Tag: Trust

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

Victory: Homily for the Immaculate Conception 2024

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Immaculate Conception of Mary                                                                    December 9, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/G8KpyEPrY_A Victory! We are here today to celebrate victory! Not just that, but a flawless victory, undefeated. Small, unimportant, easy to overlook and yet conquering mighty enemies. What a reason to celebrate! I’m talking, of course, about the victory of Mary over the devil. Today we celebrate her Immaculate Conception. The most common mistake people make about this day is that they think we’re celebrating when Mary conceived Jesus. No. That’s the Annunciation on March 25th, exactly 9 months before Christmas. Today, we...Read More

An Impossible Inheritance: Homily for the 28th Sunday OT 2024

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28th Sunday of Ordinary Time, B                                                                   October 13, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. Mary Magdalen, Abbeville https://youtu.be/KwXx1XgngWk “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” You know what? I think we know that answer already. Maybe the whole poverty thing wasn’t obvious to the Jews of Jesus’ day, but the saying “Blessed are the Poor in Spirit” has been around for 2000 years now. We know. Keep the commandments. Stop sinning. Live simply. Follow Jesus. Sure, the details can get messy, but the main point is clear. The problem isn’t that people don’t know the answer to...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

A Clean Heart: Homily for the 5th Sunday of Lent 2024

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5th Sunday of Lent, B                                                                                      March 17, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/Rq7nymESj0w When I was a kid, my boy scout troop would take rock climbing trips. Now, we all knew that falling from a great height can kill you, which is why we were careful to use ropes, harnesses, and anchors to keep us safe. We were taught how to use it and we knew that the gear was perfectly safe. But when you’re 70 feet off the ground, barely clinging to a tiny handhold and your feet start to sleep… you suddenly know the power...Read More

Myrrh to Give: Homily for the Epiphany, 2024

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Solemnity of the Epiphany                                                                             January 7, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/tNpg2iiciWY The bells in a church are symbols of the angels. Because church bells are rung to call people to prayer, they carry the message of God to the world just as angels do. I don’t think I knew that when I was in college at UL, but when I would hear the bells of Our Lady of Wisdom ringing across campus, something in me did know. Those bells carried to me the message of God. They proclaimed to me that Christ is...Read More

Your Will Be Done: Homily for the 4th Sunday of Advent 2023

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4th Sunday of Advent, B                                                                                 December 24, 2023Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/8yjMcR6JPEo Some of the most useful and most underrated words in all of Scripture are the ones the prophet Nathan says to King David in our first reading: “Go, do whatever you have in mind, for the LORD is with you.” These words can pull you back to the center from one of two dangerous extremes: excessive self-reliance and crippling uncertainty. By far the most common one is excessive self-reliance. Even being too worried about what other people think is relying on...Read More

The Key to Evangelizing: Homily for the 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time

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21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, A                                                                   August 27, 2023Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/2g6YXhWwMqc Maybe you felt it… With all the talk about tension and jealousy and evangelization, maybe you felt this uncomfortable question in the back of your mind. I’ve been focusing on what it means to evangelize the world while also becoming less like the world. But perhaps you’ve found yourself wondering about more basic questions like: “What’s a practical way to evangelize?” “Why is God doing things this way?” and “Are we really sure we’re right and the world isn’t?” For a...Read More

Jealous for Salvation: Homily for the 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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20th Sunday of Ordinary Time, A                                                                   August 20, 2023Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/A7z5KmsFjZs To be Catholic is to live in tension… to be in the world but not of the world. The more we live our faith, the more we should love the people around us. At the same time, the more we live this out, the more we are opposed to the falsehoods and sins of those same people. While growing in our love of others, we simultaneously grow in ways that put us in conflict with them. That tension can be difficult...Read More

Beyond Opinion: Homily for the Feast of the Transfiguration

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Feast of the Transfiguration, A                                                                       August 6, 2023Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/6kYxVwOeO_0 “The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth.” I hope you know that we really do mean it. The Psalm doesn’t say “the Lord is our king” or “the Lord is king if you accept him.” It says the Lord is king… over all the earth. I think we might have an American “freedom filter” in our brains that doesn’t let us register what that really means. We’re taught from birth not to impose our beliefs on other people....Read More