“Dear children! May this time be a time of prayer for peace. I am calling you to renew in your families the prayer of the Rosary for my intentions, so that I may be able to multiply your prayers and intercede for you before the Most High, [for Him] to heed your prayers and to give you peace. I am with you and like never before I pray for you and with you, my little children. Thank you for having responded to my call.” -Our Lady of Medjugorje, in private revelation given to Marija Pavlovic-Lunetti, on September 25, 2026
From a homily by Pope Leo XIV, on September 27, 2026:
It is today, not tomorrow, that we must repent. Indeed, now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation (cf. 2 Corinthians 6:2). God wants us to live, to open our eyes, and return to Him. To repent is to leave the paths on which we lost our way, and to follow the way of life, opening our hearts to the sole joy that never passes away.
Jesus Himself is quite direct in calling us to repentance. As Saint Luke tells us, “Unless you repent, you will all perish” (Luke 13:5). But He also extends our horizon beyond this earthly life to the horizon of eternal life. For while happiness in this world is fleeting and relative, and sadly sometimes out of reach for some, true happiness is promised to everyone in hope, and this is what we should seek above all else, in all our efforts and choices. Did not the Virgin Mary say to Saint Bernadette, “I do not promise to make you happy in this world but in the next”?
…Indeed, eternal life is a firm and certain promise that the Lord makes to us. He has already won it for us by His death on the Cross and His Resurrection, and through the grace of Baptism He is bringing it to fulfillment in us each day. It is within our reach, but we must freely welcome it, take hold of it, and not stand in its way. For the obstacle to grace and eternal life—the only obstacle to this love—is sin, whereby we turn in upon ourselves, refusing God and shutting ourselves up in our own darkness. Our personal responsibility therefore comes into play, and a great responsibility it is. God has made us free, since freedom is necessary for love; no one can be forced to love. We must therefore use our freedom to say yes to Christ, relying on His grace, like Mary. This is a yes that we renew until our final breath —”now and at the hour of our death”—as we say in the Hail Mary.
We hear the same urgent call to conversion in the words which Mary spoke right here, “Penance! Penance! Penance!” She repeats the word three times. And she asks Bernadette to perform certain acts of penance. Why? Are we slow to understand? Do we too easily think of ourselves without sin? Do we not practice penance enough? The Virgin asks us to do penance not only for ourselves, because we too need it, but also “for sinners,” for a world that is going astray. How can our hearts not be moved by the conflicts that are spreading and destroying so many innocent lives? Yet the evil of our time comes from the human heart. God is not responsible for it. As He says to the Israelites, “Is My way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?” (Ezekiel 18:25). It is therefore human hearts that must change, beginning with our own.
Penance is an act of love, carried out in solidarity with the human family. It is an act of love for God, because we want to make amends for the wounds our sins have dealt to His Heart. It is also an act of love for those brothers and sisters of ours who do not heed this call to conversion, and whose sins lead them towards death. This call to conversion also concerns the Church herself as she makes her earthly journey. She must have the courage to begin with herself. In order to heal the deep wounds, infidelities, and painful errors that have occurred within her, we must humbly place ourselves under the Lord’s purifying gaze.
An excerpt from “Real Religion: How to Avoid False Faith and Worship God in Spirit and Truth” by Father Jeffrey Kirby:
When self-help becomes our religion, God becomes a mere means or instrument to make our lives more holistic, enriched, or meaningful. Such a rapport doesn’t reflect the approach of a creature turning toward its Creator, or creature-turned-child addressing its heavenly Father. Rather, it resembles a client making demands of a life coach and expecting some self-desired results.
True religion, however, is not about self-actualization, our success, our self-esteem, or self-optimization. Rather, it is about a poverty of spirit, a crucified love, a self-emptying, and a meekness that allows the human heart to know of its dependency on God, and so to yearn for Him and truly worship Him in spirit and truth.
The sham of self-help religion expects nothing from its pseudo-worshippers other than what they want for themselves. Self-help is an arrogant spirit that insists that the world work for it, go its way, and revolve around its wishes. Such a belief deludes us into presuming that because we are trying to better ourselves, the world should comply with demands to control its ways and means. Self-help religion traps us in a well-disguised prison cell of narcissism. It deceives us into creating our own little bubble and dwelling there, focusing only on ourselves, and perceiving the world and those around us as a utilitarian means to our own betterment.
This approach to life and worship is a far cry from the witness given to us by the holy ones in salvation history. The holy ones understood that the only authentic way to personal growth was to forget themselves and focus on the work of God. By putting their efforts into doing God’s work, they were able to focus on their interior work. Only by surrendering themselves, wholly and completely to God, did they fully become themselves.
“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith; that I may know Him and the power of His Resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:7-11)
