Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for October 29, 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, coming to you from a Manhattan rooftop. It’s October 29th. Today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus give us some of the most challenging words of all time, but also some of the most instructive. Somebody asks them, Lord, how many will be saved? It’s an important question. How many will be saved? Will the majority be saved? Will the majority be lost? But Jesus doesn’t answer that question of curiosity looking for a number. He says instead, “Agonize, strive to enter through the narrow gate.” And he promises us, “Many will attempt to enter but not be able to do it.” He wants us to make the extraordinary effort to fit into him who once called himself the gate because his aperture is the width of the cross. And he wants us each day to deny ourselves, pick up him on the cross, and follow him along this path of self-sacrificial love. He says, “Many in those days will say, Lord, did we not drink with you? Did we not eat with you? Did we not hear you proclaim your word in our streets? Did we not work mighty deeds in your name?” And Jesus says he will say to them then I never knew you. The whole purpose of human life is to come to know the Lord. We know him through prayer and through friendship. It’s not just about doing mighty deeds for the Lord. That means miracles. Jesus said if we have the faith the size of a mustard seed, we could transport mountain ranges. But do we really know the Lord Jesus? We know that Judas Iscariot, one of the first 12 apostles, Jesus’ missionaries, who had done, we presume, many of the healings Jesus had given his apostles the authority to do, raising the dead, curing the sick, healing lepers, he never really knew the Lord. And when he betrayed the Lord for 30 pieces of silver and regretted it, he didn’t know that the Lord’s most important message of all was mercy. And that the same Lord who calls us to forgive 70 times seven times easily would have forgiven him. He never knew the Lord Jesus. And that was the great tragedy of his life. What about us? Do we know the Lord Jesus? Does he know us? Are we striving to enter into him? Not just partially, not just part-time, but with all we are and all we have. One of the great ways we strive to enter through the narrow gate and help others squeeze through it too is through the church’s awesome missionary work. We’ve been sent to the world to help them learn not how many are going to be saved, but how to get on the narrow road that leads to life. That narrow road who is Jesus the way. how to hear his teachings, how to trust in his teachings, how to base their life on his teaching, how to live according to his teachings, and how to share the gift of his teachings with others. Today the Lord is asking us to strive to agonize to give a thousand% to enter into his life to get to know him so that at the end of time we and God willing so many others will hear him say not I never knew you but come you blessed of my father inherit the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world. God bless you.
Gospel
Jesus passed through towns and villages,
teaching as he went and making his way to Jerusalem.
Someone asked him,
“Lord, will only a few people be saved?”
He answered them,
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter
but will not be strong enough.
After the master of the house has arisen and locked the door,
then will you stand outside knocking and saying,
‘Lord, open the door for us.’
He will say to you in reply,
‘I do not know where you are from.’
And you will say,
‘We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.’
Then he will say to you,
‘I do not know where you are from.
Depart from me, all you evildoers!’
And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth
when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God
and you yourselves cast out.
And people will come from the east and the west
and from the north and the south
and will recline at table in the Kingdom of God.
For behold, some are last who will be first,
and some are first who will be last.”