Father Kevin A. Codd

A brief homily following the extended proclamation of the Passion Narrative from the Gospel of Luke, (the homily begins just after the 19 minute mark). 

Moses in his early days was something of an underachiever...spending his youth tending to sheep in a hot and lonely desert. That changes when God meets him in that desert...and it all begins...and ends...with the command: "Take off your shoes!" 

Within this story are the foundational revelations of who God is for us! 

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the moral exhortations of Jesus in today's gospel reading. How can I ever live up to such high standards of loving, forgiving, and self-giving! Maybe the stories of family life can help: it is in the small things that we live Jesus' moral mandates of love.

Jesus sits down with his disciples and gives them his first "formation conference." He teaches them about the kingdom of God in terms of blessings and woes. But from whom did Jesus learn all this? Maybe Mary?

Jesus' return visit to his hometown of Nazareth begins well enough: he's invited to teach in the village synagogue, and at first, all is well. Then strains in his relationship to his fellow Nazarenes goes south fast. Why? 

Jesus returns to Nazareth and in the synagogue of his home town he reads from the prophet Isaiah and declares to all assembled his life mission: to open the eyes of the blind!

The onward march of science has taken some of the wonder out of our stars. We now know that they do not travel, they do not accompany, they do not hold within them our destinies. So what of the story of the Three Magi from the East and their famous star guiding them to Bethlehem? Can their story be retold for our times? Let's try!

Sometimes the radio stations just don't quite get it when it comes to separating Advent music from Christmas music! O Come, O Come Emmanuel is decidedly NOT a Christmas hymn and should NOT be aired after mid-day, December 24th! Yet maybe that error in judgement tells us something important about Christmas itself: once we were a people who longed for God to Come to us...now we are a people who are called by God to come to him. 

The history of humanity's relationship to this world's kings is not exactly a positive one. Why then do we use the image of a "king" to describe Jesus, the very model of humility and self-giving service.