In his message for Lent 2026, the first of his pontificate, Pope Leo invites us to ask for "the grace of living a Lent that makes our ears more attentive to God and to those most in need. Let us ask for the strength of a fast that also reaches the tongue, so that the words that hurt may decrease and the space for the voices of others may grow."

The Pontiff also urges us to commit ourselves

so that our communities become places where the cry of those who suffer is welcomed and listening generates paths of liberation, making us more willing and diligent to contribute to building the civilization of love.

Read below the full text of Pope Leo XIV's Message for Lent.

MESSAGE FROM THE HOLY FATHER LION the time in which the Church, with maternal care, invites us to once again place the mystery of God at the center of our lives, so that our faith regains its momentum and our hearts do not disperse among daily concerns and distractions.

Every path of conversion begins when we allow ourselves to be reached by the Word and we welcome it with docility of spirit. There is, therefore, a link between the gift of the Word of God, the space of hospitality that we offer and the transformation that it brings about. For this reason, the Lenten itinerary becomes a favorable occasion to hear the voice of the Lord and renew the decision to follow Christ, walking with Him the path that goes up to Jerusalem, where the mystery of his passion, death and resurrection is fulfilled.

Listen

This year I would like to draw attention, first of all, to the importance of giving space to the Word through listening, since the willingness to Listening is the first sign with which the desire to enter into a relationship with the other is manifested.

God himself, when revealing himself to Moses from the burning bush, shows that listening is a distinctive feature of his being: «I have seen the oppression of my people, who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cries of pain» (Ex 3,7). Listening to the cry of the oppressed is the beginning of a story of liberation, in which the Lord also involves Moses, sending him to open a path of salvation for his children reduced to slavery.

He is a God who attracts us, who today also moves us with the thoughts that make his heart vibrate. Therefore, listening to the Word in the liturgy educates us to listen more truly to reality.

Among the many voices that cross our personal and social lives, the Holy Scriptures make us capable of recognizing the voice that cries out from suffering and injustice, so that it does not remain unanswered. Entering this interior disposition of receptivity means allowing ourselves to be instructed by God today to listen as Him, until we recognize that "the condition of the poor represents a cry that, in the history of humanity, constantly challenges our lives, our societies, the political and economic systems, and especially the Church." [1]

Fasting

If Lent is a time of listening, fasting constitutes a concrete practice that prepares us to welcome the Word of God. Abstinence from food, in fact, is an ancient and irreplaceable ascetic exercise on the path of conversion. Precisely because it involves the body, it makes more evident what we are “hungry” for and what we consider essential for our sustenance. It serves, therefore, to discern and order the "appetites", to keep awake the hunger and thirst for justice, removing it from resignation, educating it so that it becomes prayer and responsibility towards one's neighbor.

Saint Augustine, with spiritual subtlety, allows us to glimpse the tension between the present time and the future realization that goes through this care of the heart, when he observes that: "it is characteristic of mortal men to hunger and thirst for justice, as well as to be full of justice is typical of the other life. The angels are filled with this bread, with this food; On the other hand, men, while they are hungry, expand; as they widen, they are dilated; while they are dilated, they become capable; and, made capable, in due time they will be filled. [2] Fasting, understood in this sense, allows us not only to discipline desire, purify it and make it freer, but also to expand it, so that it is directed to God and oriented toward God. good.

However, for fasting to preserve its evangelical truth and avoid the temptation to make the heart proud, it must always be lived with faith and humility. It requires remaining rooted in communion with the Lord, because "he who does not know how to feed on the Word of God does not truly fast." [3] As a visible sign of our inner commitment to distance ourselves, with the help of grace, from sin and evil, fasting must also include other forms of deprivation aimed at making us acquire a more sober lifestyle, since "only austerity makes the Christian life strong and authentic." [4]

Therefore, I would like to invite you to a very specific and often underappreciated form of abstinence, that is, to refrain from using words that affect and hurt our neighbors. Let's begin to dismantle language, renouncing hurtful words, immediate judgment, speaking ill of those who are absent and cannot defend themselves, slander. Let us strive, instead, to learn to measure our words and cultivate kindness: in the family, among friends, in the workplace, on social media, in political debates, in the media, and in Christian communities. Then, many words of hate will give way to words of hope and peace.

Together

Finally, Lent highlights the community dimension of listening to the Word and practicing fasting. Scripture also highlights this aspect in many ways. For example, when it narrates in the book of Nehemiah that the people gathered to listen to the public reading of the book of the Law and, practicing fasting, prepared themselves for the confession of faith and adoration, in order to renew the alliance with God (cf. Ne 9,1-3). of the Word of God, as well as the cry of the poor and the land, becomes a common way of life, and fasting sustains real repentance. In this horizon, conversion not only concerns the conscience of the individual, but also the style of relationships, the quality of dialogue, the ability to allow oneself to be challenged by reality and to recognize what really guides desire, both in our ecclesial communities and in humanity thirsty for justice and reconciliation.

Dear brothers, let us ask for the grace of living a Lent that makes our ears more attentive to God and to those most in need. Let us ask for the strength of a fast that also reaches the tongue, so that words that hurt may decrease and space for the voices of others will grow. And let us commit ourselves so that our communities become places where the cry of those who suffer is welcomed and listening generates paths of liberation, making us more willing and diligent to contribute to building the civilization of love.

I heartily bless all of you, and your Lenten journey.

Vatican, February 5, 2026, memory of Saint Agatha, virgin and martyr.

LEON ap. Dilexi te (October 4, 2025), 9.

[2] St. Augustine, The usefulness of fasting, 1, 1.

[3] Benedict XVI, Catechesis (March 9, 2011).

[4] St. Paul VI, Catechesis (February 8, 1978).