‘GOD ACTS IN THE ORDINARY’

Bishop Mark O’Connell delivers the homily from the pulpit during his first mass as Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, at the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception in Albany, N.Y. Cindy Schultz for The Evangelist (Courtesy photo of Cindy Schultz)

Bishop Mark O’Connell walked across the altar of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Sunday, Dec. 7, toward the church’s pulpit. He ascended the stairs and paused, overlooking the pews of attendees who had come out to hear the very first Mass led by their new bishop. 

Bishop O’Connell, smiling from the top of the stand, said, “I was hoping they would let me up here to preach.”

Bishop Mark — as he prefers to be called — was installed as the 11th Bishop of Albany in a packed celebration at St. Edward the Confessor Church in Clifton Park on Dec. 5. Just a few days later, the new Bishop celebrated his first Mass at the Cathedral, which also drew a healthy crowd of parishioners, curious to meet the new leader of the Albany Diocese. 

Bishop Mark O’Connell leads in prayer during his first mass as Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, at the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception in Albany, N.Y. Cindy Schultz for The Evangelist 

In his Sunday homily, Bishop O’Connell echoed a similar message from his homily at the installation: that we are all called by God to proclaim the Gospel, but Sunday he explained it with some added help from John the Baptist. 

The Gospel reading for the second Sunday of Advent recounts John the Baptist preaching in the desert of Judea, and Bishop O’Connell recalled how John the Baptist had expected the Messiah to appear in this grandiose and magnificent way, envisioning “this mighty warrior,” Bishop O’Connell said.

But it wasn’t like that, he explained; Jesus came to his people as an ordinary person. 

During a trip to the Holy Land, Bishop ­O’Connell recalled seeing the Jordan River for the first time. For all its references in the Bible, the river in reality was much different. 

“One doesn’t go there and think, ‘Wow,’ one goes there and thinks, is this the spot?” Bishop O’Connell quipped.

In a similar way, Jesus may not have been as John expected, Bishop O’Connell explained, but was everything that he had hoped for. “In reality,” he said, “God acts in the ordinary.”

Bishop Mark O’Connell, center, laughs with choir member Frances Williams, left, and her daughters Rose Williams, 4, Eliza Williams, 21 months, and husband Brett Williams after Bishop Mark’s first mass as Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, at the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception in Albany, N.Y. Cindy Schultz for The Evangelist.Bishop O’Connell joked that when he tells his vocation story to children about his calling to the priesthood, he’ll exaggerate the tale. In the grand version, Bishop Mark, on his 18th birthday, was out riding his horse when he was stopped by rain, thunder and an angel descending from the clouds, a mighty scroll in hand, to announce to him, “Mark, you’re a priest!”

The truth was that Bishop Mark was preparing to start school at Boston College and needed to pick a major. He went to the back porch of his house to contemplate what to do, and while standing outside, he recalled having three thoughts.

“First thought: I’d love to be a priest, but too bad God hasn’t called me. The second thought: Maybe this is a calling. Third thought: Well, I guess I’ll start living my life as if it were and we’ll see what happens.”

“I left the house and went out to the porch with no earthly idea that I was going to be a priest, let alone a bishop, let alone the Bishop of Albany,” he said,  “and I went back into the house and I never stopped the journey.”

Every follower of Jesus has a similar calling; a calling to do, to say and to spread the word — and it’s right there in front of us, baked into the everyday of our lives. And there, in the tiny whispers of our hearts or the gentle presence of our loved ones, that is where God, and our calling, waits.

“God comes to us in the ordinary,” he said. “God comes to us and changes our lives in ordinary ways.”