fear no one” really be of...Read More

The Unity of the Holy Spirit

Posted on by Father Albert
Homily for Pentecost Sunday Fr. Albert St. Peter Catholic Church, New Iberia [audio wav="http://box5246.temp.domains/~alberuc3/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/The-Unity-of-the-Holy-Spirit.wav"][/audio]   Unity. Do we have unity in our families? Our Parish? Our Country? What about in our faith? Is our Church unified? Perhaps it is worth asking, what “unity” means anyway? In a sense, we could say that these questions run throughout all human history. Trade, politics, warfare… these and more are responses to the question of unity, to the question of how we will go about existing in the same world. Sometimes we can avoid the issue by simply avoiding the same space. Two points...Read More

And These Three Remain

Posted on by Father Albert
Homily for Ascension Sunday Fr. Albert St. Peter Catholic Church, New Iberia [audio wav="http://box5246.temp.domains/~alberuc3/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/And-These-Three-Remain.wav"][/audio]   “Behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Isn’t it odd that this is the Gospel passage we read on the very day that we celebrate the Ascension? The Apostles watch as Jesus ascends into heaven and disappears. They stand there staring for so long that an Angel has to appear to them and shake them out of it. “What are you doing? Quit staring at heaven; Jesus has been taken up… he will return later.” If he has been taken up,...Read More

Love Rules

Posted on by Father Albert
Homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter Fr. Albert  St. Peter Catholic Church, New Iberia [audio wav="http://box5246.temp.domains/~alberuc3/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Love-Rules.wav"][/audio]   “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Come again? Did Jesus really say that “Love” means keeping “commandments?” Isn’t love supposed to be free and generous? What does following a bunch of rules – being “rigid” – have to do with the beauty and freedom of love? Surely this one comment by Jesus is a fluke, right? No, he reiterates it just a few sentences later: “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me.” And again a few...Read More

Who Said I Wanted Your Father Anyway?

Posted on by Father Albert
5th Sunday of Easter Fr. Albert St. Peter Catholic Church, New Iberia [audio wav="http://box5246.temp.domains/~alberuc3/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Who-Said-I-Wanted-Your-Father.wav"][/audio]   “No one comes to the Father except through me.” “Who cares? Who said that I wanted to go to the Father anyway? Keep your way and truth to yourself, Jesus, because I’m gonna live my own life and I don’t want or need your father.” Does any of that sound familiar? This Gospel is a profound excerpt from the Last Supper where Christ is pouring out his heart to his Apostles and strengthening them for what is to come. But his message, this whole revelation...Read More

Call Out!

Posted on by Father Albert
4th Sunday of Easter  Fr. Albert [audio wav="http://box5246.temp.domains/~alberuc3/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Call-Out.wav"][/audio]   “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart.” Have you ever been cut to the heart? You hear something so true, so brutally honest about yourself that you just have to say “you’re right?” It’s not easy to cut to another person’s heart. You have to speak an objective truth, but to speak it directly to the person. It must reach through to their subjective and personal experience in some way. What do you think? Are people “cut to the heart” by Jesus and his teachings today? Is the...Read More

From Where? To Where?

Posted on by Father Albert
3rd Sunday of Easter Fr. Albert [audio wav="http://box5246.temp.domains/~alberuc3/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/From-Where-To-Where.wav"][/audio]   “He was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, reveals himself to the disciples in the Eucharist. This journey to Emmaus, this journey to a deeper faith is what we do at every Mass. Reading from Scripture; a homily explaining the Scriptures, the breaking of the bread and recognizing Christ present in the Eucharist. He disappears immediately after breaking the bread to tell us, to show us that we will see him there instead of in the flesh. But, that journey of...Read More

Are You Saved?

Posted on by Father Albert
Divine Mercy Sunday Fr. Albert St. Peter Catholic Church, New Iberia [audio wav="http://box5246.temp.domains/~alberuc3/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Are-You-Saved.wav"][/audio] Are you saved? What a question! So, short and direct… perhaps a bit… existential. Maybe you’ve been asked this before, maybe not. When you hear those three words, it might suggest some kind of ultimate reality. To answer the question presupposes so many things, it’s actually pretty surprising that people answer it all.  “Are you saved?” Is there something I need to be saved from? Why do I need to be saved from it? What does it take to be saved? What does being saved mean for...Read More

Christmas vs. Easter: Which is your favorite?

Posted on by Father Albert
Easter Sunday Fr. Albert St. Peter Catholic Church, New Iberia [audio wav="http://box5246.temp.domains/~alberuc3/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Christmas-vs-Easter.wav"][/audio] Christmas or Easter? Which is your favorite? I think most people generally prefer Christmas. Decorations, all kinds of great foods and desserts, and, of course, presents! Plus, Christmas is all about family and the Baby Jesus, and who doesn’t love the baby Jesus? And, really, that’s great. Christmas is about the Incarnation, about God becoming man. Now every human being has a new dignity, a new value, a new hope because God became one of us. Imagine – it’s impossible, but still, imagine – that we found a...Read More