Daily Reflection for the Pontifical Mission Societies August 6, 2026

I’m Monsignor Roger Landry, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the church in the United States. I’m here at the front door of the house Robert Francis Prevost and his family called home for the years in which the future Pope Leo the 14th grew. It was [snorts] here that his parents, for example, used to watch on every Tuesday night Fulton J. Sheen’s Life Is Worth Living. And from that nourishment pass it on to the three Prevost boys, Robert Francis, his older brothers John and his and and Lou. It was through this picture window that the television was, where the parents grew in faith and then passed it on as of the first importance. And so here is a place in which all of us can pray for our Holy Father, and we can commit ourselves to journeying with the Holy Father. Today is August 6th, the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. We remember Pope Leo’s predecessor, Saint Peter, and the journey he had to make with James and John up an exceedingly high mountain with Jesus. It shows us that the life of faith is an exertion. We have to be willing to make that effort. It’s an uphill climb with Jesus, but Jesus is there guiding us. When they get to the top of that mountain, they pray. Jesus wanted them there with him to pray. And as Jesus was praying, Moses and Elijah appeared. They were clearly not dead, talking to him about his exodus that he was about to do in Jerusalem, about the way he, like the new Moses, was going to lead his people through the fulfillment of the Red Sea, through baptism, into the eternal promised land of heaven, just like Moses had led the Israelites to the Red Sea to the promised land of Israel. Elijah was the great prophet, and Jesus the great prophet who was supposed to hail the coming of the Messiah. And Jesus was indeed that Messiah about mhm to lead us towards salvation that the Messiah was supposed to bring in a way that far exceeded the expectations of his fellow Jews. As they were praying, the cloud came down on top of the mountain. Peter, James, and John remembered it. And from that cloud came a voice, “This is my son, my beloved. Listen to him.” And I’ve always thought that those words are so important. God the Father expresses his love for Jesus just like he had at his baptism. But then he gave gives an extraordinary command to Peter, James, and John, “Listen to him.” We could say that they had been doing nothing for the previous 2 years but listening to Jesus, listening to the Sermon on the Mount, listening to the Sermon on the Plain, listening to all his parables, listening to him teach as they walked across the dirty pathways of the ancient Holy Land with all its dust, listening to him him teach on the hillsides as well as in the synagogues. But they hadn’t really been tuning Jesus in, especially what he was saying that the Messiah was going to have to suffer and be crucified, but on the third day be raised. They were particularly tone deaf to that. And as soon as Jesus was going to lead them down the mountain, he was going to remind them that this was the way he was precisely going to save us. And so we need to heed what Jesus says as we pray with him on the exertion that sometimes prayer requires. One of the ways that we listen to Jesus is listen to his earthly vicar. And here at Pope Leo’s childhood home, we can ask ourselves, “Are we really listening to what Jesus is trying to say to us through Pope Leo about his constant message of peace, about unity in the church, about human dignity in the age of AI, which was the subject of his second encyclical letter?” As we pray for Pope Leo here, we pray to the Lord and we ask God the Father for the grace that we might effectively listen to his son echoed through the Chicago accent that was perfected right here in this house. God bless you.

The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on:

Gospel