Pope Francis message for Lent 2025

Pope Francis published his message for the Lent of this year, which begins on March 5 with Ash Wednesday, in which he invites the faithful to “confront the concrete reality of some immigrant or pilgrim” letting that experience that this experience I question them.

The text was written by the Pontiff on February 6, 2025, eight days before its hospitalization, but has been published on Tuesday by the Vatican.

Then the complete message of Pope Francis:

Dear brothers and sisters:

With the penitential sign of the ashes in the head, we begin the annual pilgrimage of Holy Lent, in faith and hope.

The Church, mother and teacher, invites us to prepare our hearts and to open ourselves to the grace of God to be able to celebrate with great joy the Easter triumph of Christ, the Lord, over sin and death, as Saint Paul exclaimed: «Death It has been defeated. Where is, death, your victory? Where is your sting? » (1 CO 15,54-55). Jesus Christ, dead and risen is, in effect, the center of our faith and the guarantor of our hope in the great promise of the Father: eternal life, who already made in him, his beloved Son (cf. Jn 10,28; 17; 17 , 3).

In this Lent, enriched by the grace of the Jubilee Year, I want to offer them some reflections on what it means walking together in hope and discovering calls to the conversion that God’s mercy directs us all, personally and communityly.

First of all, walk. The motto of the jubilee, “pilgrims of hope”, evokes the long journey of the people of Israel to the promised land, narrated in the book of the exodus; The difficult path from slavery to freedom, loved and guided by the Lord, who loves his people and always remains faithful. We cannot remember the biblical exodus without thinking of so many brothers and sisters who today flee from situations of misery and violence, looking for a better life for them and their loved ones.

A first call to conversion arises here, because we are all pilgrims in life. Each one may ask: How do I let me challenge about this condition? Am I really on the way or a little paralyzed, static, with fear and lack of hope; or satisfied in my comfort zone? Are I looking for roads of liberation from sin situations and lack of dignity? It would be a good Lenten Exercise to confront the concrete reality of some immigrant or pilgrim, letting us challenge us, to discover what God asks us, to be better walkers to the father’s house.

This is a good “exam” for the pedestrian.

Second, let’s make this trip together. The vocation of the Church is walking together, being synodal. Christians are called to make their way together, never as lonely travelers. The Holy Spirit drives us to get out of ourselves to go to God and to the brothers, and never lock ourselves.

Walking together means being artisans of unity, starting from the common dignity of children of God (cf. ga 3,26-28); It means walking side by side, without trampling or dominating the other, without hosting envy or hypocrisy, without letting anyone stay behind or feel excluded. We go in the same direction, towards the same goal, listening to each other with love and patience.

In this Lent, God asks us to verify if in our life, in our families, in the places where we work, in the parochial or religious communities, we are able to walk with others, to listen, to overcome the temptation to lock ourselves in our Self -referentiality, occupying only our needs.

Let’s ask the Lord if we are able to work together as bishops, presbyters, consecrated and laity, at the service of the kingdom of God; If we have an attitude of reception, with concrete gestures, towards the people who approach us and how many are far; If we make people feel part of the community or if we marginalize it. This is a second call: conversion to synodality.

Third, we tour this path together in the hope of a promise. The hope that does not disappoint (cf. RM 5,5), central message of the jubilee, be it for us the horizon of the Lenten Road towards the Pascual Victory.

As Pope Benedict XVI taught us in the Encyclical Spe Salvi, “the human being needs unconditioned love. He needs that certainty that makes him say: “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present, nor future, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any creature can depart from the love of God, manifested in Christ Jesus , Lord ours ”(RM 8,38-39)» (6). Jesus, our love and our hope, has resurrected (7), and lives and glorious queen. Death has been transformed into victory and in this lies the faith and hope of Christians, in the resurrection of Christ.

This is, therefore, the third call to conversion: that of hope, that of trust in God and in his great promise, eternal life. We must ask ourselves: I have the conviction that God forgives my sins, or do I behave as if I could save me alone? Do I long for salvation and invite God’s help to receive it? Live specifically the hope that helps me read the events of history and drives me to commitment to justice, fraternity and care of the common house, acting so that no one is behind?

Sisters and brothers, thanks to the love of God in Jesus Christ we are protected by the hope that does not disappoint (cf. Rm 5,5). Hope is “the anchor of the soul”, safe and firm. In it the Church begs for “everyone to save” (1 tm 2,4) and hopes to be one day in the glory of the United sky to Christ, her husband. This is how Santa Teresa de Jesus expressed: «Wait, wait, you don’t know when the day or time will come. It watches carefully, that everything happens briefly, although your desire makes the true doubtful, and the long short time ”(exclamations of the soul to God, 15, 3).

May the Virgin Mary, mother of hope, intercede for us and accompany us on the fortune.

Rome, San Juan de Letán, February 6, 2025

FRANCISCO