Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for July 19, 2026
Here is the video of today’s reflection.
The YouTube generated transcript for today’s reflection is:
I am Monsignor Roger Landry national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States. It is Sunday July 19th. I’m coming to you from Mundeline Seminary. Is there any better view that you have ever seen than this one looking at St. Mary’s Lake here on the property? Especially that place which housed the blessed sacrament a 100 years ago when the international Eucharistic congress came here to Mundoline on June 24th 1926. In today’s gospel Jesus gives us a three different parables all to teach us about his kingdom. It’s important for us to take all three. The first is the parable of the wheat and the weeds. The in the parable people came to their master and they said the enemy has gone and he’s swn darnell he’s swn weeds among your fields do you want us to go rip out all these weeds there was a particular challenge in the holy land because in the early days of growth the wheat and the weeds would look exactly the same because the species of the weeds very much resembled wheat by the time you could discern the difference between the two. They had grown up so much that their weed that their uh roots would be interconnected and you couldn’t rip out the weeds without likewise ripping out the wheat. That’s the setting of the scene. But Jesus gives us an important principle. He says, “No, let them both grow until harvest time and then we’ll separate them at the end.” So often we like the first disciples can be so concerned about the weeds growing that we forget the wheat. We can look at all the problems in the church. We can look at all the problems of society and get so distracted by them that we forget about the growth that is contained in the seed of the word of God. And rather than fighting the bad stuff, we should be allowing the good stuff really to grow. Rather than fighting first and foremost about other people’s sins, we need to be fighting for love. Because we’ll be able to do a lot more good if we accentuate love and virtue than we will be able to eliminate harm by attacking the evil that’s taken place. It’s a super important principle for every age that we focus on the growth of the wheat and we do that in a special way every Sunday. Second parable he says that the kingdom of God, his kingdom, the growth of his mission in the world, it’s going to happen like a mustard seed. It’s going to start small, but then it’ll grow into a huge bush, a tree, where all the birds of the year can find their respit. Throughout the centuries of the church, we’ve relived over and again the parable of the mustard seed. We’ve done it in parishes that started from nobody or just a few families and grew to be enormous. We’ve seen it in religious order that started just with a founder or founders and then grew to have thousands of members. We see it in churches like the church in Mongolia which 30 years ago didn’t have a single Catholic and now was 1575 as of the Easter Vigil. The mustard seed continues to grow. Sometimes the Lord permits some dying in certain places so that the church there can relive the explosive growth of the mustard seed. A new the third parable is that the church is supposed to be like leavenan that just a little yean levan in the ye a little yeast in the dough is enough to bring up the entire batch of dough. One Christian in a neighborhood, one Catholic in a workplace can transform everything just like we’ve seen with several of the saints over the course of the centuries. Today on this Sunday from this beautiful place, let’s ask to live these parables. God bless you.
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on:
Gospel
Jesus proposed another parable to the crowds, saying:
“The kingdom of heaven may be likened
to a man who sowed good seed in his field.
While everyone was asleep his enemy came
and sowed weeds all through the wheat, and then went off.
When the crop grew and bore fruit, the weeds appeared as well.
The slaves of the householder came to him and said,
‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?
Where have the weeds come from?’
He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’
His slaves said to him,
‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds
you might uproot the wheat along with them.
Let them grow together until harvest;
then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters,
“First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning;
but gather the wheat into my barn.”‘”
He proposed another parable to them.
“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed
that a person took and sowed in a field.
It is the smallest of all the seeds,
yet when full-grown it is the largest of plants.
It becomes a large bush,
and the ‘birds of the sky come and dwell in its branches.'”
He spoke to them another parable.
“The kingdom of heaven is like yeast
that a woman took and mixed with three measures of wheat flour
until the whole batch was leavened.”
All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables.
He spoke to them only in parables,
to fulfill what had been said through the prophet:
I will open my mouth in parables,
I will announce what has lain hidden from the foundation
of the world.
Then, dismissing the crowds, he went into the house.
His disciples approached him and said,
“Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”
He said in reply, “He who sows good seed is the Son of Man,
the field is the world, the good seed the children of the kingdom.
The weeds are the children of the evil one,
and the enemy who sows them is the devil.
The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
Just as weeds are collected and burned up with fire,
so will it be at the end of the age.
The Son of Man will send his angels,
and they will collect out of his kingdom
all who cause others to sin and all evildoers.
They will throw them into the fiery furnace,
where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
Then the righteous will shine like the sun
in the kingdom of their Father.
Whoever has ears ought to hear.”