Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for November 15, 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. Coming to you from the shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs in Auriesville, New York. You’re looking at an image of St. Kateri Tekakwitha of the Lily the Mohawks behind me. November 15th is the feast of St. Albert the Great, the great teacher of Thomas Aquinas, the patron saint of natural scientists, one of the smartest people who have ever lived. And both of them have something very important to illustrate for us about Jesus teaching in the Gospels. Jesus teaches us about persevering prayer with a parable about a woman who was import judge. He describes that she had suffered and she went before this corrupt judge who feared neither God nor any human being. Somebody who was just caught up in himself and she kept asking for justice and he kept saying no. But eventually he was worn down. And he said, “If I don’t cave in to what this woman’s asking, maybe one day she’ll come and strike me.”; And then Jesus uses it as a contrast to the way God’s going to respond to our persevering prayer. He says, “If this unjust judge eventually caves in, think about what a father who loves us will do, won’t he give us promptly whatever we really deserve, what’s just for us? not necessarily everything we’re asking for, everything we want, but what we really need, what he wants to give us as a beloved father. But then Jesus punctuates all of this by saying,” When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Faith, he’s translating, is persevering prayer. Prayer is faith in action. We’re supposed to pray perseveringly so that we might live our faith perseveringly and so that we might come to what God perseveringly wishes to give us. This is something that St. Albert the Great did beyond all his learning in the natural scientist sciences which he left for us. He was the great scientist of the 13th century. Beyond all the theology he passed on to Thomas Aquinas and the young Dominicans and everybody else studying at the Sorbon in Paris. He left us the image of his faith. He left us his prayer in action. Not just his private prayer but also the prayer of the sacraments. St. Tekakwitha likewise was an extraordinary person of prayer. She asked that question to the Jesuits in 1675. Who can show me what is most pleasing to God? And when they taught her how to pray, when they taught her how to live as a Christian, that’s the way she sought to please him. It’s always been very moving to me that when she was up in Kahnawake, just south of Montreal, she would go and kneel outside the chapel at 4:00, looking through the window at the glimmering tabernacle lamp. And then she’d pray for an hour in the presence of the Lord inside the church, attend her first mass, go work all day, come back, attend a second mass, do another holy hour inside the church, and another holy hour outside of the church. She knew that what was most pleasing to God was giving her time. Both of them are wonderful examples of persevering prayer. Throughout this month of November, the church prays, “Thy kingdom come perseveringly so that we might enter into the definitive kingdom of heaven.” But we also perseveringly pray for missionaries everywhere that their harvest might be taken on in. That they might be strengthened in their laboring with sleeves unrolled in the Lord’s fields. and that each of us might perseveringly recognize that our vocation is given from that same harvest master to harvest those around us and help those trying to take the Lord’s kingdom and the way to pray to him to the ends of the earth. God bless you.
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on:
Gospel
Jesus told his disciples a parable
about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.
He said, “There was a judge in a certain town
who neither feared God nor respected any human being.
And a widow in that town used to come to him and say,
‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’
For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought,
‘While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being,
because this widow keeps bothering me
I shall deliver a just decision for her
lest she finally come and strike me.’”
The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says.
Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones
who call out to him day and night?
Will he be slow to answer them?
I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.
But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”