Hello friends,

Last week we got such great surprises. I am happy to say that St. Albert the Great Newman Parish was awarded $5,000 by Desert View Homes. This award was granted to us in recognition of the various ministries we provide to help the community and the students of NMSU. I would like to thank Desert View Homes for this kind donation. I would like to that our parishioners who serve on our ministries. Your service does not go unnoticed.

 Hello Friends,

As Catholics, we firmly believe that God has a plan for our lives! He calls some to marriage, some to the priesthood, and others to religious life. Some remain as generous single people. To fully live our own vocation and teach young people how to discern God's call is a serious but joyful duty. Today, November 4th begins National Vocations Awareness Week. During this week, please pray about how God is calling you to live your vocation more deeply. Encourage the youth, children, grandchildren, students, friends to be open to Gods call to priesthood or consecrated life.

This weekend, we will be in Cloudcroft with a few gentlemen who are discerning their vocation. Pray for these men that they may answer God's call. We need more people to fall in love with the Lord. He calls us to follow  him in different ways. I am grateful that this community is praying and supporting vocations. 

Last weekend, we had a large group of college students attend the Aggie Awakening at Holy Cross Retreat Center. I had the opportunity to visit with them briefly. I saw joy, love and hunger for the Lord. The retreat team  and Annisa Wright did a fabulous job coordinating the retreat. We are blessed to have the students of NMSU

Many blessings,

​Fr. Alex Urena

Dear Friends,

​You just heard a one sentence summary of the mission of Jesus Christ. You heard him saying to the Twelve: "For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." "Many" means "all," the entire human race; the "Son of Man" is a messianic title, an expression that occurs seventy times in the Synoptic Gospels; in every case, Jesus applies the title to himself. It is precisely as Son of Man, a title that emphasizes his humanity, that Jesus suffers and dies. That title puts him close to you. "The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." If you want to understand Christ, you have to understand service. If you are interested in salvation, you have to be interested in service. If you want to be like Christ, you have to be concerned about serving, not being served. With that been said, I want to say that many of you showed the spirit of service during our Pachanga. Last weekend was a beautiful opportunity where many of you took to heart the words of the Gospel, to serve others. I want to thank the entirely community of St. Albert the Great for an awesome Pachanga. There are so many of you who helped in many ways, to you all thank you. Special thanks to our Pachanga chair and co-chair: Erlinda Portillo and Christina Kelley for organizing all the events of the Pachanga. They put a lot of time and effort into it. May God bless them and you all for your hard work.

​Fr. Alex Ureña

Hello Friends,

We are a week away from our St. Albert's Pachanga.  I want to extend a personal invitation to all of you and your family and friends to be part of our annual celebration.  This is an opportunity for all of us to come together as a family and enjoy some time together.  Remember that this year the kick off of our event is on Saturday, October 13th with a dance.  The following day the Pachanga continues all day with different events throughout the day.  I really hope that you can make it and be part of this experience.  On Sunday, October 14th, we will have matachines dancing at 10:00 am at St. Albert's church and at 10:30 am we will have a mariachi mass at our church.  After that we all can go to have lunch at our Pachanga at Tortugas.  There will be brisket, gorditas, hamburgers, aguas frescas, sodas, sweets, etc.

Hope to see you there!
Fr. Alex Ureña

Hello Friends,

This coming week the diocesan priest of the diocese of Las Cruces will be attending a retreat in Tucson, Arizona.  This is part of our continue formation to nourish our souls and to dedicate time to pray together as priests.  During that week, there is a priest or bishop who directs the talks throughout the week.  We celebrate the sacrament of Reconciliation among ourselves and also the Anointing of the sick.  It is such a wonderful time to spend with one another and to be able to receive the sacraments that we perform with all of you, parishioners of the different churches.  Pray for us while we live our retreat.  May the Lord give guidance and strength to guide His church in its journey to Holiness.

Next weekend, I want to present to the community the state of the parish address.  I've been here for a year already and I want you to know how we are doing in the different areas (financially, spiritually and pastorally).  I hope I will have some time during the retreat to prepare this report.  With that been said, there are some items that are still up in the air.  We are conscious that our bishop, Oscar Cantu is leaving us at the end of this month.  We need to pray that the Holy Spirit sends us another good leader to our diocese.  We wish bishop Cantu the best in his new assignment in San Jose diocese.  We are grateful to him for his leadership during his time with us.

Fr. Alex Ureña

Hello Friends,

Some of you might notice that last weekend I was absent.  I  made a short trip to Los Angeles, California to baptize a child in the family.  I also took that opportunity to visit my siblings that live in California.  I am happy to be back with all of you and continue to finalize some details for our St. Albert's Pachanga.

Let me share with you some words from today's readings.  Today we heard the prophet Isaiah speaking words of encouragement to God's people during their captivity in Babylon.  He proclaims:  "Be strong, fear not!  Here is your God...he comes to save you."  God's salvation is expressed in terms of numerous blessings among which are healing the blind and the deaf, the lame and the mute.  The reading prepares us for the gospel where Jesus heals man who was a deaf mute.  Jesus' healing work was a work of compassion, but it also announced in a dramatic way the saving presence of God among his people.  In our own times of trials, we need to remind ourselves over and over that God is with us.  In some way, even if we do not understand it.  He is touching us with his saving love.

​Fr. Alex Ureña

On Monday August 20, 2018, our Holy Father, Pope Francis issued a letter to the people of God. These are his words of the first paragraph of the letter: “If one member suffers, all suffer together with it” (1 Cor 12:26). These words of Saint Paul forcefully echo in my heart as I acknowledge once more the suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power and the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated persons. Crimes that inflict deep wounds of pain and powerlessness, primarily among the victims, but also in their family members and in the larger community of believers and  nonbelievers alike. Looking back to the past, no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient.  Looking ahead to the future, no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of there being cover ups and perpetuated. The pain of the victims and their families is also our pain, and so it is urgent that we once more reaffirm our commitment to ensure the protection of minors and of vulnerable adults.

Cardinal DiNardo, president of the USCCB responded to Pope  Francis' letter with these words:
"I am grateful to the Holy Father for his Letter to the People  of God, responding to the Pennsylvania Grand Jury investigation and other revelations that have surfaced. The very fact that he opens the letter with the words of Saint Paul: 'If one part suffers, all parts suffer with it' (1 Cor 12:25), shows that he is writing to all of us as a pastor, a pastor who knows how deeply sin destroys lives. I find these words of  the Holy Father particularly helpful: 'penance and prayer will help us to open our eyes and our hearts to other people's sufferings and to overcome the thirst for power and possessions that are so often the root of those evils.' These words must provoke action – especially by the bishops. We bishops need to– and we must – practice with  all humility such prayer and penance. 

 "The Holy Father is also inviting, and I am asking this as well, that all the faithful join in prayer and fasting as a way to help foster conversion and genuine change of life wherever it is needed, even in the shepherds of the Church. Jesus remarked once, 'This kind can only come out through prayer and fasting' (Mark 9:29); a humble reminder that such acts of faith can move mountains and can even bring about true healing and conversion.
 
"On behalf of my brother bishops, I offer that only by confronting our own failure in the face of crimes against those we are charged to protect can the Church resurrect a culture of life where the culture of death has prevailed."

I as your pastor of St. Albert the Great Newman Parish want to offer an opportunity to come together as a family to pray for the victims and to ask for healing. September 7 will be the First Friday of the month, I would like to use this opportunity to pray for the future of our Church and to offer the sacrament of healing through the Anointing of the Sick during our 5:30 pm Mass. Our bishop, Oscar Cantu wants to have a Holy Hour at the cathedral of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on September 10 at 6:00 pm.

Fr. Alex Ureña

Dear Friends,

This weekend we have a familiar story in the Gospel in which Jesus multiplies the loaves and fishes.  In this famous Gospel story we cannot fail to notice the compassionate regard Jesus had for the need of the crowd.  There were no stores or restaurants around.  The people were obviously going to feel the need for food;  they would soon be hungry.  Their need presented Jesus with an opportunity to demonstrate his power, and there was an opportunity here for him to meet an evident human need.  That's what God is like.  That's what Christ, who is God among us, came to do:  to meet our needs.  All of these started with the little boy who contributed the original five loaves and two fish.  I can picture this young boy sort of looking around and thinking something like, "It's too bad, really, about all these others.  I wish there was something I could do.  But five hunks of bread are just five hunks of bread.  My little efforts aren't going to change this mess one bit."  Then suddenly there are a couple of apostles towering over him, saying, "Yes, there is something you can do.  Give your bread and your fish to Christ."  The kid says, "This little bit?"  The apostles reply, "Yup.  That little bit."

Well, the point is clear.  If that child had insisted on being his own judge as to what the effects of his efforts could reasonably be expected to be, then he would not have made that effort, and an awful lot of hungry people would have sat there for quite a while.  But he didn't.  He was content to simply make the effort and let Christ be the architect of its effects.  There is a very profound truth in all of this:  those who live in God's world never know the final outcome, the full effects of their efforts.  That is so because it is, in fact, God's world.  It is God who builds it, and by God's choice part of the essential raw material of that building is the effort that we make.  That means that there is a real sense in which God depends, in the building of the kingdom, on the efforts that we make to be virtuous.

Fr. Alex Ureña

Hello Friends,
​
I don't know how many of you remember the first reading from the prophet Ezekiel from last Sunday.  Prophets sometimes predict the future, but most of the time they tried to direct God's people to live by God's commandments.  Their efforts to do so were not always appreciated.  Today in our first reading we hear from the prophet Amos who lived over 700 years before Christ.  At that time in Israel there were people who made a career out of being prophets.  Whether called by God or not, they would speak for God, telling people how to solve their problems, giving them advice, predict the future, etc., all for an appropriate fee.  You can imagine that these professional prophets would tend not to be offensive people or say anything that could possibly be upsetting or they might not get paid.  As he says in today's first reading, the prophet Amos was not one of these professionals.  He was a farmer but God called him to go to Bethel, a major city in Israel, to confront the people about their sinful lives and to warn them that their immoral living would lead to their destruction.  His blunt and honest message did not make people happy, and the high priest there told him to "get out of town."  Today's passage prepares the way for the gospel where Jesus sends his apostles out to preach and warns them they may not always be welcome.

Fr. Alex Urena

Hello Family,

You might be wondering why I call you family when other times I used the word "friends".  Well,  I think it is well worth noting today that the Gospel reading we heard this weekend has Jesus providing us with a ticket of admission right into his family circle.  you will recall that when someone shouted out to him that "your mother and your brothers and your sisters are outside asking for you," Jesus replied by asking, "Who are my mother and brothers?"  And he looked around at the crowd surrounding him and continued: "Here are my mother and brothers.  For whoever  does the will of God is my brother, sister and mother."  Whoever does the will of God... let us think about that for a moment.

We know from St. Paul's letters that the early Christians spontaneously used kinship language ("brother, sister") to speak of the community that sprang from following Jesus and understanding his way of life as doing the will of God.  Those baptized into Christ become brother and sister with a bond that is deeper than the natural kinship of family.  Here is a unity deeper than blood.  In today's Gospel, Mark illustrates that reality in this encounter between Jesus and the relatives.  People responding to the will of God revealed in Jesus find kinship deeper than family.

​Fr. Alex Ureña