Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for December 7, 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 the second Sunday of Advent, December 7th, and I’m coming to you from the beautiful campus of the Augustine Institute in St. Louis, Missouri. On the second Sunday of Advent, every year, the church goes on pilgrimage collectively to the Jordan River, where St. John the Baptist continues the mission he began almost 2,000 years ago at Jesus’ first coming to get ready to get us ready in order to be able to embrace Jesus as he comes to us in history in His incarnation in Bethlehem comes to us in mystery in prayer in the sacraments every day and comes to us in majesty at the end of time or at the end of our life whichever comes first and the plan St. John the Baptist gives us is perennial. He says, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” And we know in the ancient world whenever dignitaries like kings would be coming, they’d need to fix all the rolls from roads from the potholes that were there as the rolling caravan would be accompanying the king. That meant filling up the valleys. That meant leveling the mountains. That meant straightening crooked roads. All of that is what St. John the Baptist calls us to do. He wants us to fill in the pits of a shallow prayer life or the holes where God should be. Wants us to level the mountains of the of pride. Wants us to straighten those paths that might be crooked in our life and to smooth those ways that might still be rough and unworthy of a follower of an apostle of the Lord Jesus. That’s what it means as John the Baptist said to repent and believe in the gospel. Repent means metaninoete to change your entire perspective of looking at things to revolutionize your world view to begin to think not as everybody else thinks but to think as God thinks with his wise categories. That’s what Advent is meant to do. to help us to prepare the road so that as Jesus coming to us in this three-fold way we might run forth to meet him in each of these ways and become so transformed by him that we will run with him as he seeks to get everybody on that same way with him and his church. This is the great work of missionaries. Missionaries are modern-day John the Baptists. They go to the ends of the earth talking about the reality that the kingdom of God is at hand because the king has entered our world. Jesus is indeed Christ the King and to make straight the paths for him to come into their life to transform them in such a way that they might be able to walk with him on the narrow straight and smooth way to the eternal Jerusalem. As we pray for all missionaries today, we pray for you and me as well that we might be effective precursors of the Lord, new John the Baptists, being able to proclaim with our lips and with our life that Jesus has truly come and show the joy of the encounter of Jesus and the joy of following him. God bless you.
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on:
Gospel
John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea
and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said:
A voice of one crying out in the desert,
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.
John wore clothing made of camel’s hair
and had a leather belt around his waist.
His food was locusts and wild honey.
At that time Jerusalem, all Judea,
and the whole region around the Jordan
were going out to him
and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River
as they acknowledged their sins.
When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees
coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers!
Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.
And do not presume to say to yourselves,
‘We have Abraham as our father.’
For I tell you,
God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees.
Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit
will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
I am baptizing you with water, for repentance,
but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I.
I am not worthy to carry his sandals.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fan is in his hand.
He will clear his threshing floor
and gather his wheat into his barn,
but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”