Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for August 1, 2025
Here is the video of today’s reflection:
The Youtube generated transcript for today’s reflection is:
I’m Monsignor Roger Landry, National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies here in Napa, California. Today, August 1st is the feast of St. Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists, one of the greatest moral teachers in history. In today’s Gospel, Jesus returns home to his native Nazareth, and he preaches in the synagogue. And instead of getting conversion, instead of people rejoicing at this hometown son made not just good but God, they reject him. And Jesus says, “a prophet is not without honor except in his native place.” It’s the mystery of rejection in the Church. But sometimes we know that as Jesus himself says, rejection can lead to the greatest pulpit we’ll ever have, that sometimes it’s when we’re suffering that it gives far greater credibility to the message we are actually proclaiming. But it also points to the fact that sometimes a stranger can say the same thing as a native son and people will take the stranger’s word more seriously than they will take the native son’s. It’s one of the reasons why we need missionaries in the Church going across the globe because sometimes when a missionary shows up from afar saying the same thing that a local believer would that message from abroad is heeded much more seriously. So today we pray for all those missionaries who go far away from home to be prophets, to be the proclaimers that God with us is still very much with us. And we pray for all those to whom they preach that message that they will receive Jesus and His missionaries better than those in Nazareth received Jesus in today’s Gospel. Through the intercession of St. Alphonsus Liguori calling to mind all the Redemptorists who have taken Jesus’ gospel on the road. We ask for those graces. God bless you.
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based was:
Jesus came to his native place and taught the people in their synagogue.
They were astonished and said,
“Where did this man get such wisdom and mighty deeds?
Is he not the carpenter’s son?
Is not his mother named Mary
and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?
Are not his sisters all with us?
Where did this man get all this?”
And they took offense at him.
But Jesus said to them,
“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place
and in his own house.”
And he did not work many mighty deeds there
because of their lack of faith.