by Pierre-Paul Anani Dossekpli

In his message for Lent 2026, Pope Leo XIV invites the Church to rediscover two essential attitudes: listening and fasting. In a world marked by noise, polarization, and tension, he proposes a spiritual path that is both simple and demanding — one capable of renewing Christian life and missionary witness.

For a missionary Church, these practices are not secondary. They shape a heart that is available to God and attentive to the people to whom we are sent.

Listening: Where Mission Begins

“Listening is the first sign by which the desire to enter into relationship with the other is made visible.” Every path of conversion begins with this interior disposition.

Scripture reveals a God who “sees” and “hears” the cry of His people (Ex 3:7). Before sending Moses, God listens. Before any missionary action, there is attention to the cry.

To listen is to make space for the Word. It is to allow ourselves to be taught how to listen as God listens. The Pope reminds us that “the condition of the poor is a cry” that challenges history, societies, and the Church herself.

Wherever we serve — in parishes, schools, health centers, villages, and urban communities — that cry has concrete faces: fragile families, young people searching for hope, communities wounded by injustice or violence.

Mission begins when we allow ourselves to be touched.

A missionary Church is first and foremost a listening Church.

Fasting: Recovering What Is Essential

The Holy Father emphasizes that fasting is a concrete practice that prepares the heart to receive the Word of God. “No one truly fasts if he does not know how to nourish himself on the Word of God.”

Fasting shapes a free heart. It teaches us to choose what is essential and to allow within us a deeper desire for God and a renewed commitment to justice. It gives our Christian life that interior sobriety which makes it authentic and strong.

The Pope also invites us to embrace a very practical form of abstinence: refraining from words that wound. Renouncing rash judgments, gossip, and verbal aggression becomes a spiritual act. A purified word makes the witness of the Gospel more credible.

A Personal and Communal Conversion

Lent is deeply personal, but it is never private. The Pope emphasizes the communal dimension: parishes, families, ecclesial groups, and religious communities are called to walk together.

Listening to the Word of God, and to the cry of the poor and of the earth, must become a shared way of life. Fasting supports genuine repentance and renews relationships.

This dynamic also invites us to reflect on the quality of our common life. A Church that listens to the Word and to the cry of the vulnerable is called to become ever more a community capable of listening to its own members and to those it serves.

In the Missionary Spirit of Brésillac

This vision echoes the intuition of the Venerable Bishop de Marion Brésillac, founder of the Society of African Missions (SMA):

“It depends on us […] to withdraw from the world from time to time, to speak alone with Jesus Christ, to open our heart to Him, to listen to His counsels, and to renew our soul in His love and in the zeal He inspires.”

For the Founder, missionary zeal does not begin with activity, but with a listening heart. Listening precedes sending.

A Mission that Listens and Liberates

The Pope concludes with a hope: that our communities become places where the cry of the most vulnerable is truly welcomed, and where listening opens paths of liberation.

During this Lent 2026, listening and fasting are not merely spiritual practices. They are missionary pathways. They form in us hearts that are free, attentive, and available to God’s work.

This is how mission continues — through faithful listening, purified speech, and renewed commitment in the service of the Gospel.