Tag: love

The Restless Heart Made Strong: Homily for School Mass Aug 28 2025

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Thurs, Week 21 OT - I                       St. Augustine                                      August 28, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/NmvMULMh9Lo “What are you looking for?” Sometimes in confession, I ask that question of the person confessing. Especially when their sins seem to involve chasing thrills or pleasures, I want them to reflect on what they thought they would get our of committing those particular sins. Today is the memorial of St. Augustine, one of the greatest saints of the Church and one of the most significant figures of human history. Why is he so great? Because he went looking, seeking,...Read More

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

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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

Thy Kingdom Come… Where? Homily for the 19th Sunday OT 2025

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19th Sunday of Ordinary Time, C                                                                   August 10, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/nxXZdCHeD7g What is faith? Once, a teacher asked that question to a group of children. One little boy raised his hand and said, “it’s believing something even when you know it’s not true!” Where did he get such an idea? I doubt anyone said those exact words to him. Someone probably told him that with their actions. Children don’t usually get hypocrisy, so they simply take in and imitate what they see. Why did that boy think Faith is believing something you know is...Read More

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

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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

Him Whom My Heart Loves: Homily for the Patronal Feast of St. Mary Magdalen 2025

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Patronal Feast of St. Mary Magdalen                                                                         July 20, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/szYXUkvax6U “Him whom my heart loves.” Who does your heart love? Last week, Jesus exhorted us to love God with our whole heart, mind, being, and strength. Now we hear this love poem from the bible. The Song of Songs is 8 chapters of lyrical verse about love. Traditionally ascribed to King Solomon, some Church Fathers read this poem as an allegory for the kind of love that should exist between God and the human soul with God as the groom and the...Read More

How Would They Know? Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter 2025

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5th Sunday of Easter, C                                   May 18, 2025Baccalaureate MassFr. Alexander Albert                                                      St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/kHJjTW50yM4 “Nobody’s gonna know. Nobody’s gonna know. They’re gonna know. How would they know?” A few years ago, that little exchange became something of a trend on social media. People are still using it to make funny clips. So, let’s imagine for a moment that’s how today’s gospel plays out. Jesus is telling the apostles he’s about to leave them. He’s going to be “glorified;” the “glory” he’s talking about, by the way, is him being crucified and raised from the dead. After that,...Read More

Obey, and be Free: Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Easter 2025

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3rd Sunday of Easter, C                                                                                   May 4, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/hCt3nyokYfk Though I never quite rejected my Catholic faith, there was a time that I didn’t live it, a time of selfishness and sin and distraction where no one looking in from the outside would have considered me a practicing Catholic. Then I had a conversion experience. Literally overnight, my life went from selfish pointlessness to a dedicated, daily effort to live my faith wholeheartedly. I suddenly enjoyed praying. I wanted to go to Mass, even during the week. I craved...Read More

We Stubborn Brothers: Homily for the 4th Sunday of Lent 2025

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4th Sunday of Lent, C                                                                                      March 30, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/jYy-gRolW0k What do you call this story? Parable of the prodigal son, right? That’s not what Jesus calls it. There isn’t a name, actually. Those bolded titles in most bibles are added by editors. I think that, if we asked Jesus what the name of this parable should be, he wouldn’t call it the prodigal son. I think he’d call it the parable of the stubborn brother. Don’t get me wrong, I love to emphasize the prodigal son’s return and...Read More

Tales About Time: Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Lent 2025

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3rd Sunday of Lent, C                                                                                     March 23, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/0GLF7VVVSZE Once upon a time, there were two brothers who lived in a kingdom in the middle of a great desert. The king was a wise man who built his kingdom around an abundant oasis. One day, someone poisoned the water, so the king needed someone to go to cross the great desert and recover the antidote to the poison. The two brothers were well known as the fastest runners in the kingdom, but even they couldn’t make it across...Read More

From the Heart: Homily for the 8th Sunday OT 2025

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8th Sunday of Ordinary Time, C                                                                     March 2, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/HEQZJ0XLQIM While at lunch in the seminary dining room one day, the conversation got onto the topic of how people acted when they were fans of something: famous people, stories, music and so on. When one book in particular came up, I casually interjected, “oh man, I hate fans of that book” only to look up and lock eyes with someone who was indeed a fan of that very book, a horrified expression on his face. It’s still a clear...Read More