Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for December 12, 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 Pentecost image in our beautiful chapel here in Manhattan. Today, December 12th, is a feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. One of the great feasts for the church in the United States of America, celebrating what happened in 1531, 494 years ago in Mexico City, a place called Guadalupe, where Mary appeared between December 9th and 12th to a 57 year-old hardworking peasant named St. Juan Diego. St. Juan Diego was going 15 miles each way to daily mass. The faith had just been brought to the continent almost a decade earlier, but there were very few converts in Mexico City. The reason was fundamentally that no matter how holy and virtuous the Franciscan priests were, their virtues were overwhelmed by the vices of the Spanish soldiers who we call the conquistadores. And so the faith wasn’t really finding any traction. Juan Diego was one of those who had met the Franciscans and he had been really touched by the Lord. There weren’t many priests. He had to sort of um shuffle as the chronicles at the time said each way to daily mass about 15 miles. But he loved the Lord and he wanted to receive him when he could. Our Lady appeared to him along that journey to daily mass and said, “I have a mission for you. I want you to go to the bishop in Mexico City and I want you to ask for a temple to be built right here. He went, he failed in the mission. He came back. She sent him a second time the next day. The bishop exasperated said because he thought he was sincere but maybe a couple screws loose. Listen, if it’s really our lady appearing to you, ask her for a sign that I have in my mind. And it was a sign to see some of his Castilian roses. He was from the Castile region of Spain. He missed those roses. They had never been brought to the new world. Even if they had been, they certainly wouldn’t be blooming in the middle of winter at the top of a high altitude hill called Tepeyac. But then the third day when Juan Diego saw our lady, she said, “Go to the top of the mountain, pick those roses, bring them in your outer garment, kind of like a parka called the tilma to Bishop Juan Zumárraga, and then he will build the temple.” And that’s what Juan Diego did. And when he let the roses fall before, imprinted on his tilma was this image of our Lady that he himself had been seeing as a pregnant Aztec princess that had been blended into the flax of his garment. Normally, a garment like that should disintegrate within 10 to 20 years. It’s still there 494 years later. There’s no scientific explanation for how that happens. No scientific explanation for how a non-painted image could ever get on the flax tilma like that. No explanation for lots of things like the effect in the eye in which if you magnify many times over, you see in a living eye on that tilma 13 different figures including Juan Diego and Bishop Juan Zumárraga our lady came as a great missionary to this continent living out the mystery of the visitation which is today’s gospel bringing Jesus not just to her cousin Elizabeth and St. John the Baptist and St. Zechariah, but bringing him to us in this continent. And within the first 10 years after that appearance, 10 million had been baptized. Our Lady wants you and me to continue the mission she asked of St. Juan Diego to cooperate with her in evangelizing this hemisphere and the whole world. That’s why the Pontifical Mission Societies exist. We pray through the intercession of our lady of Guadalupe for the success of our joint mission.
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on:
Mary set out
and traveled to the hill country in haste
to a town of Judah,
where she entered the house of Zechariah
and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,
the infant leaped in her womb,
and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said,
“Most blessed are you among women,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me,
that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears,
the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord
would be fulfilled.”
And Mary said:
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”