Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for July 25, 2026
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 in the United States. It is Saturday, July 25th, the Feast of Saint James the Apostle, coming to you from Mundelein Seminary. You see Saint Mary’s Lake behind me. In the back, you see the house of Cardinal Mundelein that he built for the various receptions, especially when the whole Eucharistic Congress came here 100 years ago. Still a place where the cardinals of Chicago are able to come to hold some of their summer gatherings, fundraisers for the seminary, just to get outside of the city and experience some of the beauty of nature. Today, on this Feast of Saint James, we have a gospel in which he’s featured. But he doesn’t come out heroic at first in this gospel. His mother goes up to Jesus and says, “I want you to give me whatever I ask of you.” What a pushy woman. “What are you asking?” Jesus said. “I want you to command that when you come into your kingdom, my two sons, James, today’s feast, and John, his younger brother, will sit on your two chief seats in your Messianic administration.” Jesus just simply said, “You do not know what you’re asking.” Then he turned to James and John, who probably put their mom up to this ambition, they certainly didn’t stop her, and said, “Can you drink the chalice I’m about to drink?” For that chalice that Jesus was referring to was the chalice of suffering prophesied by Isaiah in a suffering servant songs, Isaiah 42, 48, 49, and 52. “Can you drink my chalice? Can you enter into my sufferings?” And these two Boanerges brothers, sons of thunder, maybe thunder was Jesus’ nickname for the mom who was intervening. They said, “We can.” Jesus said, “In fact, you will. But then he gave an important truth. The one who’s going to sit on my right and my left when entering the kingdom is not mine to give, but it’s for those for whom it’s been prepared by my father. And Jesus was talking not about his kingdom of heaven, certainly not his earthly Messianic reign. He’s talking about entering into his kingdom on Calvary. And we know that the two for whom that had been reserved was the good thief and the bad thief. They would be the ones for whom it was reserved and only one of the two it seems, the one on the right, would in fact seize that opening and enter. Jesus used it as a lesson though for all of the 12 apostles. And he likewise used it as a lesson for missionaries and for priests and for faithful throughout the centuries. He said, “You know how it is among the Gentiles. Their leaders lorded over others and make their authority felt.” And then he himself thunders, “It shall not be this way with you.” He said, “The one who wishes to be great among you must become the servant to the rest.” And he was saying that to the apostles. The one who’s going to be the greatest among them is the one who’s going to serve first the other apostles, not just strangers someplace, but the one who’s going to become great in the very circles in which Jesus has placed them. In just the same way he says, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for the many.” Jesus came to serve. He came to wash feet, came not to fight for seats at table, but to fight for the towel. And he wants us similarly to be a servant like that and to give our life to ransom or rescue people from slavery to sin and in fact to rescue them from death.
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on:
Gospel
The mother of the sons of Zebedee approached Jesus with her sons
and did him homage, wishing to ask him for something.
He said to her,
“What do you wish?”
She answered him,
“Command that these two sons of mine sit,
one at your right and the other at your left, in your Kingdom.”
Jesus said in reply,
“You do not know what you are asking.
Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?”
They said to him, “We can.”
He replied,
“My chalice you will indeed drink,
but to sit at my right and at my left, this is not mine to give
but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”
When the ten heard this,
they became indignant at the two brothers.
But Jesus summoned them and said,
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them,
and the great ones make their authority over them felt.
But it shall not be so among you.
Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.
Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served
but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”