Father Kevin A. Codd

On a feast-day dedicated to Christianity's first great church, the Roman cathedral of Saint John Lateran, we pause to reflect on why we love our churches and what The Church most truly is. 

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

Even the best of prayers, perfect in form and eloquent in speech, can be perverted from the inside out by human hubris and spiritual pride. Arrogance and judgementalism are the enemies of true prayer, as Jesus teaches in today's parable of the two men who went up to the temple to pray: one a tax-collector and the other a Pharisee. 

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

The "message" in today's parable is easy to grasp...no head scratching required: pray persistently! Nevertheless, the final words of Jesus in this reading are more perplexing: "But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?" So what does this have to do with the parable he just told about the persistent widow and the hard-hearted judge? Maybe Jesus is applying the principle of persistent prayer to much more than us just asking God to tend to our own needs? 

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

The very word "leper" for most of human history would have evoked revulsion in most people. The disease had terrible consequences for those who contracted it almost everyone deeply feared it. Somewhat the same, the word "Samaritan" would have evoked among many Jewish people in the 1st century a similar reaction of deep disdain. Both words play prominent roles in today's gospel story and give this event in Jesus' life many levels of meaning. All of it touches our own consciences deeply.

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

Perhaps we read Jesus' words to his apostles responding to a request to "increase our faith" in a scolding tone, when, in fact, he may be speaking to them with a bit of comic exaggeration...and even more with affection and delight. 

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

Yet another parable to consider! This time, Jesus is speaking directly to a group of religious big-shots and this parable of the unnamed rich man and the poor, hungry Lazarus is for them. As we get deeper into the story, Jesus pulls the old gospel switcheroo of the " the first shall be last and the last shall be first" type. By the end of the parable, it is clear that this is a story about himself and them. His final words: "even if one should rise from the dead, they still would not believe," are some of the most potent in all of Jesus' parables. 

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

Today's parable is a most head-scratching one! And the commentaries by Jesus that follow the story itself don't help any. What to make of this strange story in which at first sight Jesus seems to approve of a sketchy steward who plays fast and easy with his boss's money? Maybe this is one of those stories that needs some "creative color" added to it so it makes sense to us in our times. That "creative color" may come to us from its twin reading from the Prophet Amos in which the prophet decries the rich and mighty who have gained their privileged status by trampling upon the poor and defenseless. Let's see if we can make this story less head-scratching! 

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

Today's feast of the Holy Cross preempts the ordinary Sunday, giving us an opportunity to take a good look at this "gibbet of shame" that has become the preeminent symbol of Christianity. Though we now love our crosses, in the time of Jesus, they were anything but lovely; they were the great sign of Roman cruelty towards those who threatened their empire. It is only in understanding this that we can today exalt the Cross as the sign of our salvation in Jesus. 

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

Paul has a problem! His lead pastor among the Colossians, Philemon, has a slave, Onesimus. Onesimus does something to offend his master and flees. Where does he flee to? Well, to Paul who is presently imprisoned in Rome. This is Paul's problem: does he keep Onesimus with him, who he now loves greatly and who has become a Christian...or does he send him back to Philemon, as the rules of Rome dictate? Paul wisely sends Onesimus back, but with a deeply personal letter (written in his own hand!), and requests that Philemon take Onesimus back, no longer as a slave, but as a brother in Christ. In this letter, Paul begins the extremely slow process of kicking the spiritual foundations out from under the practice of slavery. He also issues a call to all of us to consider how we might "use" people as so much chattle in our lives. 

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

"Old Greedy Guts" was one of the worst things someone could say about us when we were kids. When, indeed, we were greedy, the epithet stung because it was true. Most of us learned to be generous most of the time, but some never did and really did grow up to become very much "greedy guts." The opposite of being a greedy person is not just simple "niceness" or even just generosity; for a Christian, the oppositite is to be a Eucharistic Person: humble, self-sacrificial, and an agent of communion. 

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