Father Kevin A. Codd

Martin Luther King's famous speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial repeated over and over the refrain: "I have a dream..." In  a very real, he and the prophet Isaiah shared the vision of a better future rooted in justice and human fraternity so eloquently expressed in the words, "I have a dream..." In Isaiah's case, the dream was founded in the hope that the living God would come to save his...

Our usual experience of the passing of time is like a straight line moving from creation to the present moment. The biblical experience of time is formed by an understanding that with God, there is no past, present or future: all of it remains present. Time is not a straight line so much as a revolving series of ovals! On this First Sunday of Advent, the notion of "time" comes up often in the read...

La imagen de Jesús crucificado y la de los reyes de este mundo con sus riquezas, ejércitos, y poder absoluto no se combinan bien. ¿Entonces, porque celebramos hoy un rey humillado, sin poder ni riquezas, muriendo en desgracia? ¿En que sentido es este Jesús un rey? Vamos a ver… Homilia compartida en la Iglesia de San Francisco, Cuenca, Ecuador.

The image of Jesus dying on the cross and that of our worldly kings seem to be polar opposites, yet this day we proclaim this humble, defeated, and dying man a king. How is this possible?  Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community, Cuenca, Ecuador.

Al acabar el año litúrgico, las lecturas de las misas dominicales se enfocan más y más en cómo se acaban las cosas hecho por las manos humanas, y lo más importante, la esperanza que Jesús nos ofrece en medio de las tribulaciones de los últimos días.  Esta homilía es un poco improvisa porque Padre Kevin no tuve la oportunidad de prepararla con anticipación.  Homilía compartida en la Iglesia de San...

As the Church year draws to a close, our Sunday readings become ever more preocupied with the end of things. Today, the great Temple of Jerusalem offers a starting point in understanding Jesus' pragmatic understanding of just how fragile are the things made of human hands...and his great hope in God's promises of eventual victory over all that is evil.  Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholi...

On a feast-day dedicated to Christianity's first great church, the Roman cathedral of Saint John Lateran, we pause to reflect on why we love our churches and what The Church most truly is.  Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, Ecuador. 

Even the best of prayers, perfect in form and eloquent in speech, can be perverted from the inside out by human hubris and spiritual pride. Arrogance and judgementalism are the enemies of true prayer, as Jesus teaches in today's parable of the two men who went up to the temple to pray: one a tax-collector and the other a Pharisee.  Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community of Cuenca,...

The "message" in today's parable is easy to grasp...no head scratching required: pray persistently! Nevertheless, the final words of Jesus in this reading are more perplexing: "But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" So what does this have to do with the parable he just told about the persistent widow and the hard-hearted judge? Maybe Jesus is applying the principle of persist...

The very word "leper" for most of human history would have evoked revulsion in most people. The disease had terrible consequences for those who contracted it almost everyone deeply feared it. Somewhat the same, the word "Samaritan" would have evoked among many Jewish people in the 1st century a similar reaction of deep disdain. Both words play prominent roles in today's gospel story and give this...

Perhaps we read Jesus' words to his apostles responding to a request to "increase our faith" in a scolding tone, when, in fact, he may be speaking to them with a bit of comic exaggeration...and even more with affection and delight.  Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community, Cuenca, Ecuador

Yet another parable to consider! This time, Jesus is speaking directly to a group of religious big-shots and this parable of the unnamed rich man and the poor, hungry Lazarus is for them. As we get deeper into the story, Jesus pulls the old gospel switcheroo of the " the first shall be last and the last shall be first" type. By the end of the parable, it is clear that this is a story about himself...

Today's parable is a most head-scratching one! And the commentaries by Jesus that follow the story itself don't help any. What to make of this strange story in which at first sight Jesus seems to approve of a sketchy steward who plays fast and easy with his boss's money? Maybe this is one of those stories that needs some "creative color" added to it so it makes sense to us in our times. That "crea...

Today's feast of the Holy Cross preempts the ordinary Sunday, giving us an opportunity to take a good look at this "gibbet of shame" that has become the preeminent symbol of Christianity. Though we now love our crosses, in the time of Jesus, they were anything but lovely; they were the great sign of Roman cruelty towards those who threatened their empire. It is only in understanding this that we c...

Paul has a problem! His lead pastor among the Colossians, Philemon, has a slave, Onesimus. Onesimus does something to offend his master and flees. Where does he flee to? Well, to Paul who is presently imprisoned in Rome. This is Paul's problem: does he keep Onesimus with him, who he now loves greatly and who has become a Christian...or does he send him back to Philemon, as the rules of Rome dictat...

"Old Greedy Guts" was one of the worst things someone could say about us when we were kids. When, indeed, we were greedy, the epithet stung because it was true. Most of us learned to be generous most of the time, but some never did and really did grow up to become very much "greedy guts." The opposite of being a greedy person is not just simple "niceness" or even just generosity; for a Christian,...

The ancient story of Sodom and Gomorrah, particulalry Abraham's role as intrcessor on behalf of these depraved cities, is our starting point today. The story teaches us two foundational things about God as revealed in the Hebrew scriptures: God feels and God listens. Those two characteristics of God clearly find their way into Jesus' own teaching to his disciples on how to pray.  Homily shared wit...

Las figuras bíblicas de Abraham en el libro de Genesis y la de Marta en el evangelio de San Lucas son muy distintas en su manera de vivir la virtud de hospitalidad. Una comparación de los dos nos ensena mucho sobre el valor de hospitalidad en nuestras propias vidas.  Homilia compartido a los feligreses de la Iglesia de San Francisco en Cuenca, Ecuador. 

On the one hand, the figure of Abraham as he joyfully receives and cares for his three guests at the Terebinth of Mamre and on the other, Jesus' dear friend, Martha, as she slaves in the kitchen while her sister, Mary does nothing, could not be further from one another. Yet they are bound together in today's Liturgy of the Word, and dealing with them both offers us a deeply personal challenge as w...

A doctor of the Law approaches Jesus with a question. How do I gain everlasting life? Jesus bats the question back to him...he's the doctor of the Law after all. The doctor of the law responds with the fundamental commandment to love God...and our neighbor, but presses the issue by asking Jesus then, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus offers him a very challenging parable: "A man was going from Jerusalem...

Un maestro de la ley se acerca a Jesús con una pregunta importante: ¿Como puedo alcanzar la vida eterna? Jesús le dirige contestarla por su propia cuenta porque el es el maestro de la ley. El responde bien por citar la ley fundamental de Moisés: que ame a Dios con todo su corazón…y ame también a su prójimo. El maestro de la ley sigue con otra pregunta de inmensa importancia: ¿Quién es mi prójimo?...

The writiers of the sacred scriptures often used particular numbers to signify important and holy things: 12,7, even little 3! Today's passage from Luke's Gospel continues the tradition with three very important numbers marking his account of Jesus sending forth his disciples to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Each number gives us an insight into our own mission to proclaim and live the Gospel. Homil...

Though tied together by today's liturgy, Peter and Paul were rather an odd couple. The differences between them were substantial in almost every way, and especially their approach to spreading the new faith in the Risen Jesus. One principally a pastor, the other a missionary. The church binds them together in today's feast as a way of saying we need both! Homily for the Solemnity of Saints Peter a...

The magnificent passage from today's liturgy celebrating the profound mystery of the Holy Trinity, (Proverbs 8: 22-31), is worth paying close attention to. It reveals a God who creates our universe, our earth, and we ourselves as human beings filled with delight in doing so. The Wisdom tradition in the Jewish religion in the centuries before Christ, provide us with an alternate view of God the mig...

"In the beginning..." Genesis tells us that when God created the first human being, he breathed life and spirit into him as an act of pure love. "Ruach" is the word in Hebrew for "breath", but also for "wind", and "spirit". It is this same "Ruach" that we hear about in the great Pentecost story of Acts and in John's Gospel as well. The Pentecost story is that of God doing again what he once did: c...