Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for October 27, 2025
The Youtube generated transcript for today’s reflection is:
I’m Monsignor Roger Landry, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies. It’s Monday, October 27th. I’m coming to you from her Manhattan rooftop. In today’s Gospel, Jesus cures a woman who for 18 years, was hunched over, incapable of looking upward. He laid his hands on her. He said, “Woman, you are free from your infirmity. She stood up straight and she glorified God for the incredible grace God had given her.” But not everybody was happy. There were those in the temple area who had watched Jesus do this. And because he cured on the Sabbath day, they complained, “Aren’t there six other days in which cures can happen? Why didn’t you do it on any of those days?” They essentially, for their understanding of the Sabbath, prioritized it over making this woman suffer for one day more. They didn’t care that she had suffered 18 years. What was one extra day? Well, that was a day in which she was going to be glorifying God way better than they did. And so Jesus called them hypocrites because they were. And he said, “How many of you on the Sabbath day would lead your animals out to be watered? Why do you care for your animals more than you care for this woman?” Jesus was asking. It’s a very important lesson for us with the mission that the Lord has entrusted to us by our baptism. There are many people who can’t stand erect. Many people who don’t know how to look to the Lord. They’re crunched over, weighed down by so many human issues and a lack of hope. We have received the most extraordinary treasure to help us to lift up our hearts to God, to set our minds on the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of the father. how much we should be urgent in acting to bring others to know this same truth, to bring them to Jesus so that he can do what he knows they need, including laying his hands on them through the hands of the church, maybe through the hands of his priest, forgiving them of what they need so that they can literally stand up before him as sons in the sun. But we’ve got to be moved by that. So many of us would do things for our pets, would sacrifice for our animals, would buy them expensive dog food, pay for expensive veterinarians, you name it. And there’s nothing evil here. But do we care about our brothers and sisters with the same type of love? Do we make the effort to sacrifice for them? Across the globe, there are so many in the position spiritually of the woman in the gospel. There are many who are handicapped physically too. And the Lord Jesus wants us as his collaborators to go out on mission to be able to bring him to them so that he can reach out and touch them as he knows they most need. This is the mission of the church. This is your and my mission. How lucky we are to have it in Christ Jesus our Lord. God bless you.
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on:
Gospel
Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath.
And a woman was there who for eighteen years
had been crippled by a spirit;
she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect.
When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said,
“Woman, you are set free of your infirmity.”
He laid his hands on her,
and she at once stood up straight and glorified God.
But the leader of the synagogue,
indignant that Jesus had cured on the sabbath,
said to the crowd in reply,
“There are six days when work should be done.
Come on those days to be cured, not on the sabbath day.”
The Lord said to him in reply, “Hypocrites!
Does not each one of you on the sabbath
untie his ox or his ass from the manger
and lead it out for watering?
This daughter of Abraham,
whom Satan has bound for eighteen years now,
ought she not to have been set free on the sabbath day
from this bondage?”
When he said this, all his adversaries were humiliated;
and the whole crowd rejoiced at all the splendid deeds done by him.