Scripture: Exodus 3:1–12
“I have observed the misery of my people… I have heard their cry.” (Ex 3:7)
Lent begins with attention.
In his 2026 message, Pope Leo XIV places listening at the heart of renewal. Before fasting, before repentance, before action, there is listening. It’s a deliberate making of space, a turning toward.
At the burning bush, Moses begins in silence. He removes his sandals. He stands on holy ground. And in that stillness, he discovers something essential about God: God listens. God hears the cry of the enslaved. God is not distant from suffering.
If listening is one of God’s defining characteristics, then it must also become one of ours.
The Pope reminds us that Scripture teaches us to recognise the cry of the oppressed. Listening to the Word forms us to listen to reality. The Word of God does not float above history; it draws us into it. It teaches us to recognise where dignity is denied, where injustice is normalised, where silence has been imposed.
Renewal, the faithful turning of the heart toward what God hears, begins when we allow ourselves to be interrupted.
In our own time, the cries of the suffering are everywhere. They come from women and girls whose futures are narrowed by violence. From communities displaced by conflict or climate disruption. From the earth itself, groaning under exploitation. They also rise quietly from within: fatigue, anxiety, unresolved grief, spiritual dryness.
Listening requires restraint. The discipline to resist filling every space with our own commentary and to refrain from easy judgement. We must allow reality speak before we rush to interpret it.
Listening is a way of being present.
For our Sisters, mission has always required attention to place, to culture, to the unspoken tensions beneath the surface of daily life. The Pope’s invitation calls us back to this foundation.
Lent becomes holy when we recover the discipline of listening:
- to the Word proclaimed in our liturgies
- to those whose suffering challenges our comfort
- to one another in our communities
- and to the gentle movements of the Spirit within
Before we act, we listen. Before we speak, we receive.
This is the beginning of renewal.
Reflection Questions
- Where in my life am I resisting silence because I am afraid of what I might hear?
- Whose voice have I overlooked or dismissed? What might it mean to truly listen?
- How do I make space for the cry of the poor and of the earth?
- What would it look like for listening itself to become an act of justice?