Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Director, The Pontifical Mission Societies
Daily Reflection for October 3, 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 our chapel in St. Petersburg, Florida. It’s October 3rd, the third day of the World Month of Missions. And it’s likewise the feast of an American, St. Mother Theodore Guerin, who left her native France in order to go to Indiana to catechize young children, found schools, found hospitals in order to bring the truth and the love of Christ across the Atlantic Ocean to lift all those in Indiana up. In today’s gospel, we see something important that characterized St. Mother Theodore’s life and is meant to characterize ours. It’s conversion. When we meet Jesus, this image of Jesus the all powerful on the door of our chapel is a reminder to us of how we’re supposed to take him seriously. And he says in today’s gospel, “Woe to you Chorazin. Woe to you Bethsaida, two towns in which he had worked so many of his miracles in upper Galilee. If I if the things I had done in you, I had done entire inside these pagan cities well to the north known for debauchery right there on the beach. If I had done these there, they would have long converted in sackcloth and ashes. They would have repented. Then he says, “What about you, Capernaum, the place that was known as my city where so many of Jesus’s miracles had been accomplished?” He says, “Will you be exalted to the heavens because of all of these mighty deeds?” No. You’ll be thrown down to the netherworld because if Sodom and Gomorrah had seen the types of things I did in you, they likewise would have long repented. So what Jesus is asking for is he’s asking for conversion. What does conversion mean? I’ve said it before. It bears repeating. Conversion doesn’t mean just excising a bad habit or adding a good one. Conversion means a death and resurrection in which we die to our own ego, to our own selves, to our own earthly pursuits and allow Jesus to rise from the dead within us. It’s a new life that he gives us so that we’re literally turning with Jesus in love. This is something that happened in the life of St. Mother Theodore Guerin. She when she really encountered Jesus was willing to give her whole life to him and travel far away from home to go to the missions in the United States of America and teach people in the woods of Indiana. What a great example she is for us. Missionaries are still traveling far away from home to go to missionary territories to be able to teach children to senior citizens the new life that Jesus gives us to call them through God’s mercy to conversion and holiness. This is the mission of the church at all times in this month of October. We pray for all missionaries that they may be sustained in their work and that they might have what Jesus was hoping to have in Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum.
It’s 16 days to World Mission Sunday. Let’s get ready. At the end of today’s reflection, brothers and sisters, I just want to make a special invitation to you. We’re getting closer to the month of October, which is two things. First, it’s World Mission Month, which we pray for and sacrifice for missionaries, which has its culmination on World Mission Sunday, which this year is October 19th. And secondly, October is the month of the Holy Rosary. And in honor of both of these month-long celebrations, the Pontifical Mission Societies USA are going to be getting together with anybody who wants to join us from all over the country and world to pray the World Mission Rosary. This was put together by my predecessor, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, when he was director of the Pontifical Mission Societies to pray through our Lady’s intercession, the Holy Rosary for missionaries and those they’re serving in each of the continents of the world. Below on this email, you’ll be able to click on a box which will allow you to sign up to join us. I hope you will pray the World Mission Rosary with us throughout the month of October.