In his 2026 Lenten message, entitled Listening and Fasting: Lent as a Time of Conversion, Pope Leo XIV invites us to place the mystery of God back at the center of daily life.
Surrounded by the distractions and anxieties of the world, we are called to renewal through deeper attentiveness to the Lord and to one another.
Listening: Making Room for the Word
The Holy Father begins with listening. He tells us that true conversion starts when we allow the Word of God to touch our hearts. Listening is not passive; it is the foundation of relationship.
Pope Leo reminds us that Sacred Scripture trains us to recognize reality clearly. It teaches us to respond to the poor, the oppressed, and those whose voices are often ignored. Lent becomes a time to cultivate interior openness — to listen as God listens.
Fasting: Ordering Our Desires
Fasting, the Pope explains, is more than just giving something up. It is a concrete way to prepare ourselves to receive God’s Word.
By abstaining from food, comforts, or other pleasures, we become more aware of what we truly crave.
Fasting reveals our attachments and helps reorder our desires toward charity, justice, faith, and hope, ultimately to God Himself.
Yet fasting must be lived with humility. Without prayer and communion with the Lord, it risks becoming prideful. Authentic fasting leads to simplicity of life and greater love for neighbor.
Our Holy Father offers a particularly practical suggestion to us all: fasting from harmful speech.
Refraining from harsh words, rash judgments, slander, and online hostility can become a powerful Lenten discipline. The Pope calls us to cultivate language marked by kindness, respect, and hope.
Together: A Communal Journey
Lent is never only personal; it is communal. Pope Leo recalls how the people of Israel gathered to hear the Law and fast together in order to renew their covenant with God.
In the same way, our parishes, families, and communities are invited to share in listening and fasting as a common path of repentance.
Conversion, he emphasizes, is not only about individual conscience. It also concerns the quality of our relationships, our dialogue, and our shared commitment to charity, justice, and reconciliation as one people beloved by God.
We must allow reality — especially the cry of the poor — to challenge and reshape our desires, he writes.
A Civilization of Love
The Holy Father concludes by praying that this Lent will lead us to deeper attentiveness to God and to those most in need.
When listening becomes sincere and fasting reshapes our hearts, our communities become places where suffering is acknowledged and hope takes root.
Through humility, self-denial, and charity, we participate in building what the Church calls a “civilization of love.”
This Lent, Pope Leo XIV calls us to silence the noise, discipline our desires, and guard our speech. He invites us to walk together toward the joy of Easter — renewed in faith, and ready to reflect Christ more clearly in the world.
Read the Holy Father's 2026 Lenten Message.
