In his message for Lent 2026, Pope Leo XIV has issued a clear invitation: it is not enough to fast from food; it is also necessary to “fast from words” and to “disarm language that wounds.”
In a his work titled Listening and Fasting: Lent as a Time of Conversion, the Pontiff proposes living the forty days in preparation for Easter and taking the time to place God back at the center of life.
For this reason, Pope Leo also invited the faithful to a very concrete form of abstinence:
… that of using words that affect and hurt our neighbor. Let us begin to disarm our language, renouncing hurtful words, immediate judgment, speaking ill of those who are absent and cannot defend themselves, and slander.
Pope Leo XIV reminds us that fasting—both from food and from words—is “a path of conversion”, a means by which to order our desires and also to open ourselves to others and their suffering.
BAM
Trans. CRT
