Lent 2025

The Lenten season kicks off on Ash Wednesday, March 5 in 2025. It’s an invitation to embark on a spiritual journey under the sign of hope in this Jubilee year.

Lent is “a time to renew our faith, hope and charity”, Pope Francis stressed in one of his messages for Ash Wednesday.

“Everyone hopes. Hope is contained in the heart of every person as a desire and expectation of good, though not knowing what tomorrow will be made of. No matter what kind of life we lead, we cannot live without these three inclinations of the soul: to believe, to hope, to love”, he adds (L’espérance ne déçoit pas — Hope does not disappoint, § 1 and 3).

For his part, asked about the possibility of making a “good Lenten journey or missing out on Lent,” Dominican Adrien Candiard replied to the journalist from the La Croix website (in French only).

“I don’t know if we can fail it, I don’t know if we can make it. If Lent is made a heroic effort, we’ve missed everything. Spiritual life is not a video game in which you go from level to level, mastering the game’s data. Spiritual life is about letting the Holy Spirit work in us. We don’t master this process. We open ourselves to it, we receive it, we wait for it, but we do not direct it. Moreover, the spiritual life is rarely linear. Therefore, Lent is a time of effort, when we try to put things in their proper place and refocus on what is essential.”

Several dioceses are preparing documents to guide celebrations and times of reflection during this period. Lenten retreats are also organized, such as the one organized by the Dominicans with Carême dans la ville (Lent in the City—in French only).