Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for May 19, 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, here at St. Mary’s Cemetery in West Peoria, Illinois. This the headstone of the Sheen family, and here are the tombs and the caskets of Fulton J. Sheen’s mother, Delia, who died in 1943, and his father, Newton, who died in 1944. The future Archbishop Sheen, he was Monsignor Sheen at the time, was able to come here and celebrate their funerals. Today, May 19th, in the Gospel, we hear for those who had the 7th Sunday of Easter just 2 days ago, the same Gospel from the beginning of St. John chapter 17, in which Jesus first talks about his glory. His glory has a lot to do with his death and our death. His glorification was his exaltation on Calvary. It was the real, full-throttle glory of God and how much he loved us. We pray that the parents of Fulton J. Sheen, just like their soon-to-be-blessed son, are now sharing in that glory. The second thing Jesus told us that night, as he was preparing to die for us, is that this is eternal life, that they may know you, Father, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent. That eternal life is not so much just a state. Eternal life is a relationship. It’s a knowledge. Remember when Jesus was raising Lazarus from the dead, he said to his sisters, “I am the resurrection life. Whoever lives and believes in me, even though he dies, will live, and no one who lives and believes in me will ever die.” Jesus came into the world in order to introduce us into a familial relationship with God, to bring us inside God who is eternal life to help us to recognize we are beloved sons and daughters of the eternal father that we are the beloved of Jesus the eternal son of God and that we are temples of the Holy Spirit. And the third thing that Jesus says to us in the gospel we hear today is I pray for them. That Jesus was praying for the first members of his church and as we’ll hear tomorrow he was praying for all those who would hear the gospel through the waves of apostles that would go out to the ends of the earth until the end of time. Here in this cemetery we remember Christ’s glorification for us. We remember what eternal life is and it starts here and now in the relationship of friendship and discipleship we have with Jesus. We also count on Jesus’ prayers. And we know that the father always hears the prayers of the son and that’s why we have such great confidence. And we also ask Jesus today and join ourselves to his prayer for missionaries that they might successfully carry on his work with the help of the Holy Spirit for whose outpouring this Sunday on Pentecost we continue to implore.
Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said,
“Father, the hour has come.
Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,
just as you gave him authority over all people,
so that your son may give eternal life to all you gave him.
Now this is eternal life,
that they should know you, the only true God,
and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.
I glorified you on earth
by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.
Now glorify me, Father, with you,
with the glory that I had with you before the world began.
“I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world.
They belonged to you, and you gave them to me,
and they have kept your word.
Now they know that everything you gave me is from you,
because the words you gave to me I have given to them,
and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you,
and they have believed that you sent me.
I pray for them.
I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me,
because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours
and everything of yours is mine,
and I have been glorified in them.
And now I will no longer be in the world,
but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.”