Father Kevin A. Codd

Visiting Guatemala: My Idea of Mission

Having just returned from two weeks in the village of Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán, in the highlands of Guatemala, where our diocese has been involved since the very early 1960's, I offer to my parishioners here in Spokane a bit of an explanation of why I go there and what I hope I bring back with me. 

The Pilgrim Way...then and now, Feast of St. James, July 23, 2016

As pilgrim veterans, prospective pilgrims, and pilgrims-at-heart gathered for the first time in the Spokane area to celebrate the Feast of Saint James, the Apostle ("Santiago"), Father Kevin offered this reflection on the pilgrim's Way both in Jesus' time and in our own. 

Hospitality is not an industry. 16th. Sunday of Ordinary Time-C, July 17, 2016

The biblical stories of Abraham welcoming the three strangers and Marty and Mary welcoming Jesus make clear that hospitality is not just an "add-on" to the Christian life, but an essential part of our living as God would have us live. In welcoming the stranger, we encounter God. 

Jesus the Revolutionary: The story of the "good" Samaritan, 15th Sunday-C, July 10, 2016

Revolutionaries come in two flavors: the worldly/political revolutionary and the revolutionary of the heart. Jesus shows himself to be a master revolutionary of the heart in the extraordinary story of the compassionate and merciful Samaritan. 

The Gospel by the Numbers: A Parish Report Card, 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time-C, July 3, 2016

This Gospel passage features three significant numbers, 72-2-0, each of which offers a fine metric by which to "grade" the quality of discipleship in our parish. 

Orlando: 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time-C, June 16, 2016

In the wake of the horrific shootings at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, yet again we weep over the victims, our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, black, brown, or white, straight or gay. 

Simon the Pharisee, 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time C, June 12, 2016

Following the powerful testimony of the sinful woman in washing Jesus' feet with her tears and drying them with her hair, as well as the prophetic words of Jesus himself, Simon the Pharisee faces a monumental decision: continued self-centered puffery or humble conversion of heart and life. 

In Memory of Me: Corpus Christi-C, May 29, 2016

Remembering the great events of the past and our heroes is part and parcel of being a human being. Remembering in the Jewish tradition is much more: a living anew of the foundational experience of God's grace. Jesus' call to remember him in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup is this kind of remembering: a living anew of the new Passover that is his death and resurrection. 

The One in Three and the Three in One

The opening lines of the ancient Irish prayer, "The Breastplate of St. Patrick," reminds us of how for earlier generations of Christians, the Trinity was not just a theological or doctrinal notion that just had to be accepted, it was a truth that undergirded their lives. They bound themselves to the Trinity!  How? Why? Because they experienced it in their lives!

Pentecost Then and Now, Pentecost-C, May 15, 2016

The Jewish feast of Pentecost, ("Shavuot"), has much to teach us about our own Christian Pentecost. The new Law of the Spirit, not imposed from above, fills us with grace from within and sends us fearlessly into the world to share the good news of Jesus' own Passover from death to life.