Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for December 3, 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. It’s Wednesday, December 3rd, the feast of the patron of the mission, St. Francis Xavier, and I’m coming to you from the beautiful campus of the Augustine Institute in St. Louis. Today in the Gospel, we see the real essence of Advent. Jesus’s heart is bursting with pity for the crowds. And so, what did he do? He taught them. He healed them as we see in the gospel that there were many who were blind, deaf, mute, crippled, lame and Jesus touched them and healed them all. And then he looked at all those he had been teaching for a while and said they had to be hungry. So he started with whatever raw materials that people had and then he worked the extraordinary multiplication of the loaves and fish in order to feed them all to satiation. Jesus looks at our deepest hungers and he wants to feed them. Not just the material hunger for food, but the far more fundamental spiritual hunger for him who is the living bread come down from heaven. And on this fourth day of Advent, the church wants us focusing on that hunger and the way that the Lord out of mercy seeks to fulfill those hungers. Somebody who got this lesson first as a disciple and then one of the greatest apostles in the history of the church is St. Francis Xavier, the great Spanish Jesuit missionary whom the church remembers today. St. Francis Xavier was full of zeal. He was the roommate of St. Ignatius at the University of Paris. And then he joined the original company then society of Jesus the Jesuits. One day when he was in Rome, somebody who was supposed to go to India on mission was sick. And so Ignatius turned to his friend and former roomie Francis Xavier and said, “Would you go in his place?” And promptly Francis Xavier said, “Of course I will.” And so off he went. And he worked in India to bring so many to Jesus and then to what we would call modern day Malaysia to bring so many to Jesus. And then Japan to bring so many to Jesus. informed them in the faith so well that even though they were absent priests for over 150 years, they still remember the lessons that St. Francis Xavier and his first companions originally imparted. And then he died trying to bring Jesus to a whole fourth country, the country of China. Imagine what would have happened had he been that successful. St. Francis Xavier was one who prioritized what Christ himself desired. If God cared about us so much that he took on our humanity and entered the world in that first advent in Bethlehem, if he loves us even more that he makes himself our food and in a uh in a fulfillment of the foretaste in today’s gospel, feeds the great multitudes across time with himself as the living bread come down from heaven, then he wants the whole world to be able to have that nourishment. And likewise, if he’s going to be coming in the final advent on the clouds of the end of time to judge the living and the dead, he wants us all to be ready. That’s the great work of the church. St. Francis Xavier wasn’t supposed to be a one-man show bringing the gospel everywhere. But he loved the Lord enough to do it. He wrote a letter that the church pers in the office of readings today where he wanted to go back to the University of Paris and scream at the top of his lungs to the very bright students there. Would that your charity matched your learning? Do you have any idea how many people are dying without friendship with Jesus because of you? Because you’re not taking this seriously because you’re not dedicating enough time to it. You’re not dedicating your resource. You’re not dedicating your prayer. Today on this feast of St. Francis Xavier. It’s a time for the church throughout the world to get Advent right to recognize Jesus coming and that the work of the church starting from ourselves but then extending everywhere is to try to run out collectively to meet him with the love with which he comes. St. Francis Xavier, pray for us.
Gospel
At that time:
Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee,
went up on the mountain, and sat down there.
Great crowds came to him,
having with them the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute,
and many others.
They placed them at his feet, and he cured them.
The crowds were amazed when they saw the mute speaking,
the deformed made whole,
the lame walking,
and the blind able to see,
and they glorified the God of Israel.
Jesus summoned his disciples and said,
“My heart is moved with pity for the crowd,
for they have been with me now for three days
and have nothing to eat.
I do not want to send them away hungry,
for fear they may collapse on the way.”
The disciples said to him,
“Where could we ever get enough bread in this deserted place
to satisfy such a crowd?”
Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?”
“Seven,” they replied, “and a few fish.”
He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground.
Then he took the seven loaves and the fish,
gave thanks, broke the loaves,
and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.
They all ate and were satisfied.
They picked up the fragments left over–seven baskets full.
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