Daily Reflection for the Pontifical Mission Societies, May 20, 2026

Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for May 20, 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. I’m here at St. Mary’s Church in El Paso, Illinois. It was at St. Mary’s on May 12th, 1895, that soon-to-be Blessed Fulton J. Sheen was baptized. There was a wooden church on this property before 3 years later, this brick church was built, but the baptismal font that made Fulton J. Sheen a child of God is still very much preserved here. It was on that day, in the holy waters of baptism, that the vocation to sanctity of the future Blessed, and one day we pray Saint Fulton J. Sheen, was inaugurated, just like on the days of our baptism. We are called to be saints. Saint John Paul II, who embraced Fulton J. Sheen at the very end of his life at St. Patrick in New York, said, “To be baptized is to want to be a saint. It’s the fullness of the Christian call to be perfect as God is perfect.” And so, the vocation to holiness in Fulton J. Sheen began in the baptismal font in this church of St. Mary’s in El Paso. In today’s gospel for May 20th, we have Jesus’ words from his great priestly prayer at the Last Supper, in which he’s talking about consecration. He turns to his father and he says, “Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.” And then he says, “I have consecrated myself for them, so that they might be consecrated in the truth.” What’s consecration? The word sacrare, which is the root of consecration, means to be cut off. The prefix con means to be with. Consecration means we’re cut off from the worldly, we’re cut off from the profane, from the earthly, in order to be with Jesus. We become consecrated to Jesus. We belong to Jesus on the day of our baptism. And that belonging’s supposed to be intensified all throughout the course of our life. Jesus in that same passage we hear today says, “They don’t belong to the world.” meaning you and me. Meaning all his followers, those who have been baptized, they don’t belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Now that’s true of who we are by our nature. Is it true of our behavior? Do we really belong to Jesus or are we worldly? Do we belong to the world or do we belong to Jesus? Are we truly living out our Christian life or are we living like everybody else lives? Those are the big questions Jesus is provoking in today’s gospel. And those are the questions that Fulton J. Sheen would provoke through his preaching throughout life. Jesus, during that first Eucharist, as he was talking to his father, was praying for us that even though we would remain in the world, we wouldn’t be of the world. But remaining in the world, we would belong to him and that we would work in order that everybody might be able to come to belong to Jesus. The third thing Jesus says in the gospel is “They’re staying in the world, but I’m coming to you.” And Jesus wanted us in the world so that we could complete his mission so that every one of us would be able to return with Jesus ultimately to the right side of God the Father in heaven. This is where Fulton J. Sheen now is. This is where he doubtless is praying for you and I to arrive, for you and me to arrive. This is why the church exists to consecrate everybody in the truth so that living out that separation from the world in order to be with God, we will have a communion with him in eternal life to which our baptism directs us. God bless you.

The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on: