Tag: Charity

A Heavenly Hunger: Homily for the 4th Sunday OT 2026

Posted on by Father Albert
4th Sunday of Ordinary Time, A                                                             February 1, 2026Fr. Alexander Albert                                                           St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/DAKE9jarScg Are you unsatisfied? Is something missing, something not quite right? Do you often wake up or fall asleep with the nagging sense that there’s something you want but don’t yet have? Like maybe you’re hungry, but not quite sure if it’s real hunger or just boredom… that you don’t even know what you want to eat? And after the late-night snack or the early morning breakfast, does that vacancy, that subtle emptiness still tug at the edge of your mind? Good. If any...Read More

Where is God? Homily for Christmas 2025

Posted on by Father Albert
Christmas                                                                                         December 25, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                            St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/KaOd3emzO4s “Where is God?” Agnes Bojaxhiu once asked a variation of that question to a bishop during adoration. Agnes was born in 1910 to a devoutly Catholic family. Besides their daily prayers and weekly Mass attendance, the family also expressed their faith in and love of the invisible God with a weekly visit to the poor to bring food and clothes and company. Like any Catholic family and even many secular ones, Christmas was a time of joy and celebration and family and...Read More

Seeing the Kingdom of God: Homily for St. Frances Cabrini

Posted on by Father Albert
Thursday Week 32 OT           St. Frances Xavier Cabrini                  November 13, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                         Vermilion Catholic, Abbeville Audio Recording: The movie Cabrini is well made and fairly compelling to watch. It does a good job of portraying just how hard it was for St. Frances Xavier Cabrini to do her work, showing the obstacles, the reluctance of some Church leaders, and how bold and persistent Mother Cabrini could be in the face of those challenges. It conveys well her love for the poor and her witness to human dignity. For those reasons, it’s worth watching. But it misses something...Read More

Fighting Fire with Fire: A Chastity Homily – 20th Sunday OT 2025

Posted on by Father Albert
20th Sunday of Ordinary Time, C                                                                   August 17, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/zXt_IGG5bNU “Fight fire with fire.” One tactic for fighting a wildfire is to deprive it of fuel by burning the areas in front of it. Fire can’t burn what’s already been burned. That tactic is enlightening when we consider Jesus’s pyromaniac proclamation, “I have come to set the earth on fire and how I wish it were already blazing!” Is the reason it's not blazing perhaps because the world has already been burned? Of course, the fire Jesus speaks of is a metaphor for...Read More

The Wealth of Judgment: Homily for the 18th Sunday OT 2025

Posted on by Father Albert
18th Sunday of Ordinary Time, C                                                                   August 3, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/rgCDUWrgduk “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” Uh, friend Jesus, our Father did. In Acts chapter 10, Peter the chief apostle outright says, Jesus “commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.” So, is Jesus being forgetful or is he just trolling this guy? Actually, “trolling him” isn’t far off. If you’re unfamiliar, that expression is used to describe when someone purposely says things more...Read More

A Body Made Real: Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Easter, 2024

Posted on by Father Albert
2nd Sunday of Easter, B                                                                                  April 7, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/w5q5Gk1QIFI Does it sound like a cult to you? When you hear that first reading describing the early Christian church, perhaps everyone being “of one heart and mind” sounds a bit like not letting people think for themselves. Perhaps having “everything in common” and no one claiming “any of his possessions [as] his own” sounds a bit like a hippy commune. Perhaps letting the Apostles distribute wealth “to each according to need” sounds a bit like giving the leaders too much power and...Read More

How They Love One Another: Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Easter

Posted on by Father Albert
2nd Sunday of Easter, A                                                                                             April 15, 2023Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/tz51ynvOa84 “See how they love one another.” That was the phrase most commonly used to explain why people were converting to Christianity in the ancient world. Not “see how clever they are” or “see how successful they are,” or “see how pretty their buildings are,” but “see how they love one another.” Our first reading gives us a glimpse of this. Starting with Advent, the Church has taken us through all of salvation history: creation, fall, promise of redemption, the old covenants, the...Read More

Homily for the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Salty or Sterile

Posted on by Father Albert
5th Sunday OT, A                                                                                           February 5, 2023Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/ABe_E_BBg5U “You are the light of the world.” Think about a room full of candles. It’s pretty easy to read with ten candles lit, but not so easy with only one. And an unlit candle or a hidden lamp is almost worse than useless, casting shadows where it should be adding light. “If salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Do you know what happens...Read More

Homily for the Epiphany: Real Power

Posted on by Father Albert
Epiphany                                                                                                         January 8, 2023Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/sP2csL942zA Who has the power? In the wake of tense battles over important positions, we might wonder what real power looks like. Majority votes, political concessions, making other people do what you want… all these are a part of how we tend to imagine power. Yet, a careful reading of the scripture ought to challenge us to think more deeply about it. Who, after all, has the real power in the story of these Magi? Herod is a king backed by the power of the...Read More

Homily for the 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time: Real Repentance

Posted on by Father Albert
31st Sunday in Ordinary Time, C                                                                    October 30, 2022Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/xssUEkvlg5U Repentance, Reparation, and Charity. Last week, we heard the parable of the arrogant pharisee and the repentant tax collector. We focused then on the journey from being the arrogant pharisee in the parable to becoming like St. Paul, confident in his own salvation. A journey that starts with recognizing our pride and conceit, goes through repentance, and culminates in humble service. But what is repentance, really? The tax collector in the parable prays for mercy and admits...Read More