Tag: Sacrifice

Blessed Are You Who Believed: Homily for the 4th Sunday of Advent

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4th Sunday of Advent, C                                                                                 December 22, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/bHDa_DXSTXI “Blessed are you among women.” times 53 in each rosary times the tens of millions of people who pray at least one rosary every day. That means those words are said to Mary over half a billion times every day… and I’m lowballing that number. Mary is blessed indeed! Why, though? Why should Mary be so blessed? And what can we do to be blessed as well? For one thing, it is God’s will. God chose her from before...Read More

Hoping Through The End: Homily for the 1st Sunday of Advent 2024

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1st Sunday of Advent, C                                                                                 December 1, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/C0K8xlqVWJ8 Remember Y2K? The great “end of the world” scare in the late 90s? Most early computers were programmed to only list the last 2 digits of the year: 85, 93, 99. I don’t know how, but the idea spread that, when we hit the year 2000 and computers rolled over to the number ‘00’ in their programming, something terrible would happen. As a kid in middle school, the impression I got is that there was a chance this computer glitch...Read More

To Be One of the Many: Homily for the 32nd Sunday OT 20214

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32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, B                                                                  November 10, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/czmrFL-K9z4 Some of you probably remember that, about 15 years ago, when the priest said the words of consecration: “this is my blood… the Blood of the new and eternal covenant,” the sentence used to end with “which will be poured out for you and for all for the forgiveness of sins.” Now, however, it ends by saying his blood will be “poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Why did the Church change the words...Read More

A Trigger Warning: Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Lent 2024

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2nd Sunday of Lent, B                                                                                     February 25, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/vEuAWfzPkKY Image by CC 2.0 from https://www.flickr.com/photos/gcfairch/4189169360 A story. A true one, as far as I know. At a church elsewhere in Louisiana, there was a young pastor who once opened the door to find a gun pointed straight at him. Holding that gun was a nervous looking man who rather shakily said, “Father, I’m sorry but God told me I have to kill you.” Inspired, he quipped, “oh, God just told me to tell you that you don’t have to kill me anymore.” The...Read More

The Hope of Death: Homily for Ash Wednesday 2024

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Ash Wednesday                                                                                              February 14, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/jjTu_TJLkcM What a day this is, this Ash Wednesday. It fixes itself in the imagination, stands out. Many non-Catholics and even non-Christians have picked up on it as something special, and rightly so. For what other day would millions of people eagerly wait in line to be reminded that they are going to die? “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” But they do. Apart from Christmas and maybe Easter, Ash Wednesday Mass has the highest attendance of the year. Why? You tell me....Read More

Being the Bad Guy for Love: Homily for the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

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23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, A                                                                   September 10, 2023Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/LDdfIRPwomE There are many things I love about being a priest: Mass, confessions, baptisms, weddings, flying in a helicopter to bless the crops from above… the fun stuff that only a priest gets to do, things that help people, often in ways I get to see first-hand. It’s why there’s joy even in the sadder stuff like anointings of the sick and funerals. As with anything worth doing, these can get old and sometimes stress makes it harder to see the joy,...Read More

How Ought We To Pray? Homily for the 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, A                                                                               July 23, 2023Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/XzE9cl6zTII “The Spirit comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought.” That’s comforting, but it does raise an important question: How “ought” we to pray? Last week we heard about the groaning of all creation and how we are awaiting “adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” We used this to reflect on how that groaning and hope allow us to “consider the sufferings of this present time as nothing.” Today’s section...Read More

Considered Suffering: Homily for the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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15th Sunday of Ordinary Time, A                                                                               July 16, 2023Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/fmqitH9yJVY “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing.” Isn’t that a bit callous? If you tell someone in serious pain that their pain is nothing, people would think you are insensitive, cold-hearted, mean. Rightly so, too. But that’s not what St. Paul is saying in our second reading. We need to pay attention to what he actually says. He doesn’t say “suck it up” or “your pain is nothing.” He says he “considers” the suffering is...Read More

The Authority of a Father: Homily for 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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11th Sunday of Ordinary Time, A                                                                               June 18, 2023Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/hRhiLEarpgY “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” Who do you think are these laborers he’s talking about? What are we praying for more of? If you think it’s “priests,” you’re not wrong. After all, Jesus immediately follows this with appointing 12 Apostles and giving them authority to be his laborers. Pray for vocations. I know there are young men in this parish right now...Read More

How Can We? Homily for Corpus Christi

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Corpus Christ, A                                                                                                         June 11, 2023Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/LYlfEG19rpk “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” How indeed? In almost every culture, cannibalism is recognized as something repugnant, unacceptable, evil. Eating human flesh is almost always sinful because the dignity of the human person extends even to their body. Only the rarest of exceptions – as a last resort for survival – could such a thing even begin to be conceivable, though many would still prefer to die than eat someone. For the Jewish culture of Jesus’ day, it...Read More