Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for July 17, 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’s Friday, July 17th, the memorial of the Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne, killed in the French Revolution in 1794. And I’m coming to you from Mundelein Seminary, looking over the great lake that gives St. Mary of the Lake Seminary its name. It was 100 years ago last month that the International Eucharistic Congress finished here on June 24th, 1926. Over a million people had come to adore the Lord Jesus in these grounds. And how great it is to have a chance, 100 years later, to be able to see the faith that continues to grow here in Mundelein, at this seminary forming hundreds of men to serve Catholics in the United States with Jesus and his gospel. In today’s gospel, we see Jesus and his disciples confronted. It was a Sabbath day, and as they were walking through fields of grain, the disciples were so hungry that they were plucking off the heads of grain, and then threshing it in their hands, and then just taking the little grain seeds and trying to eat it. Just think about how hungry somebody must be in order to be able to do that. And the Pharisees and the scribes were on the side, and they came up to Jesus and they accused him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.” Jesus wasn’t going to take that. He defended his disciples. He defended us. He said, “Did you not read that when David was out with his soldiers, how they went into the high priest’s place and took the bread that was only for the priest, the showbread that would rest in the presence of the Ark of the Covenant for week before it would be recycled and the old bread would go to the priest and the new bread would be there, a proto-image of the Eucharist? Did you not read what happened? Because they were soldiers fighting for the Lord with David. So, Jesus was saying, “My disciples are like soldiers for me. They’re war.” He said, “Do the priests violate the Sabbath when they work on the Sabbath?” Of course, the clergy is working when everybody’s coming to the synagogues, when everybody is coming to the temple in order to be able to worship God. The clergy are working and they’re not violating the Sabbath. And so, Jesus was saying, “Not only are the apostles like the original soldiers of David, but they’re like priests. And they would all, in fact, eventually become the priests according to the order of Melchizedek, the priests according to Jesus, the eternal high priest.” Jesus was teaching those lessons and then he finishes by saying, “You should know that the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” That Jesus himself was more important than the Sabbath. Why? The Sabbath was God’s gift to us to restore us to our image. That just like he rested on the seventh day, so we’re supposed to be renewed every Sabbath. But it’s not just that 24-hour period that renews us. It’s not even principally that 24-hour period. It’s God who renews us. And that’s why Jesus was saying, “I’m Lord even of the Sabbath.” If people [snorts] want to be renewed, they’ve got to come to me. That’s what he was telling us yesterday. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me and you will find rest for yourselves. You will be remade.” The martyrs of Compiègne believed this. They lived for the Lord even when they should have to suffer. And they went to the guillotine professing their faith in the Lord, singing his praises. They’re interceding for us now. They’re interceding for missionaries who are trying to bring the Lord and the gift of the Sabbath and the gift of the one greater than the Sabbath to the ends of the earth. It’s what seminarians are being formed here at Mundelein likewise to do in the parishes of the United States. Through the intercession of the Martyrs of Compiègne, let’s pray that we might use the gift of our time here on earth the way they did. God bless you. >> [music] [music]
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on:
Gospel
Jesus proposed a parable to the crowds.
“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.