Father Kevin A. Codd

Grief is Weird-Death is Strange, 5th Sunday of Lent (A), March 22, 2026

Grief is a most weird experience. It has its own timtable and agenda, coming and going in waves of all sizes. Grief maoy be weird because death, too, is a most strange experience. She who was alive one minute is dead the next: the disjunction between the two realities is confounding in a deeply troubling way. Jesus' encounter with the sisters of dead Lazarus, his great friend, reveals him as one who knows well the strange and weird experiences of both death and grief. He weeps with them and is shaken to his core by the reality. But his calling forth of Lazarus from his tomb is so much more than just another miracle among miracles; in John's gospel is is a SIGN that points to a mystery much deeper: God is creator and mastor of life! Death has no power! 

Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, Ecuador.

Varieties of Blindness, 4th Sundy of Lent-A, March 15, 2026

Jesus' encounter with the beggar born blind in John's Gospel reminds us that there are a variety of "blindnesses" among us. There is the physical blindness of the beggar himself, then there is the economic and social poverty that is the consequence of that disability, and then there is spiritual poverty of being known for all time as a sinner, someone punished by God for some great sin. The beggar knows well all three. Beyond that, there is a blindness in this story that has nothing to do with physical eyes, but a terrible, dark blindness of the heart manifest in those who interrogate the blind man after his healing...and so sadly...even his parents who all but disown him...even after his healing! 

Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, Ecuador.

That Samaritan Woman, 3rd Sunday of Lent (A), March 8, 2026

Miracles in the gospels come in two types: those that bend the laws of nature and those that bend the laws of society, culture, and in the end, the human heart. Today's reading from John's gospel is of the second type: a miracle of the heart that leads a Samaritan woman of rather dubious repute to life as a kind of neo-apostle proclaiming Jesus as the messiah to her neighbors. All this because Jesus chose to break through all manner of social, cultural, and religious taboos to speak to her and touch her heart...a miracle indeed! 

Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, Ecuador. 

The Grandeur of God, Second Sunday of Lent (A), The Transfiguration, March 1, 2026

The "real world" is not always so easy to live in. It is one that is marked by all the afflictions mentioned in the story of the expulsion of Adam and Eve even into our own age. It would be easy to say with some existentialist philosophers of the 20th century, that there is nothing more than the life we know here...and death...so just buck up and accept it. Jesus and his disciples had just had a big dose of the "real world" as he shared with them the terrible things that were going to come to pass in Jerusalem shortly, but a few days later, Jesus lets Peter, James, and John experience the profound rebuttle to those existenialist philosophers: he lets them see, hear, and know the presence of God in himself...and in the "real world" beyond. What the Jesuit poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins put so beautifully in words: "The world is charged with the grandeur of God." 

(By the way, this homily was interrupted by a happy little dog ambling down the center aisle, smiling at the preacher, and ambling on...thus the odd interruption mid-way through!)

Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, Ecuador. 

God Comes to Us So We Don't Have to be Gods, The First Sunday of Lent (A), The Temptations in the Dessert, February 22, 2026

The story of Adam and Eve's original sin is a sin of hubris: striving to become gods themselves by knowing what God knows. The consequenses of that sin reverberate to the present day. God's response to our human inclination to make ourselves gods is to come to humanity, God in flesh here with us, so we don't need to be gods. Jesus' fundamental temptation in the desert, then? To shortcut his humanity and not really be fully human anong us. 

Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, Ecuador. 

Smudged or Sprinkled? Ash Wednesday, February 18, 2026

The decision of a young priest to "sprinkle" ashes over the crown of the faithfuls' heads rather than smudge a cross on their forehead was met with some annoyance. Who, according to today's Gospel passage was "right"? 

Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, Ecuador. 

Commandments and Jesus, 6th Sunday of Ordinary Time (A), February 15, 2026

The segment of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount that we here today (Matthew's version) is a lot to chew on. He affirms his fidelity to the Law of Moses in no uncertain terms, then shifts into a kind of "turbo" gear as he blasts the leaders of his people for their heartless enforcement of the Law. 

Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, Ecuador. 

A Passage that Shakes Us, 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time (A), February 8, 2026

The clear, direct, and convicting words from the late chapters of the Book of Isaiah are shaking. What makes Israel a "light" in the darkness and a people pleasing to God isn't the adormnents of the Temple nor its animal sacrifices. The hungry, the naked, and the oppressed come first. Loving them is what gains God's love for Israel. As it was then, so it is now...to be a light in the darkness of our own time, and dark it is,  we must attend to the prophet's call to care first for the least. 

Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, Ecuador. 

Humility and Antigua Sta. Catarina Ixtahuacan, 4th Sunday of Ordinary Time (A), February 1, 2026

Having just returned from an eight-day visit to the small village in the mountains of Guatemala where I once served, I offer some reflections on the virtue supporting all the Beatitudes in today's Gospel reading from Matthew...and how that virtue, humility, is being actually lived in the small village of Antigua Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan. 

Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, Ecuador. 

The Lamb of God, 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (A), January 18, 2026

The Gospel of John begins with a mystical reflection on the Word...even before time, but eventually "made flesh and dwelt among us." Woven into this magnificent poem is John's version of the encounter between John the Baptist and Jesus. The baptist's role in John's gospel is not to baptize Jesus, but to proclaim him as "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." Let us reflect on this image of the Lamb...

Homily shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, EC.