Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for November 20, 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 museum on the grounds of Our Lady of Martyrs in Auriesville, New York. We’re looking at various of the artifacts from the beatification and the canonization and even the life of St. Kateri Tekakwitha here, the Lily of the Mohawks, the earliest of all the saints in America who have been born here because she died in 1680. She shows us how to live our Christian life, how to take advantage of it. She shows us how to prioritize the Lord and ultimately prayer. In today’s Gospel, Jesus weeps as he drew close to Jerusalem. He wept because those in Jerusalem, the holy city, didn’t know, he said, what made for peace and eventually the city would experience destruction. He said because it didn’t realize the time of its visitation. There’s a difference between a visit and a visitation. A visit, we come, we stay a little bit, and then we depart. A visitation, like Mary’s visitation to her cousin Elizabeth, like a visitation of a religious community in which you see what its strengths and your weaknesses are. These are not short little things. These are enduring things. And Jesus came into the world not just to visit us but to visitate us. That was his 33 years on earth. He returned home to the father. But he returned home having sought to change us and make it possible for us not just to visit heaven, not just to visitate heaven, but to dwell with God forever in heaven. In that state of our communion with the Lord and in communion with all the saints. Do we recognize the time of our visitation? Do we know what makes for peace? Can we learn from the mistake that those in Jerusalem did over which Jesus wept? Do we recognize that Jesus has given us his word? that he comes to be with us in a permanent way in the sacraments. That he comes in the various disguises of the poor, of the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the ill, and the imprisoned in order for us to be with him who visits us under those images in those persons. St. Tekakwitha was someone who, as soon as she recognized that the Lord had come into the world, wanted to give her life. She said, “Who can teach me how to please the Lord the most?” When she learned that that would happen in prayer, she went to visit with the Lord who had come into the world to visit her. She teaches us about the priority of prayer. She teaches us about the way to holiness. The Lord Jesus comes into our life every day in order to spend that day with us. Today is a day in which we respond to that extraordinary gift. It’s also a day in which we pray for missionaries everywhere that as they try to bring the Lord to others that others may receive it not just as a quick visit that others may receive it with great openness so that the Lord can remain in them in this world and bring them together with St. Kateri and so many of the saints throughout the centuries to remain with him in heaven forever. God bless you.
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on:
Gospel
While people were listening to Jesus speak,
he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem
and they thought that the Kingdom of God
would appear there immediately.
So he said,
“A nobleman went off to a distant country
to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return.
He called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins
and told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return.’
His fellow citizens, however, despised him
and sent a delegation after him to announce,
‘We do not want this man to be our king.’
But when he returned after obtaining the kingship,
he had the servants called, to whom he had given the money,
to learn what they had gained by trading.
The first came forward and said,
‘Sir, your gold coin has earned ten additional ones.’
He replied, ‘Well done, good servant!
You have been faithful in this very small matter;
take charge of ten cities.’
Then the second came and reported,
‘Your gold coin, sir, has earned five more.’
And to this servant too he said,
‘You, take charge of five cities.’
Then the other servant came and said,
‘Sir, here is your gold coin;
I kept it stored away in a handkerchief,
for I was afraid of you, because you are a demanding man;
you take up what you did not lay down
and you harvest what you did not plant.’
He said to him,
‘With your own words I shall condemn you,
you wicked servant.
You knew I was a demanding man,
taking up what I did not lay down
and harvesting what I did not plant;
why did you not put my money in a bank?
Then on my return I would have collected it with interest.’
And to those standing by he said,
‘Take the gold coin from him
and give it to the servant who has ten.’
But they said to him,
‘Sir, he has ten gold coins.’
He replied, ‘I tell you,
to everyone who has, more will be given,
but from the one who has not,
even what he has will be taken away.
Now as for those enemies of mine who did not want me as their king,
bring them here and slay them before me.'”
After he had said this,
he proceeded on his journey up to Jerusalem.