Tag: Perseverance

Asking Without Grumbling: Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Lent

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3rd Sunday of Lent, A                                                                                   March 8, 2026Fr. Alexander Albert                                                            St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/G9Z_RRVSko0 When you need water, do you ask for it? Or do you grumble about the fact that you are thirsty? In both cases, the need is the same... that need is legitimate. Without water we die, so the suffering and misery of thirst is our body saying “this is important!” If our bodies can use misery to get what it needs, why can’t we? Who says we can’t? I’m saddened by the misguided way Christians sometimes talk about our feelings and experiences, often reducing them...Read More

Why Do Anything? Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Lent 2026

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2nd Sunday of Lent, A                                                                                  March 1, 2026Fr. Alexander Albert                                                            St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/IN8w68Tje-o “It is good that we are here!” Why is it good? “Because we see Jesus in glory!” “Why do we want that?” This past week, I pestered the 6th grade boys with this kind of questioning. Every time they answered why we should want something, I would ask, “why do we want that?” Now that we’re in the heart of Lent and some of the things we’re doing can begin to weigh on us, we might ask ourselves, “why are we doing this?” You might...Read More

The Joy of Poverty: Homily for Gaudete Sunday 2025

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3rd Sunday of Advent, A                                                             December 14, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                         St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville N.B. Technical Difficulties meant the recording failed this week. You don’t have to feel Catholic in order to be Catholic. You don’t have to feel Catholic in order to be Catholic. Somehow, American Catholics bought into the lie that practicing a faith you don’t feel deep down makes you a hypocrite, that acting Catholic while you have doubts makes you a hypocrite. It doesn’t. How do I know? Because we have an example no less illustrious than John the Baptist himself. Look again at what...Read More

Will He Find Faith Here? Homily for the 29th Sunday OT 2025

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29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, C                                                                   October 19, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/LnoLBi-jlxw It’s one of the most frightening questions in all of scripture. “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” For the third week in a row, our Gospel has called attention to the virtue of faith. This time we see a shift in focus: not just faith, but faith in preparation for the end of the world. Jesus doesn’t just want us to have faith. He wants us to keep faith and, more importantly, to spread faith. The fact...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

What He Gives: Homily for the 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time 2025

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17th Sunday of Ordinary Time, C                                                                   July 27, 2025Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/DUyblY3tRNo Couldn’t even find 10 people, could he? Abraham, I mean. God promises not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah if there are just 10 innocent people in it. But they were destroyed. There’s even some archaeological evidence of where those cities were and what happened. Even if this story was just fictional morality parable, the point would be the same: Sodom and Gomorrah were so evil that they couldn’t come up with 10 innocent people. What does that mean for us? Well, a common...Read More

Who’s Coming With Me? Homily for All Saints Day 2024

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All Saints Day                                                                                                 November 1, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/wfpSmYsgF8c Epic. Or maybe you’d say “sigma.” Most people see the saints as amazing, “up there,” as heroes and legends and special people who do what we never could. And you know what? Some of them really are. Padre Pio could bilocate, read souls, and had the wounds of Christ in his body for 50 years. Joan of Arc led the French armies to victory in battle and bravely faced being burned alive by corrupt men. Francis of Assisi lived radical poverty...Read More

What I Really Want: Homily for Vermilion Catholic Oct 10 2024

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Thursday 27th Week OT                                                                                 October 10, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/CKqZAccHXt0 What if I want to eat a snake instead of fish? What if scorpions are just the crawfish of the desert? Boil em up, season em, and start dipping em in the right sauce, and maybe they’re even better than eggs! Had Jesus been talking to a crowd of Cajuns, he probably would have used different examples for things people don’t want to eat. But the point is the same: when we ask God for our “daily bread,” he isn’t going to trick...Read More

You Have The Words: Homily for the 21st Sunday OT 2024

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21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, B                                                                   August 25, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville N.B. This in the conclusion of a series on John 6. The series starts here. The previous homily is here. https://youtu.be/ej0u9IG-0Po “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” So we come to the crux of the Bread of Life discourse in John chapter 6. Last week Jesus insistently taught that we are to truly eat his body and drink his blood. The Eucharist literally becomes his body, blood, soul, and divinity during the consecration at Mass. A miracle and a...Read More