As the Church prepares for Ash Wednesday on February 18, Pope Leo XIV is urging Catholics to embrace a deeper, more intentional Lenten journey, one that includes a powerful but often overlooked sacrifice: restraint in speech.
In his 2026 Lenten Message, the Holy Father highlights the need for Christians to rediscover the heart of the season by returning to God and allowing His Word to shape daily life. Lent, he reminds the faithful, is not merely about external practices, but about genuine conversion rooted in prayer, fasting, and charity.
At the center of his message is a striking invitation. “I would like to invite you to a very practical and frequently unappreciated form of abstinence: that of refraining from words that offend and hurt our neighbor,” the Pope writes, according to Vatican News.
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This call comes as part of a broader reflection on listening, listening to God, to Sacred Scripture, and to the cries of those who suffer. In a world filled with noise and division, Pope Leo emphasizes that Christians must cultivate interior openness. “In the midst of the many voices present in our personal lives and in society,” he explains, “Sacred Scripture helps us to recognize and respond to the cry of those who are anguished and suffering,” according to Vatican News.
Fasting, he teaches, plays a crucial role in that process. Far from being a mere dietary discipline, fasting reveals the deeper hungers of the human heart. “Precisely because it involves the body, fasting makes it easier to recognize what we ‘hunger’ for and what we deem necessary for our sustenance,” the Pope says, according to Vatican News. Through fasting, believers learn to order their desires and keep alive their “hunger and thirst for justice.”
Yet Pope Leo cautions that fasting must be lived in humility and communion with the Lord, not as a source of pride, but as a means of purification and renewal.
Perhaps most challenging is his appeal to examine the way we speak. The Holy Father calls on Catholics to consider how language can either wound or heal. “Let us begin by disarming our language, avoiding harsh words and rash judgement, refraining from slander and speaking ill of those who are not present and cannot defend themselves,” he says, according to Vatican News. He specifically mentions families, workplaces, social media, political debates, and Christian communities as places where this discipline must be practiced.
If embraced, he suggests, such restraint will allow “words of hatred” to “give way to words of hope and peace,” according to Vatican News.
The Pope also underscores the communal dimension of Lent. Listening and fasting are not meant to be isolated spiritual exercises but lived out within parishes, families, and religious communities. By responding to “the cry of the poor” and allowing reality to challenge our hearts, believers strengthen their consciences and grow in authentic relationships.
Pope Leo concludes with a pastoral plea that Christian communities become places of welcome and healing. He encourages the faithful to seek “the strength that comes from the type of fasting that also extends to our use of language,” so that hurtful words diminish and space is made for others to be heard, according to Vatican News.
As Lent approaches, the Holy Father’s message offers Catholics a clear and practical path: listen more deeply, fast with humility, and allow even our speech to be transformed by Christ.
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