Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for October 19, 2025
Here is the video of today’s reflection.
The Youtube generated transcript for today’s reflection is:
I’m Monsignor Roger Landry. It’s Sunday, October 19th, which is World Mission Sunday. The day in which the church throughout the globe convenes to do two things. To pray for the mission of the church and particularly all those missionaries spreading the faith to far away lands and we contribute. We take up the only con collection mandated in canon law to be held for the sake of the missions. As Archbishop Fulton J Sheen, my predecessor used to say, we either go to the missions or we send to the missions, but all of us by our baptism are missionaries. And today is a day in which we focus on that. First thing, as I mentioned, that we do is we pray for the missionaries. And today we’ve got powerful examples of prayer in the readings the church gives us. In the Gospel, we have from Luke 18 this extraordinary parable of this woman who was before an unjust judge. And she kept coming to him saying, “Render justice to me against my adversary.” He was corrupt. He was obviously paid off by the adversary. He never wanted to do it. But because of her persistence, lest she come and strike him, he said in the parable, he eventually gave her a just decision. And Jesus uses that to contrast an unjust judge with his just father and says, “If even an unjust judge will give in to persevering petition, how much more will my heavenly father render justice to those who cry out to him day and night?” The father wants to do it. But Jesus finishes that parable by saying, “When the son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” And the way we are faithful is by persevering prayer. Do we persevere in our personal prayer? And especially, do we persevere for Jesus’ prayer that we might all be one? Do we share in it? Do we share in his desire for everyone to come to know how to pray through the teaching of the church? In the first reading for this Sunday, we have the powerful example of Moses’s prayer. He was starting to grow weary in his prayer. And whenever his arms descended in prayer, when he was on a mountain as the Israelites were battling the Amalachites, the Amalachites would have the upper hand. But as whenever he was able to raise his hands in prayer, that’s when the Israelites were winning. And so Aaron and her sat him down and held up his arms the entire time as a sign of what the church does, constantly praying to the Lord of the harvest for laborers for his harvest. And we see that the way we pray flows into life. In the second reading, St. Paul tells his spiritual son St. Timothy to persevere in prayer, proclaiming the word. So the perseverance that we cultivate by never ceasing to pray to God, even if the answer takes a while, overflows into our life where we begin to persevere in everything we do. That’s the secret to the success of missionaries. They are men and women, religious, clergy, ley of deep prayer. It’s because of their personal relationship with the Lord that they want others to be able to enter into that intimate friendship that we call prayer. And so they go perseveringly despite how hard it is in order to be able to share the faith. October 19th is the normal feast of the North American martyrs. Yesterday I was up in Auriesville, New York, the shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs where saints Isaac Jogues, St. Renee Goupil, and St. John de la Lande were martyred in the 1640s and where a decade later flowing out of their blood came the birth of the youngest American saint, the first ever to be born on our shore, St. Kateri Tekakwitha. And we see in those martyrs their persevering prayer as well as their persevering through suffering and through all the hardships necessary to be able to take the gospel to others. We can invoke them, especially here in North America today, because we need in our age, a double portion of their courage, not just to proclaim the gospel to our neighbors and to those we already know, but like they did to be willing to leave our native place and go to proclaim the gospel as they left France to come to Canada and eventually to upstate New York. There’s one other thing that’s particularly special today on World Mission Sunday.
For the first time in history, the Holy Father has prepared a video for this day. Pope Leo, who was a missionary priest and bishop for 22 years in Peru and then was a 12year missionary prior general of the Augustinians, traveling to 50 different countries where his Augustinians carry out the mission. He prepared a special video for us today on the importance of World Mission Sunday. As that missionary priest and bishop, he knew just how important World Mission Sunday is for the work of missions, the work of spreading the gospel. And so please watch this video that the Holy Father has prepared to be shown in parishes all across the world today to be inspired to pray with perseverance for the missions and to work in proclaiming the gospel and supporting those workers. If for whatever reason you can’t go to church today and contribute to the World Mission Sunday collection, please generously go to pontipalmissions.org org and click on the link there for World Mission Sunday. Your diocese will still get the credit for it, but the missionaries will receive the fruits of your generosity. And so today on World Mission Sunday, we give God thanks for the gift of our Christian faith. And we ask him to send the Holy Spirit to reignite in us and all our brothers and sisters across the world the desire to spread that faith. Please listen to Pope Leo. Dear brothers and sisters, on World Mission Sunday every year, the whole church prays united, particularly for missionaries and the fruitfulness of their apostolic labors. When I served as a missionary priest and then bishop in Peru, I saw firsthand how the faith, the prayer, and the generosity shown on World Mission Sunday can transform entire communities. I urge every Catholic parish in the world to take part in World Mission Sunday. Your prayers, your support will help spread the gospel, provide for pastoral and catechetical programs, help to build new churches, and care for the health and educational needs of our brothers and sisters in mission territories. This October 19th, as we reflect together on our baptismal call to be missionaries of hope among the peoples, let us commit ourselves a new to the sweet and joyful task of bringing Christ Jesus, our hope, to the ends of the earth. Thank you for everything you will do to help me help missionaries throughout the world. God bless you all.
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?”