Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for November 7, 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 7th. I’m coming to you from the beautiful grounds of the shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs in Auriesville, New York, where saints Isaac Jogues, Rene Goupil, and St. John Lalande gave their life for Jesus in the 1640s where a decade later the earliest saint in American history, St. Kateri Tekakwitha was born. their deaths in their birth, their life. And Jesus’ words help us to do what we’re supposed to do every November, which is to focus on the four last things: death, judgment, heaven, and hell. And in today’s gospel, Jesus describes to us how we’re supposed to be prudent with regard to the gift of our life. He tells one of the most confusing parables in all of sacred scripture. What’s normally called the parable of the dishonest steward. A corrupt official who was squandering his master’s property. When his master found out said, “I’m going to fire you. Prepare a thorough accounting of everything that you’ve done.” So the man was afraid. He said, “What am I going to do when I lose my job? I’m too old to take a real manual job. I’m too ashamed to beg. What am I going to do?” And then he said, “Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll call in my master’s debtors. And to one who owes a hundred measures of olive oil, he says, I’ll tell them, here’s your note. Cut it to 80. To someone who owes certain group of cores of wheat, I’m going to chop that down. Now, at the surface, it seems that what he’s doing is dishonestly lowering what these people owe his master so that they’ll remember him and be good to him after he’s fired. But the way this system worked in the ancient world was if you were borrowing 50 measures of olive oil, whatever you could tack on afterward and get from the person who needed it was your commission to keep. You’d have to give the 50 or a little bit more back to the master. But if you charged a hundred and then cut it to 80, you’d still be making per, for example, a commission, but you’d be making less of a commission. And so when faced with the question of survival or trying to hold on to money, this dishonest steward chose to save his life. And Jesus finishes the whole parable by saying that the children of light should be as prudent as the children of his age in making those types of cutthroat decisions with regard to their salvation. Can we let go of the things of this world in order to seize God? Can we give them for example to the poor so that the poor will remember us and pray for us and become in a sense our bankers? Can we make the choices that the great saints have like saints Isaac, Renee, Jean, and Tekakwitha in order to be able to prioritize God and help others like the North American martyrs did to come to know the Lord as they did the Mohawks on this property. Jesus is wanting us to be as prudent in our honesty as this dishonest steward was in saving his earthly hide. This is the message today. It’s a powerful one for us. May the Lord through the intercession of the North American martyrs and all the saints give us the prudence and the courage to live this way. God bless you.
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on:
Gospel
Jesus said to his disciples, “A rich man had a steward
who was reported to him for squandering his property.
He summoned him and said,
‘What is this I hear about you?
Prepare a full account of your stewardship,
because you can no longer be my steward.’
The steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do,
now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me?
I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg.
I know what I shall do so that,
when I am removed from the stewardship,
they may welcome me into their homes.’
He called in his master’s debtors one by one.
To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
He replied, ‘One hundred measures of olive oil.’
He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note.
Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.’
Then to another he said, ‘And you, how much do you owe?’
He replied, ‘One hundred measures of wheat.’
He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note;
write one for eighty.’
And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.
For the children of this world
are more prudent in dealing with their own generation
than the children of light.”