Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for November 12, 2025
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 November 12th, the feast of St. Josaphat. And in today’s Gospel, Jesus heals 10 lepers. He sends them on a journey of faith. He goes, “Show yourself to the priests and then do what’s necessary for your cure.” And along the way, as they were walking by faith as lepers, all 10 were cured. Their skin was brought back to the beauty that they had when they were once babies. But only one of the 10 came back to thank Jesus. And Jesus pointed out his nationality. He was a Samaritan. He was almost implying that the Jews who had been praying the Psalms their entire life, they should have been the first to give thanks to God. But they just went on with their life after they had received what they were begging for. But it was the Samaritan, this foreigner, this stranger who was the one who came back. And when he thanked the Lord, having collapsed at the Lord’s feet in gratitude, the Lord gave him an even greater gift than the healing of leprosy, he said, “Get up and go on your way. Your faith has saved you.” What do we learn from this? Something far more important than merely the importance of thanksgiving to open ourselves up to even greater blessings from the Lord. We learned that sometimes those who are most grateful for the gifts are those who are foreigners, those who are new, those we could say today who come from the missions. Sometimes they’re the ones who are able to put us all to shame in their extraordinary gratitude for the gift of salvation. That’s one of the reasons why when we talk about missions in the church, it’s not just about what missionaries are able to bring to them, namely the greatest gifts of all time, God and what God does, but sometimes the missionaries are able to receive incredible gifts when we see the joy and the gratitude of those who have received the gift of faith. St. Josephat was someone who understood this gratitude. He lived it and he tried to spread it. And because he did, he himself was martyred. He was a Ukrainian Orthodox when he was brought up. But he realized that the church that Jesus established needed to be won. So he brought a whole bunch of Ukrainians back into communion with the successor of St. Peter, the fisher of men who had been sent out in that first wave of missionaries by the Lord Jesus. And because of that, he was politically unpopular in his region. And on this day back in 1623 he was martyred seeking for the church to be one seeking to act on Jesus’ prayer from the last supper. Today we make St. Josephat’s prayer our own and we ask his intercession so that the hum whole human race may become one that one family Jesus took on our human nature and did so much to establish. St. Josephat, pray for us. All holy men and women and Queen of the Apostles, pray for us.
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on:
Gospel
As Jesus continued his journey to Jerusalem,
he traveled through Samaria and Galilee.
As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him.
They stood at a distance from him and raised their voice, saying,
“Jesus, Master! Have pity on us!”
And when he saw them, he said,
“Go show yourselves to the priests.”
As they were going they were cleansed.
And one of them, realizing he had been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice;
and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.
He was a Samaritan.
Jesus said in reply,
“Ten were cleansed, were they not?
Where are the other nine?
Has none but this foreigner returned to give thanks to God?”
Then he said to him, “Stand up and go;
your faith has saved you.”