Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for July 23, 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 July 23rd. I am still here recording this video in Krakow. Got a field behind me and this field is a proper setting to consider today’s Gospel in which Jesus gives us one of his most famous and powerful parables of the sower and the seed. He said that the sower went out to sow seed and there were four types of soil it fell on. First was the soil by the path which was hardened, stomped down. It couldn’t take root and the birds of the air would come and snatch it away. The second was rocky soil. When we think about that, we think about a garden with a few pebbles. What he meant throughout the Holy Land is about 3 to 5 inches underneath the soil was a thick layer of limestone so that the seed would immediately sort of start to sprout because the water would be contained there in a very small space. It would immediately sprout out, but because the roots couldn’t go deep, it would be scorched and died. That was referring to superficial people. Third were thorny soil. And those thorns are worldly cares and anxieties, not just sin that could choke the growth of the seed, but that what he wanted was good and fruitful soil. Rich soil he calls today that changes one’s life 30, 60 or 100 ways or more. Today the church celebrates the feast of St. Bridget of Sweden, a 14th century holy one who had this type of rich soil that bore such incredible fruit. She was married against her will at 14 to a man named Ulf. She had eight children. But after about two decades of marriage, she and Ulf, after a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela decided that they were going to split with each other’s permission. Ulf would enter a monastery and Bridget would found the Order of the Most Holy Savior, the Bridgetines, which still exists to this day. St. Bridget’s writings and her prayers continue to nourish the Church. She continues to bear fruit from the seed of the Gospel planted. This is what missionaries hope to do. Crisscrossing the globe to try to sow the seed of Jesus himself, that grain of the wheat, grain of wheat who fell to the ground and died but has borne the most incredible fruit of all. Let’s through St. Bridget’s intercession pray for all missionaries wherever they are and that as they go out to sow the indefectible seed of Christ, they might find not hardened soil or rocky soil or thorny soil, but truly rich soil. And let’s pray the same thing as we go out to sow too. God bless you.
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based was:
On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.
Such large crowds gathered around him
that he got into a boat and sat down,
and the whole crowd stood along the shore.
And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying:
“A sower went out to sow.
And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path,
and birds came and ate it up.
Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil.
It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep,
and when the sun rose it was scorched,
and it withered for lack of roots.
Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it.
But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit,
a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.
Whoever has ears ought to hear.”