Tag: Conversion

Why Did You Crucify Him? Homily for Palm Sunday 2024

Posted on by Father Albert
Palm Sunday, B                                                                                              March 24, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/NlpiiMfHXWI Why did you crucify Jesus? In a span of 45 minutes, you went from hailing his entrance to shouting, “Crucify him.” What did you do or not do that led you to that point? What motivated you? Money? Pride? Comfort? Power? Popularity? Entertainment? Are you like Judas who first plots against Jesus in response to his waste of money? It’s right after he complains about the woman “wasting” the super valuable ointment that he plots against Jesus. If we let money and valuable things grab hold...Read More

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

Posted on by Father Albert
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

To The Bone: Homily for the 1st Sunday of Lent

Posted on by Father Albert
1st Sunday of Lent, B                                                                                      February 18, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/PLpt7gAnj1k In 1363, King Edward III of England decreed that every able-bodied man in the country must practice archery every Sunday and Holy Day, extending to boys as young as 12, 8, or even 5 years old. The bow and arrow has long been a deadly weapon. The deadliest version in the Middle Ages, the English Longbow, required the ability to pull 150 pounds or more of force with one arm. Thus the training from childhood. This lifelong training was so effective that a unit...Read More

Do I Will It? Homily for the 6th Sunday OT, 2024

Posted on by Father Albert
6th Sunday of Ordinary Time, B                                                                     February 11, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/lOVg2MYP1SY “I do will it. Be made clean.” Jesus means it. And this man is right, Jesus can do whatever he wills because he is God. So, why aren’t we clean? Because, even though God wills it, we don’t. I’m not talking about leprosy, of course. We have that cure already. We know that God does not always heal diseases. Here, though, scripture is using leprosy as a metaphor for sin. Don’t get me wrong, Jesus did heal this man of a real biological disease....Read More

Your Body Matters to God: Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, 2024

Posted on by Father Albert
2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, B                                                                    January 14, 2024Fr. Alexander Albert                                                              St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/YiG7kmwbD-I “Why would the all-powerful God be so worried about what people do in their bedroom?” Critics of the Church’s teaching on sexuality love to ask that kind of question. They want to imply or even explicitly say that the Church is too obsessed with sex and that, to God, it’s not really a big deal. “Do what you want! Your sex life isn’t important enough for him to notice!” We have an answer, though. It’s meant as a rhetorical question or a lazy criticism,...Read More

The Flight of Joy: Homily for the 3rd Sunday of Advent 2023

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3rd Sunday of Advent, B                                                                                 December 17, 2023Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/hGXZtli3eJ8 Fly! Go on, start flying! It’s not like you don’t know how, there are about a million people in the air right now. So why aren’t you flying? Probably because it’s not as simple as just deciding “I’m flying now.” We can only fly in specific circumstances. It is the result of several forces beyond our control, it took us thousands of years to figure out how to do it. Flying is the fruit of a complex process. Despite being possible,...Read More

How It Burns: Homily for the 2nd Sunday of Advent, B

Posted on by Father Albert
2nd Sunday of Advent, B                                                                                December 10, 2023Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/4QCixpBM44I If you were running from a fire about to burn your house down, would you stop to make the bed first? It kind of sounds like St. Peter is saying we should in the 2nd reading. Listen again: “the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a mighty roar and the elements will be dissolved by fire… Since everything is to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought...Read More

What Is Chosen: Homily for the 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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28th Sunday of Ordinary Time, A                                                                   October 15, 2023Fr. Alexander Albert                                                               St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette https://youtu.be/dFZ1EfAg8as Beating the messengers again! Just last week Jesus told us about people who killed the messengers rather than pay their rent. I offered the hypothetical explanation that the tenants of the vineyard had no fruit to give, so they responded to their shame and fear by killing whoever threatened to expose it. Indeed, we often respond to God in the same way – lashing out whenever he dares to touch on our sins, wounds, and weaknesses. Afraid of how demanding God...Read More

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

Posted on by Father Albert
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

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

Posted on by Father Albert
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