Pope Leo's January 2026 Prayer Intention: For Greater Prayer with God's Word

Lord Jesus, living Word of the Father, in You we find the light that guides our steps. We know that the human heart is restless, hungry for meaning, and only Your Gospel can give it peace and fullness.

Teach us to listen to You each day in the Scriptures, to let ourselves be challenged by Your voice, and to discern our decisions through closeness to Your Heart.

May Your Word be nourishment in weariness, hope in darkness, and the strength of our communities.

Lord, may Your Word never be absent from our lips or from our hearts — the Word that makes us sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, disciples and missionaries of Your kingdom.

Make us a Church that prays with the Word, that is built upon it and shares it with joy, so that in every person the hope of a new world may be born again.

May our faith grow in the encounter with You through Your Word, moving us from our hearts to reach out to others, to serve the most vulnerable, to forgive, to build bridges, and to proclaim life. Amen.

The Church must always begin with what She is: the instrument of Christ’s saving work. The faith can never be reduced to a political program or a sociological movement. At the same time, faith necessarily shapes how we live in the world, how we act in society, how we pursue justice, how we defend human dignity. The balance is achieved when politics is understood as flowing from faith, not replacing it. When the faith is reduced to ideology, it is emptied of its power. But when faith is lived fully, in worship, in the moral life, and in charity, it naturally becomes leaven in society. That is how Christians truly transform the world: not by politicizing the Gospel, but by living it.

[C]onscientious objection allows individuals to refuse legal or professional obligations that conflict with moral, ethical, or religious principles deeply rooted in their personal lives. This may be the refusal of military service in the name of non-violence, or refusal on the part of doctors and healthcare professionals to engage in practices such as abortion or euthanasia. Conscientious objection is not rebellion, but an act of fidelity to oneself. At this moment of history, conscientious objection seems increasingly to be questioned by the States, even those that claim to be based on democracy and human rights. This freedom, however, establishes a balance between collective interest and individual dignity. It also emphasizes that a truly free society does not impose uniformity, but protects the diversity of consciences, preventing authoritarian tendencies and promoting an ethical dialogue that enriches the social fabric.

Yeah, I probably could have worded that better. I do a full set of each mysteries over the course of a week (so one set of Joyful, one set of Sorrowful, etc.) for a total of twenty decades a week, as opposed to the daily rosary causing thirty-five decades a week — most of which were going unfinished

Gideon has never confronted a broken heart before. She has never gotten far enough to have her heart broken. She knelt on the landing field, knees in the grit, arms clutched around herself. There was nothing left but blown-out, curly patterns in the pebbles where the shuttle had passed. A great dullness has sunk over her; a deep coldness, a thick solidity. When her heart beat in her chest it was with huge, steady grief. Every pulse seemed to be a space between insensibility and knives. For some moments she was awake, and she was filled with a slow-burning mine fire, the kind that never went out and crumbled everything from inside; for all other moments, it was as though she had gone somewhere else.

Pray for us, Saint Francis, that we may honor you by imitating your example. Help us to see Christ in every person we meet, especially those we find most difficult to love. Amen.

Also, not to discourage anyone from their daily rosary routine, but I find it unbelievably relieving to have changed my daily rosary to a four-sets-in-one-week rosary; I no longer have a bunch of half-finished rosaries that I abandon to start the next set of mysteries, and I feel much more attentive to the prayer time itself now that I’m not worried about meeting a quota I wasn’t living up to

OOoOooooOOOO the Creator wanted to become a creature

In other words, the Mass has an evangelical purpose apart from which it cannot be understood: we are called out of the world to be nourished and equipped (by the hearing and preaching of the Word, by the sacraments, and by fellowship) in order to be sent back out into the world to share the Gospel, engage in the ministry of reconciliation, and pass on to others the newness of spiritual life that Christ died to give.

As Bishop Barron puts it, after participating in the Mass and receiving Holy Communion, we are meant "to Christify the world," like re-oxygenated red blood cells bringing life to the rest of the body. As Christ breathed upon his apostles (John 20:22), and as he sent the Holy Spirit upon them at Pentecost in the form of wind (Acts 2:2), he continues to "breathe" the Holy Spirit in us through the Mass, which is an encounter in his Sacred Heart. Let us never separate ourselves from this vital connection to him — for our own sake and for the sake of the world.

Actually, looking at nearly every quote I wanted to preserve from this book (some already posted, some queued), I guess I think Tamsyn Muir has a really good talent for describing grief in its rawness.