Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for October 28, 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. It’s October 28th, the feast of the apostles, Simon and Jude. In today’s gospel, we see how they were called. We learn the mystery of their vocation and ours. Jesus pulled an all-nighter in prayer. And at the end of that night, communing with his father, he came down and from among his disciples called 12 whom he named apostles, Peter, Andrew, James, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, and the two we celebrate today, Simon and Jude, together with Judas Iscariot who became a traitor. Simon and Jude, they were once called by name by Jesus. The whole fact that we have a name is ultimately so that we can be called by Jesus. They were called first because they were disciples literally students of Jesus who is the master. They were learning from him the most important lessons about how to live, how to die so as how to live forever. How to order all our choices in a way that would please God, love him, and love others. And because they were good students of the master, they were capable of being good student teachers. He was able to send them out to train others in this same way. The whole word apostle means to be sent out. And each of us by our baptism just like Simon and Jude have been sent out. We might not be sent as far as they were in the first days of Christianity. But we are sent to others. We have a mission to bring God to others and others God willing to him provided that they freely choose. So we see those three things, their calling, their being disciples, and they’re being apostles. But we also mark something else today that both Simon and Jude were martyrs. They loved the Lord Jesus so much that they were willing to give their life for him first by spending it to introduce him to others and others to him. But then ultimately to pay the supreme sacrifice when they were needing to deny Jesus in order to save their life on earth, they according to his teaching were willing to lose their life so as to gain it with Jesus forever. We likewise and finally see on their feast day the importance of the intercession of the apostles. St. Jude Thaddeus is the most famous saint of all time for hopeless causes where no other intercessor seems to work where direct prayer to God himself doesn’t seem to work. So many have turned to St. Jude the Apostle and prayed through his intercession and they have received through that help God’s answer the miracles often that they have requested. We should always remember that the apostles like Simon and Jude were present at that first mass with Jesus. They were Jesus’ friends. They are super capable of interceding for our needs and the needs of the church. Today, as we celebrate their feast day, we remember that they are buried in St. Peter’s Basilica together under the altar of St. Joseph in the southern transept to the Basilica. And we pray to them together that we might have the same missionary discipleship and apostolate and witness that they did and that we like them might become true intercessors for others. Happy feast.
The Gospel reading on which the reflection was based on:
Gospel
Jesus went up to the mountain to pray,
and he spent the night in prayer to God.
When day came, he called his disciples to himself,
and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles:
Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew,
James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew,
Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus,
Simon who was called a Zealot,
and Judas the son of James,
and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.