“Lent is a time in which the Church, guided by a sense of maternal care, invites us to place the mystery of God back in the center of our lives, in order to find renewal in our faith and keep our hearts from being consumed by the anxieties and distractions of daily life … the Lenten journey is a welcome opportunity to heed the voice of the Lord and renew our commitment to following Christ, accompanying him on the road to Jerusalem, where the mystery of his passion, death and resurrection will be fulfilled…”
Pope Leo’s Message for Lent 2026
“Ready or not …” Ash Wednesday and the Season of Lent are at our doorstep or, depending on when you are reading this, may have already arrived. As much as one may try to look ahead, things can still “sneak up” on us. I hope this article will be posted on “Mardi Gras,” the day before Ash Wednesday, and may help some readers make some “last-minute” preparations and/or Lenten resolutions, aka “What I am (are you) going to give up for Lent?” I also hope that some who may read this on Ash Wednesday or in the following days or weeks, might be assisted in getting their Lent started, restarted, or energized.
On Sunday, Feb. 15, I saw that the Vatican had published (on Feb. 13) Pope Leo XIV’s “Message for Lent 2026: ‘Listening and Fasting.’” The link to the full text of the brief message that invites us to consider: “Listening” – especially to God’s Word; “Fasting” – especially offering an invitation, “to a very practical and frequently unappreciated form of abstinence: that of refraining from words that offend and hurt our neighbor…”; and that we are “Together” – “…Lent emphasizes the communal aspect of listening to the word and fasting.”
Before I was aware of Pope Leo’s message, I was preparing to share some thoughts and suggestions for a spiritually fruitful Lent, and I was happy to see on the Hallow app that Father Mike Schmitz was offering his “Top 10 Lent Tips.” I think you need to have a subscription to the Hallow app to see and hear Father Mike’s presentation and commentary. One of the recommendations that I was planning to make was to consider subscribing to the Hallow app because, for the past two years, I have found Hallow’s “Lent Pray 40 Challenge” to have been a very helpful resource in my own, personal Lenten journey.
For those who don’t have Hallow and may not be interested in subscribing, I would like to share with you Father Mike’s “Top 10 Lent Tips,” as the list is available online. I will also offer some of my reactions and comments to Father Mike’s “Top 10.” In a “LinkedIn” post, Alex at Hallow shares Father Mike’s list:
Top 10 tips from Father Mike Schmitz this Lent:
- Silence every day — just take 5 or 10 minutes to really be with the Lord
- Pray every day — listen to Him
- Spend time in God’s Word -— bring it more and more into your daily life
- Go to Confession — at least once, but really twice
- Daily Mass — try to find one that works with your schedule
- Spiritual reading every day — pick a book
- Fast — doesn’t have to be food, and it doesn’t have to be something bad, just something you might be a little too attached to
- Almsgiving — go serve the poor
- Invite someone to Mass — Lent is not something we are meant to do alone
- Go home and love your family
Father Mike does not say that these 10 “tips” are listed in “order of importance.” He also does not say that he suggests or expects that someone should try to do “all 10” or “pick three” of the 10. Most readers and, I believe, most practicing Catholics are aware of the Church’s “Top 3” Spiritual practices during Lent: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving. In some ways, Father Mike’s “Top 10” are all “connected,” in some way to prayer, fasting, or almsgiving.
I believe that this will be my “sixth time” in six years (six Lents) as bishop to say that my “Number One” Recommendation for Lent is Daily Mass. As I review Father Mike’s list, his numbers one through four are all very good suggestions and spiritual practices that can produce great fruit. If you are not already attending Daily Mass and you can find a way to attend Daily Mass every day during Lent, I am convinced that you will have a fuller and deeper experience of Holy Week, of the Sacred Triduum, and of Easter Joy.
My No. 2 is Father Mike’s No. 4, “Go to Confession” – I am not sure if I have heard it suggested before, as Father Mike suggests, that you go to Confession (at least) twice during Lent – don’t leave it until the end, during Holy Week, but go early and, then, if you need to, go again approaching or during Holy Week. Here in our Diocese of Paterson, we offer “Welcome Home to Healing” during Lent, which means that you can go to Confession, celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation, at ANY and EVERY of the 107 parishes in our diocese (in Passaic, Morris, or Sussex Counties) on EVERY Monday during Lent between 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.
I have said before that the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession) is making a comeback. In recent years, people are returning to this Sacrament of Healing and Forgiveness that is still too often misunderstood and underappreciated. I strongly encourage you and ask you to invite others to give this Sacrament “another chance” -if it’s been a while, a few years or many, many years; if you have had a bad experience in the past, please know that our loving and merciful God is “waiting for you” to approach this sacrament so that, after confessing your sins and asking for forgiveness, you can hear those beautiful words, “I absolve you from your sins. Go in Peace, your sins are forgiven.”
There is a way to combine or unite Father Mike’s numbers one to three, by taking time each day in silent prayer and in prayerfully listening to God’s Word. There are many ways to do this, but praying with the daily Mass Readings (if you can’t get to daily Mass) is a powerful and very fruitful form of prayer. If you use the internet (Google), you can easily find the daily Mass Readings at “USCCB daily readings.”
I hope that these thoughts and suggestions might be helpful to you in some way. As Pope Leo reminds us, let’s be together and pray for one another during Lent. I will conclude with one beautiful form of prayer that I had almost forgotten to mention: The Stations of the Cross. As we pray for one another during Lent, let us remember those beautiful words that we pray during the “Stations”: “We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the World.”
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Are you ready for Lent, for a Season of Grace, and the opportunity to be ‘Welcomed Home to Healing?’ #Catholic –
“Lent is a time in which the Church, guided by a sense of maternal care, invites us to place the mystery of God back in the center of our lives, in order to find renewal in our faith and keep our hearts from being consumed by the anxieties and distractions of daily life … the Lenten journey is a welcome opportunity to heed the voice of the Lord and renew our commitment to following Christ, accompanying him on the road to Jerusalem, where the mystery of his passion, death and resurrection will be fulfilled…”
Pope Leo’s Message for Lent 2026
“Ready or not …” Ash Wednesday and the Season of Lent are at our doorstep or, depending on when you are reading this, may have already arrived. As much as one may try to look ahead, things can still “sneak up” on us. I hope this article will be posted on “Mardi Gras,” the day before Ash Wednesday, and may help some readers make some “last-minute” preparations and/or Lenten resolutions, aka “What I am (are you) going to give up for Lent?” I also hope that some who may read this on Ash Wednesday or in the following days or weeks, might be assisted in getting their Lent started, restarted, or energized.
On Sunday, Feb. 15, I saw that the Vatican had published (on Feb. 13) Pope Leo XIV’s “Message for Lent 2026: ‘Listening and Fasting.’” The link to the full text of the brief message that invites us to consider: “Listening” – especially to God’s Word; “Fasting” – especially offering an invitation, “to a very practical and frequently unappreciated form of abstinence: that of refraining from words that offend and hurt our neighbor…”; and that we are “Together” – “…Lent emphasizes the communal aspect of listening to the word and fasting.”
Before I was aware of Pope Leo’s message, I was preparing to share some thoughts and suggestions for a spiritually fruitful Lent, and I was happy to see on the Hallow app that Father Mike Schmitz was offering his “Top 10 Lent Tips.” I think you need to have a subscription to the Hallow app to see and hear Father Mike’s presentation and commentary. One of the recommendations that I was planning to make was to consider subscribing to the Hallow app because, for the past two years, I have found Hallow’s “Lent Pray 40 Challenge” to have been a very helpful resource in my own, personal Lenten journey.
For those who don’t have Hallow and may not be interested in subscribing, I would like to share with you Father Mike’s “Top 10 Lent Tips,” as the list is available online. I will also offer some of my reactions and comments to Father Mike’s “Top 10.” In a “LinkedIn” post, Alex at Hallow shares Father Mike’s list:
Top 10 tips from Father Mike Schmitz this Lent:
- Silence every day — just take 5 or 10 minutes to really be with the Lord
- Pray every day — listen to Him
- Spend time in God’s Word -— bring it more and more into your daily life
- Go to Confession — at least once, but really twice
- Daily Mass — try to find one that works with your schedule
- Spiritual reading every day — pick a book
- Fast — doesn’t have to be food, and it doesn’t have to be something bad, just something you might be a little too attached to
- Almsgiving — go serve the poor
- Invite someone to Mass — Lent is not something we are meant to do alone
- Go home and love your family
Father Mike does not say that these 10 “tips” are listed in “order of importance.” He also does not say that he suggests or expects that someone should try to do “all 10” or “pick three” of the 10. Most readers and, I believe, most practicing Catholics are aware of the Church’s “Top 3” Spiritual practices during Lent: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving. In some ways, Father Mike’s “Top 10” are all “connected,” in some way to prayer, fasting, or almsgiving.
I believe that this will be my “sixth time” in six years (six Lents) as bishop to say that my “Number One” Recommendation for Lent is Daily Mass. As I review Father Mike’s list, his numbers one through four are all very good suggestions and spiritual practices that can produce great fruit. If you are not already attending Daily Mass and you can find a way to attend Daily Mass every day during Lent, I am convinced that you will have a fuller and deeper experience of Holy Week, of the Sacred Triduum, and of Easter Joy.
My No. 2 is Father Mike’s No. 4, “Go to Confession” – I am not sure if I have heard it suggested before, as Father Mike suggests, that you go to Confession (at least) twice during Lent – don’t leave it until the end, during Holy Week, but go early and, then, if you need to, go again approaching or during Holy Week. Here in our Diocese of Paterson, we offer “Welcome Home to Healing” during Lent, which means that you can go to Confession, celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation, at ANY and EVERY of the 107 parishes in our diocese (in Passaic, Morris, or Sussex Counties) on EVERY Monday during Lent between 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.
I have said before that the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession) is making a comeback. In recent years, people are returning to this Sacrament of Healing and Forgiveness that is still too often misunderstood and underappreciated. I strongly encourage you and ask you to invite others to give this Sacrament “another chance” -if it’s been a while, a few years or many, many years; if you have had a bad experience in the past, please know that our loving and merciful God is “waiting for you” to approach this sacrament so that, after confessing your sins and asking for forgiveness, you can hear those beautiful words, “I absolve you from your sins. Go in Peace, your sins are forgiven.”
There is a way to combine or unite Father Mike’s numbers one to three, by taking time each day in silent prayer and in prayerfully listening to God’s Word. There are many ways to do this, but praying with the daily Mass Readings (if you can’t get to daily Mass) is a powerful and very fruitful form of prayer. If you use the internet (Google), you can easily find the daily Mass Readings at “USCCB daily readings.”
I hope that these thoughts and suggestions might be helpful to you in some way. As Pope Leo reminds us, let’s be together and pray for one another during Lent. I will conclude with one beautiful form of prayer that I had almost forgotten to mention: The Stations of the Cross. As we pray for one another during Lent, let us remember those beautiful words that we pray during the “Stations”: “We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the World.”
Click here to subscribe to our weekly newsletter.