Message of His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa On the Occasion of the Sunday of the Word 2026

On the occasion of the Sunday of the Word 2026, His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, issued the following message:

Dearest brothers and sisters in Christ, 
May the Lord give you peace! 

On January 25, 2026 we will celebrate the Sunday of the Word. 

This year again, we will focus on a single text from the New Testament: the letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians. From this letter, we take a verse that will be at the center of our prayer: “Christ is our Peace” (2:14). 

No one living in our Land is unaware of how delicate and serious the moment we are experiencing is. No one is unaware of how necessary it is for each of us to live this moment with intensity and full responsibility, and how necessary it is for everyone, but especially for us Christians, to fill the word PEACE with a new meaning, a word repeated too often without spiritual or human depth. 

This is why we have chosen to concentrate on the Letter to the Ephesians: a very profound text that will help us perceive that peace is a GIFT that comes from above: CHRIST is our peace, the One who leads all things and all people to unity. 

It will also help us realize that we cannot speak of peace without speaking of justice, forgiveness, reconciliation, and the daily commitment to become artisans of peace in our personal, family, community, and civic life; knowing well that the journey will be long and complex and requires perseverance. 

I would like you also to feel how strong and urgent this commitment is.
It requires us to open our hearts to receive the gift that comes from above, and it urges us to take concrete steps to walk in it. 

I would like you to feel what I deeply feel: that peace is built above all from below, from the commitment of each one of us. 

Therefore, it is very important that we let ourselves be formed by the Word of God in the ways of peace. 

It is likewise very important to engage firmly and perseveringly in prayer and listening. 

The letter is short, but very beautiful and full of strength. 

I therefore encourage you to read it and reread it, together or personally, and to pray with the words it places on our lips. 

I also suggest underlining those words that strike you most and that may accompany you on our journey. 

If we do this together, with faith and trust, we will find in our consciences new joy, new strength, and new light to live as true Christians in this difficult time. 

I bless you, and for you and with you all I pray with the very words of the Apostle Paul: 
"For this reason I kneel before the Father, … that he may grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ, our peace, may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:14, 16–19). 

    † His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Card. Pizzaballa 
 Latin Patriarch of Jersualem

This Message was originally published on the Website of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

You can click here to check some practical suggestions for celebrating the Sunday of the Word.