Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for November 22, 2025
Here is the video of today’s reflection.
The Youtube generated transcript for today’s reflection is:
I am Monsignor Roger Landry, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies. It’s November 22nd. I’m here at the beginning of the ravine on the property of the shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs in Auriesville, New York. This ravine is where after he had been martyred on September 29, 1642. The body of St. Renee Goupil was buried in a stream. At the risk of his life, St. Isaac Jogues exposed himself to the same fate by coming here to discover the body of his friend and fellow Jesuit and bury him reverently. He wasn’t martyred then. He would be martyred four years later. But the whole tale of how he rediscovered St. Renee Goupil’s body, how St. Renee died is depicted on these signs as we walk down into this ravine where somewhere there the body of St. Renee Goupil is buried. In today’s Gospel, we talk about heaven, the gift that was seized by St. Renee Goupil and the North American martyrs here. But it’s through a somewhat confusing story. The Sadducees who didn’t believe in heaven came to Jesus and gave him an interesting contrafactual that there was a woman who married a brother and the brother died. And according to the book of Leviticus, in a situation like that, because the brother died childless, his brother was supposed to marry the widow. And their first child would more or less be the ear of the deceased brother. And so the counterfactual was this woman was married to one brother, he died. A second brother, he died. Third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh brother and he died. Whose wife will she be in heaven if there is a heaven? Because we remember from the book of Genesis that when we marry we become one flesh. And so they’re basically asking if there is a heaven, if there is a resurrection, with whom will this woman be one flesh? And Jesus tells his listeners, you’re very mistaken about scripture and the power of God. He says first about heaven, something that confuses people about marriage. He says in heaven there’s no marriage or giving in marriage. Marriage is a sacrament. It’s meant to bring us to heaven. There’s going to be plenty of love in heaven. We hope that our loved ones, especially those to whom we would have been sacramentally married, are going to be there. But there’s no longer the two-fold purpose of marriage, which is the mutual sanctification of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring. If somebody’s in heaven, they’re already a saint. There’s no need for mutual sanctification. And there are no baptisms in heaven. There are no new children being born in heaven. And so there’s no longer the purpose of marriage, but there’s still very much the purpose of love. And so love’s going to continue, but we’re all entering into the marriage feast of the lamb. That’s the first thing Jesus said. The second is that that the dead are raised. Moses himself told them. The Sadducees accepted the first five books of the Bible, the Benedict. And we see in the book of Exodus when God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, he said, “I am, not I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So, I’m God of the living, not of the dead. For in God all are alive. If we live our life with God, we will be alive. That’s what St. Renee Goupil did. He lived in the Lord. And death couldn’t stop him any more than crucifixion could stop Jesus. As we proceed in these next couple of days down this ravine in order to do these reflections, let’s ask the intercession of the North American martyrs and St. Kateri Tekakwitha who were born and born into eternal life on these properties respectively in order to help us to live out our spousal relationship with the Lord knowing that he wishes us to live forever. God bless you.
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on:
Gospel
Some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection,
came forward and put this question to Jesus, saying,
“Teacher, Moses wrote for us,
If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child,
his brother must take the wife
and raise up descendants for his brother.
Now there were seven brothers;
the first married a woman but died childless.
Then the second and the third married her,
and likewise all the seven died childless.
Finally the woman also died.
Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be?
For all seven had been married to her.”
Jesus said to them,
“The children of this age marry and remarry;
but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age
and to the resurrection of the dead
neither marry nor are given in marriage.
They can no longer die,
for they are like angels;
and they are the children of God
because they are the ones who will rise.
That the dead will rise
even Moses made known in the passage about the bush,
when he called ‘Lord’
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob;
and he is not God of the dead, but of the living,
for to him all are alive.”
Some of the scribes said in reply,
“Teacher, you have answered well.”
And they no longer dared to ask him anything.