In his 2026 Lenten Letter to the Diocese of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa calls the faithful to a season of prayer, penance, and renewed commitment to peace in a region still marked by conflict.
“May the Lord give you peace!” the Latin Patriarch begins, framing Lent as a “journey of prayer, penance, and conversion” that leads to Easter. This is not merely a time of abstinence, he writes, but an opportunity to purify hearts, renew faith, and return to the grace first received at Baptism.
From Jerusalem — the city that preserves the living memory of Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection — Lent takes on a particular intensity. In the land where “the Word became flesh,” Christians are invited to walk more closely in the footsteps of the Savior and respond to His redeeming love.
On the “Board of Peace” initiative and the call to pilgrims
Peace, he said, cannot rest on slogans but requires “concrete actions, gestures, and testimonies” capable of rebuilding trust between Israelis and Palestinians.
Read more about the Vatican's constant appeal for a two state solution in the region, here.
He also renewed his appeal for pilgrims to return to the Holy Land.
“It is time to return,” he insisted, stressing that Bethlehem and Jerusalem are safe and that the physical presence of Christians is essential. Pilgrimage, he said, is not only spiritual support for local believers but a visible sign that the universal Church remains rooted in this land.
Conversion rooted in the Cross
The Cardinal places the Passion of Christ at the center of the Lenten path. Citing John 13:1 — “He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end” — he reminds the faithful that the Cross is the foundation of Christian hope.
He urges Catholics to rediscover the Sacrament of Reconciliation as a concrete encounter with the Father’s mercy. Serious examination of conscience and sincere confession, he writes, allow Christ’s grace to renew “the beauty of our Baptism.”
Prayer, described as the “breath of the soul,” must sustain this journey. Like Jesus in the desert, believers are called to persevere amid temptation. The Patriarch encourages renewed devotion to the Rosary and daily intercession for peace in the Holy Land.
Fasting that becomes charity
Cardinal Pizzaballa recalls the Church’s Lenten discipline: fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and abstinence on Fridays, with many in the Holy Land also observing Wednesday abstinence. Yet true fasting, he stresses, must go beyond food.
Quoting Isaiah — “release those bound unjustly” — he calls for a fast that becomes active charity: supporting struggling families, assisting the unemployed, visiting the elderly and sick, and transforming sacrifice into tangible solidarity.
“In them we encounter the face of Christ,” he writes, echoing Matthew 25.
Lent, he concludes, is a pilgrimage toward the light of the Resurrection. Every act of sacrifice and love is sustained by the certainty that Christ is risen.
