Father Kevin A. Codd

Forty Days

"Forty" is one of the big numbers in the Scriptures...it comes up time and time again. It makes its first big splash in the story of Noah: the rains fell for forty days and forty nights! It makes its appearance again in the story of the Exodus: the Hebrew people spend forty years wandering in the desert. And finally, Jesus spends forty days in the desert following his baptism in the Jordan River. 

And then there is "our forty"...the forty days of Lent we have begun in earnest...

"I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony..."

The bubbly optimism of that old Coke jingle, "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony," doesn't offer a real picture of hard it is to make the world the place it should be. Christianity faces the same conundrum: "If we are a people of such great hope and the Gospel brings us salvation...why is the world still such a mess? Today's sober Gospel reading tips the reason in one word repeated over and over again: "Hipocite!" 

Healing

Today's Gospel passage highlights Jesus' healing grace as he tenderly takes the hand of Peter's mother-in-law and restores her to health. It is the perfect image for our continuing ministry of healing as celebrated in the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, the celebration of which in our parish follows this homily.

The Opening Battle Scene in Mark's "Movie"

Mark's Gospel is similar to one of those Hollywood movies that begin with a big battle scene and then holds your attention until the last big battle scene! 

Today we are treated to a front-row seat at the big cosmic battle that almost opens Mark's Gospel: the battle between Jesus and the power of God verses the impure spirit and the powers of darkness. Hold on to your seats!

Jesus Finds Us and Calls Us Right Where We Are

Mark's version of the story of the call of the first disciples by the Sea of Galilee seems most improbable? Is it possible that he no more than shows up, calls, and they follow...leaving behind everything in an instant? 

Maybe Mark is trying to teach us some important things about Jesus...and us! 

He has something which attracts us like "love at first sight"...what it is?

He finds us...we don't find him.

He meets us right where we are at in our daily lives, at home, at work, at school.

Homily delivered at Sacred Heart Church, Othello, WA. (Apologies again for the raspy voice!)

The Three Strangers

Each of the popular names given to today's Gospel characters adds its own nuance to the Epiphany story, but the mostly fogotten name is the most important: The Three Strangers!

(Apologies for the raspy voice...recovering from the Great Flu Epidemic of 2018!)

The Baptist: Nothing Cherubic about this Man of God!

Renaissance artists often pictured John the Baptist and Jesus as cute-as-can-be-infants together as cousins. Mark has none of it! In his gospel, John is a full-grown, wild-eyed prophet with divine fire in his heart!

Beyond our Imagining: God With Us!

As our human imagination fails us in picturing that which we have not yet seen, as with our earth before the Apollo missions or the universe before Hubble, so it is with God. Our images of God were so feeble compared to the reality of "God Among Us", Jesus Christ. 

Perfect Thanksgiving

We can learn from television's domestic diva how to set a perfect Thanksgiving table and how to cook the perfect Thanksgiving turkey, but it is easy to find we have celebrated the great feast of Thanksgiving without much giving of thanks. Today's parable from Matthew's Gospel helps pull us back to the foundational attitudes of the heart that put the "thanks" back into Thanksgiving.

Practice What You Preach

"Practice what you preach!" Great advice, but so hard to live. In fact, how could we actually, fully practice what we preach when what we preach, profess, proclaim, and teach is this beautiful Way of Jesus? We fail at it all the time! So what is to be done...not preach? Maybe not...look to Paul who knows he is a fragile vessel of the Word of God, yet proclaims it anyway!