Father Kevin A. Codd

The Who and Why of Walking on Water, 19th Sunday (A), August 13, 2023

Storms are part and parcel of life...not just the climactic ones, but the challenges we face as human beings throughout our lives. The image of Jesus walking on water in today's Gospel oftentimes gets treated as just one more "trick" pulled out of Jesus' Son of God hat. In reality, it is a powerful lesson to us during the storms of our lives for it teaches us WHO Jesus is and WHY he does what he does for us. 

This homily was delivered to the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, Ecuador. 

God Whispers, Solemnity of the Transfiguration, August 6, 2023

We live in a loud world these days where most everyone feels a need to holler, bellow, and even scream. It is perhaps only natural then, that we should presume that when God is talking to us, he too bellows. Our imaginations revert to the image of his voice coming from the heavens as a rumbling thunder that shakes the earth to its core. Yet, today's Gospel story of the Transfiguration of Jesus in an intimate, tender, and mystery-laded story from beginning to end. Is it not more likely that God is whispering here? And Jesus as well? 

Homily delivered to the Saint Francis Catholic Community of Cuenca, Ecuador. 

Wisdom and the Understanding Heart, 17th Sunday of the Year (A), July 30, 2023

Solomon's request from God for the gift of an understanding heart, wisdom, is one that invites us to consider what that same gift might mean for us. 

Homily delivered to the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, Ecuador

Trigo y Cizañas: Una Parábola Para Nosotros: 16o Domingo Ordinario-A, 23 julio 2023

Es una parábola hermosa pero nos deja sin saber quienes sean trigo y quienes sean cizañas. Sea posible que nosotros somos cizañas?

Wheat and Weeds: A Parable for Us: 16th Sunday of the Year-A, July 23, 2023

Jesus' parable of the wheat and weeds ("tares") is clear, concise, and Jesus even offers an interpretation of each element of the parable to his disciples. However, he leaves one vital question unanswered: who then are the weeds and who are the wheat in this story? The rest of the gospel gives us a pretty good idea and only poses more deeply the question of how we ourselves fit into that answer. 

This homily was shared with the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, Ecuador. 

Padre David Baronti: Missionary, 15th Sunday of the Year (A), July 16, 2023

This homily has only the slightest connection to the readings of the Sunday liturgy; it is instead a reflection on the missionary impulse that is at the heart of the Church's life, particularly as it was lived by Father David Baronti across 42 years of priestly service to the faithful of Antigua Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan in the highlands of Guatemala. Having just returned to Cuenca, Ecuador from an extraordinary week in Antigua Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan for Padre David's funeral services, I felt it important to share some of these experiences with my friends here in Cuenca. It goes a bit long, but once I got started, it was difficult to stop!

You can read more about Father David on my website: David (kacodd.com).

Welcome: Double Blessings, 13th Sunday of Ordinary Time (A), July 2, 2023

The scriptures are replete with stories of welcome, those blessed moments when one person welcomes another and the blessings for both welcomer and welcomee are rich and bountiful. Today's reading from 2 Kings gives us one such story and the Gospel of Matthew 10, makes it clear hospitality with its double-blessings is part and parcel of Jesus' teaching to his disciples. 

This homily was preached to the Community of Saint Francis in Cuenca, Ecuador

Sparrows: A Dime a Dozen, 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time (A), June 25, 2023

Of all the images from nature that Jesus could have used to give his disciples a major pep-talk on evangelization, the lowly sparrow seems among the least likely. But Jesus makes a fundamental and foundational point about who God is for us by beginning with sparrows. To understand him, we need to page back to the very first page of the Bible: the story of creation!

Homily delivered to the Saint Francis Catholic Community in Cuenca, Ecuador

Reading the Crowd, 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time (A), June 18, 2023

"Reading the crowd" was one of Jesus' great gifts. As we hear in today's Gospel passage from Matthew 9, his intuitive sense of both the joys and burdens of those who came to him in great numbers allowed him great compassion for them and gave him the ability to grace them with blessings where they were most need. He passes this gift on to the Twelve, a reminder to us that we, too, have been sent out, blessed with this gift to console, heal, and liberate. 

When Jesus invites his disciples to pray for laborers for this great harvest, we are not praying for others to join the harvest; we have met those laborers, and they are we.

Origin Stories: Corpus Christi, June 11, 2023

The "origin story" of today's solemn feast of The Body and Blood of Christ, more commonly known as "Corpus Christi" is really that of the Jesus' Jerusalem Passover meal on the night before he died. His gift of his body and blood was not given only to edify the recipients, but came with a responsibility to share the gift beyond the person receiving it. Jesus' self-giving love, manifested in healing, forgiving, compassion for the sinner is always a gift to be given. If we focus today only on our own spiritual nourishment and not our responsibility to do what Jesus did "in memory of him" then his memory is lost, and in a sense, he dies. This feast of Jesus' Body and Blood calls us to give our own body and blood to the world beyond the doors of this or any church.