Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for June 1, 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 of America. It’s Monday, June 1st, the Feast of Saint Justin Martyr, the great 2nd century apologist who tried to convert even the emperor into known as Antoninus Pius to the faith. We ask his intercession for all missionaries everywhere that they might have success in bringing people to Jesus. I’m coming to you from the Franciscan University of Steubenville, in front of a beautiful statue of Saint Francis in this the 800th anniversary of his death and birth into eternal life. Today’s gospel, Jesus gives us a parable that’s a pretty disturbing one, but it’s one that’s illustrative of first God’s gift to us and then what our response to that gift is supposed to be in every age. He tells the parable about a vineyard. Now the vineyard, according to Isaiah, was the house of Israel, but you could also extend the vineyard to the entire church and to the entire world. He said, “The owner of a vineyard leased it to tenant farmers and the arrangements of the time would be the farmers would tend the vineyard and the give a share of the produce back as rent at the appointed time. So at that appointed time, the owner of the vineyard sent his servants and they mistreated them, they beat them, they stoned them, and killed them. And then another one was sent and the same thing happened. Finally, the owner of the vineyard said, “I’ll send my son there. They’ll respect my son.” But when the son in fact came, they said, “This is the heir. Come on, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.” And that’s what they sought to do. Jesus was using this, of course, as a parable of what was happening throughout the Old Testament where God was sending his prophets, his servants to the house of Israel in order to be able to receive the fruits of faith back, the fruits from all that God had given. But in fact, they mistreated the prophets and several of them they slayed. Finally, he sent his own son and we know what happened to the son in his crucifixion. Jesus at the very end of that parable says, “What will the owner of the vineyard do to those tenants when at last he comes?” And just on the sheer logic of justice, they said, “He will put them to a miserable and wretched death.” But that’s what justice meant for all those who had sinned against God. That’s in fact not what he did. He came with mercy. His vindication was attempted forgiveness. And that’s what Jesus himself has brought into the world, and that’s what missionaries are trying to bring all across the globe, word of this great mercy of the Lord. And then, the actual reception of it through the sacrament of baptism, through the sacrament of confession, and through the Holy Eucharist, especially the precious blood, one drop of which is enough to save the whole world. This is something that St. Francis of Assisi himself received. He lived an immoral life when he was young by his own admission. He was the king of the feast, the king of the party. He was wayward. But eventually the Lord gave him the grace of conversion. Most important thing about St. Francis is his conversion, that he totally converted to the Lord, and he conformed himself so much to Jesus that eventually he bore Jesus’ own wounds in the stigmata. St. Francis was considered someone who reminded everybody of Jesus during his lifetime, because he lived with the simplicity and the focus of Jesus. That’s what’s supposed to happen to each of us as Christians. We’re all supposed to be reminders of Jesus, as conformed as possibly we can be to him in a saving plan. Through the intercession of St. Francis, through the intercession of St. Justin Martyr, who gave his life in witness to Jesus in the second century, outing himself as a Christian during a time when Christianity was illegal by writing a tome to the emperor himself, trying to convert the emperor through logic. These are the ones who are interceding for us and for the church’s mission throughout the world that we might be truly a fruitful vineyard. God bless you.
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on:
Gospel
Jesus began to speak to the chief priests, the scribes,
and the elders in parables.
“A man planted a vineyard, put a hedge around it,
dug a wine press, and built a tower.
Then he leased it to tenant farmers and left on a journey.
At the proper time he sent a servant to the tenants
to obtain from them some of the produce of the vineyard.
But they seized him, beat him,
and sent him away empty-handed.
Again he sent them another servant.
And that one they beat over the head and treated shamefully.
He sent yet another whom they killed.
So, too, many others; some they beat, others they killed.
He had one other to send, a beloved son.
He sent him to them last of all, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’
But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir.
Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’
So they seized him and killed him,
and threw him out of the vineyard.
What then will the owner of the vineyard do?
He will come, put the tenants to death,
and give the vineyard to others.
Have you not read this Scripture passage:
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
by the Lord has this been done,
and it is wonderful in our eyes?”
They were seeking to arrest him, but they feared the crowd,
for they realized that he had addressed the parable to them.
So they left him and went away.