Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for December 10, 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, coming to you from the campus of the Augustine Institute in St. Louis. It’s December 10th, the feast of Our Lady of Loretto. And so we continue in this week that began with the Immaculate Conception and that we’ll conclude with the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe to focus on Mary as the great teacher of how to live Advent well and how to live the missions well. Today, the blessed fruit of the womb, Jesus in the gospel, teaches us about how to approach him who comes to us in this three-fold way every advent in Bethlehem, in time, in the sacraments, and in prayer, and at the end of our life or at the end of time, um, whichever comes first. And so Jesus gives us those indications. He says, “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I’m gentle and meek of heart. You will find rest for yourselves for my yoke is easy and my burden light. What extraordinary words Jesus gives us. First, he wants us to come to him. He wants us to get up from where we are and make the move. Second is he wants us to come through our work and even through our sufferings and our burdens. Sometimes we look at work as a necessary evil or we look at our burdens as things that we just want to cast away. Sometimes those are the great means by which we’re able to encounter the Lord Jesus. Think about that for a second. We’re supposed to encounter him in our work just like Matthew met him as he was tax collecting. Just as Peter, James, John, and Andrew met him fishing. So the Lord wants us to encounter him in our work. Likewise, he wants us to encounter him sometimes in our sufferings, in our labors, and our burdens. come to me with them all. Sometimes when we look at the Gospel, it’s only because of a person’s blindness that he would have met Jesus or because he was deaf or paralyzed or possessed by demons. Jesus wants us to come to him even in especially in those circumstances so that he can refresh us. And how does he refresh us? He says, “Learn me for I’m meek and humble of heart.” He wants us to learn him, not just learn about him, but to come to become his friend. He wants us to imitate his humility. Just receiving him as he comes without putting conditions in his meekness, his strength that’s so strong that he doesn’t have to show it. His gentleness. Jesus wants us to meet him there and become like him to learn how to be meek and humble like he. And then third, he tells us, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For my yoke is easy and my burden light. You will find rest for yourself.” His yoke we know is the cross. And we know that the cross wasn’t light or easy. But the love with which Jesus bore the cross made it relatively light and easy. And when we learn Jesus, we’re ultimately seeking to learn that love. That’s the way we’re going to be refreshed. And that’s the way we’re going to revolutionize the world. The Lord Jesus comes to us in advent to be able to meet us with his yoke to transform us by the love with which he bore us bore it and then to send us out to help the whole rest of the world come to him too. That is the mission of the church today as we pray for missionaries everywhere through the intercession of our lady. Let’s pray that carrying this sweet and gentle easy yoke of the Lord, they might be able to lift up the whole world, carrying back to the good shepherd all his lost sheep. God bless you.
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on:
Gospel
Jesus said to the crowds:
“Everything that the Father gives me will come to me,
and I will not reject anyone who comes to me,
because I came down from heaven not to do my own will
but the will of the one who sent me.
And this is the will of the one who sent me,
that I should not lose anything of what he gave me,
but that I should raise it on the last day.
For this is the will of my Father,
that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him
may have eternal life,
and I shall raise him on the last day.”