Pope Leo I 14th teaches us something powerful in this sermon. His words are not only clear, they are sacred echoes for a generation restless in silence and weary with noise. There is a moment just before sleep when silence grows deeper and our thoughts return uninvited. It's then that many feel an invisible weight in the chest, a sense of unfinished business with God, with themselves, or with others. Pope Leo I 14th calls this a spiritual vulnerability of the night. He says, "We lock our doors before sleep, yet leave our souls wide open. This hidden unrest, often unnoticed, is a sign of a heart that still longs for resolution, even after the noise of the day has passed. That's why the Pope urges every Catholic to take three actions before going to bed. These are not pious routines, but sacred acts that seal the day in God's presence. But before we begin, make sure to like this video, subscribe to the channel, and activate the notification bell to receive content that will elevate your faith and wisdom through the teachings of the Holy Pope Leo. Let's start with the first gesture Pope Leo teaches gratitude. He emphasizes that this is not shallow thankfulness but a deep act of memory remembering the good that God has done throughout the day. When we end the day without gratitude, says the Pope, we forget that grace came even when we didn't notice. St. Paul echoes this truth in his letter to the Thessalonians. Give thanks in all circumstances. It's a universal call. The Pope interprets this not as passive acceptance, but as active remembrance. He explains, "When you name blessings out loud, even small ones, your mind resets. Your soul learns to see God at work, even in your pain." Many saints lived this discipline. Pope Leo often recalls the story of an elderly woman in Peru who had lost almost everything. Yet each night she gave thanks aloud for five small things. Her words were simple. Thank you for this roof, for the rice, for my neighbor, for this chair, for the breeze. The Pope said her heart became a home of light in a dark village. Gratitude, he teaches, must be practical. Before sleeping, recall at least three moments in your day where God was present through a person, a moment of peace, or even a challenge overcome. Be specific. Thank you for the smile of my son. Thank you for surviving that meeting or thank you that I had strength not to give up. Even trials deserve thanks. Pope Leo insists gratitude in suffering is the mark of mature faith. He teaches that when we offer thanks for struggles, we are placing them under God's providence. A restful night is impossible when the heart remains burdened. Pope Leo I 14th teaches that many souls lie down tired not from the day's labor but from unresolved faults and unreleased pain. When we fall asleep with unrest in our in conscience, he says, we invite shadows into a place meant for peace. That leads us to the second sacred gesture, forgiveness. This practice begins not with others but with ourselves. The Pope explains that at night even small failures seem amplified, a sharp word, a moment of selfishness, a missed opportunity. They echo louder in silence. This is not meant to crush the soul but to awaken it. As St. Paul exhorts in his letter to the Ephesians, "Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry." Pope Leo interprets this verse as a nightly spiritual responsibility. He describes three movements within the act of forgiveness. The first is recognition. This means being honest, not a brutal judgment, but a sincere examination. The Pope suggests a question as a guide. What have I done today that does not reflect the love I profess to believe? He adds, the soul that cannot look at its own flaws will always see flaws in others. The second movement is to seek forgiveness. This is a quiet confession, not yet sacramental, but deeply personal. Speaking to God, we name what went wrong. Pope Leo encourages this moment as a gentle descent. We step down from pride and into truth, not to be humiliated, but to be held by mercy. He often quotes St. John 33 who used to pray at night, "Lord, I've done my best. Forgive my faults, the church is yours. Good night." It was a prayer of humility, peace, and trust. The third and often forgotten movement is forgiving oneself. Pope Leo emphasizes this with urgency. Many Christians, he says, believe in God's forgiveness but remain imprisoned by their own guilt. He teaches to refuse to forgive yourself is to doubt the hand of God that already reached for you. This full act of forgiveness recognizing, asking, and releasing restores the soul's equilibrium. The Pope explains it as spiritual hygiene. He even offers an image. Imagine your conscience as a room. Recognition is turning on the light. Asking for forgiveness is cleaning the mess. Forgiving yourself is opening the window and letting fresh air in. Pope Leo also draws from St. Padre Peio who spent hours hearing confessions. Padre Peio would often say, "Do not dwell in what you failed to do. Begin again." He taught his spiritual children to examine their hearts each evening. not to accumulate regret, but to walk into the next day lighter. One powerful story the Pope shares comes from a man who struggled with rage. Every night he would reflect and find anger in his heart. But instead of shame, he chose honesty. He prayed, "Lord, today I was impatient, but I saw it. I name it. I give it to you. Help me try again." Over time, the Pope says, his heart softened not by willpower but by grace welcomed nightly. Forgiveness before sleep is not perfection. It is direction. Pope Leo repeats this often. What matters is not that you finish each day flawless, but that you finish it in the arms of the one who loves you despite your flaws. There is one more point that the pope makes clear. Forgiveness is not limited to our own failures. It must extend outward. Each night we are invited to forgive anyone who hurt us. Even if the wound is still open, even if we fear forgiving means forgetting. Pope Leo insists, "Forgiveness is not weakness. It is a refusal to let darkness govern your peace." He shares the story of a young woman who had been betrayed by a close friend. For months, she carried anger to bed. One night she prayed with trembling lips, "Lord, I can't forget. But I choose to release this person into your hands." The next morning she said she felt different. The pain remained, but the bitterness had begun to melt. This, the pope says, is the quiet miracle of nightly forgiveness. It doesn't erase pain, but it removes poison. There is a form of exhaustion that no pillow can ease. It is the tiredness of the soul that refuses to let go. Pope Leo I 14th warns us with pastoral urgency. Many lie awake not because the body resists sleep, but because the heart still grips what must be released. This brings us to the third sacred gesture before sleep. Trust. Among the three, this is often the hardest, not because it's complex, but because it demands surrender. And surrender feels like defeat to the anxious heart. Yet, Pope Leo insists surrender is not failure when directed toward God. It is the very architecture of peace. Before resting, he proposes a bold spiritual action. Identify your burdens and hand them over. Name them gently but clearly. Your worries about work, your family tensions, the thoughts of illness or future uncertainty. Hold each one up and say, "Jesus, I trust in you." This isn't an escape. It's the practice of faith. The Pope teaches that naming our burdens aloud is an act of truth. What we refuse to name, he says, we continue to carry in silence. He invites us to draw from the wellspring of divine mercy. In the life of St. Fina Kowalsska, trust was not a feeling. It was an action. Pope Leo recalls how she lived this surrender daily, even in darkness. In her diary, she wrote, "Though all fail me, I trust." He recounts a night when Fainina, tormented by doubt and dryness, turned to God with no consolation. She didn't feel holy. She didn't feel strong, but she whispered, "Lord, this is what I have. Fear and faith. I give you both." It's a moment the Pope returns to often, calling it one of the purest forms of trust. Scripture affirms this path. In Matthew 6:34, Jesus declares, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." For Pope Leo, this isn't resignation. It's wisdom. He teaches, "Worry borrows sorrow from a future God hasn't written." One of his most helpful teachings is the imagery of the box. At night, imagine placing each worry into a small chest marked God's hands. Close it. lay it aside. Let him guard it. This daily habit, the Pope says, re-educates the heart to believe again in divine care. He continues, "You are not abandoning responsibility. You are honoring your limits. There is a time to act and a time to release." Even our bodies testify to this truth. Medical research affirms what spiritual tradition has long known. Trust reduces anxiety, lowers cortisol, improves sleep. But Pope Leo pushes deeper. Peace, he says, is not a nervous system response. It is the fruit of relationship with a living God. St. Padre Peio's wisdom echoes here. Pray, hope, and don't worry. This trio is for Pope Leo a summary of Catholic night theology. Pray, connect, hope, anchor your future. Don't worry, let go. This isn't abstract. The Pope tells a story about a widowerower who lay awake nightly worrying for his daughter's life, her decisions, her soul. One night, exhausted, he knelt and prayed. Lord, you love her more than I do. I entrust her to you. He didn't stop caring, but he stopped carrying alone. Pope Leo adds, "Every act of trust is a window opened in a room of stale air. You may still see the storm, but now you can breathe. He also corrects a modern confusion. Trust is not passivity. It's discernment. You're not giving up. The Pope says you're recognizing that night is not for fixing. Night is for resting and God works while you rest. Regularity matters. He advises setting a fixed moment before sleep for this gesture, a time to stop, breathe, and release. Repetition forms habit, and habit forms trust. Each night we trust, the soul becomes less frantic and more anchored. He closes with a call. Trust is not reserved for mystics. It's not only for the strong. It's for anyone humble enough to say, "I don't control this, but I am held. This third act trust doesn't just finish the day, it sanctifies the night. Together with gratitude and forgiveness, it forms a trinity of spiritual renewal. Three anchors, three lanterns in the dark. Three steps that lead the soul safely to rest. To grasp the transformative power of the three words, gratitude, forgiveness, and trust, we must observe those who lived them not as ideas, but as pillars. Pope Leo I 14th reminds us that the saints are not museum relics. They are living witnesses of what it means to be fully human and entirely surrendered to God. Their lives reflect what our knights could become if we followed the same sacred pattern. He begins with St. John Paul II, a man who faced assassins, totalitarian oppression, and the slow deterioration of his body through Parkinson's. And yet, he ended his days with a grateful heart. Pope Leo often quotes his habit, "I do not sleep without saying thank you to God for everything, even suffering." It wasn't gratitude for pain, but for grace inside pain. Forgiveness, too, defined him. When he was shot in 1981, he didn't wait to heal before forgiving his attacker. He forgave him publicly and then visited him in prison. This wasn't theater. It was theology. Forgiveness, the Pope says, must be lived to be true. It must be spoken by the lips and written with the body. and trust. That was his foundation. His papal motto totus tus spoke of his complete consecration to Mary and through her to Christ. Do not be afraid, he said from the balcony on the first night of his papacy. Pope Leo reflects on those words. He didn't say that as a man without fear. He said it as a man who chose to trust anyway. Then comes St. Teresa of Kolkata, the missionary of the poor. Her outer smile often masked an interior struggle, the dark night of the soul. For decades, she felt the absence of God. And yet every night she knelt to give thanks. I thank God for letting me love him in the poor. Today, she would whisper. She taught her sisters a nightly practice to remember five encounters where they saw Jesus hidden in others. Pope Leo calls this a Eucharist of memory, feeding the soul with grace received. Her forgiveness was equally radical. She was misjudged, misqued, and criticized. Yet, she forgave quickly. "I forgive because I've been forgiven much," she told a journalist once. Pope Leo admires this simplicity, calling it a mercy that speaks without shouting. and her trust. It was iron wrapped in lace. Even when I feel abandoned, she wrote, "I smile because I trust God sees me even in the dark." For Pope Leo, this is a form of trust that only love can explain. St. Padre Peio offers another model. A mystic, stigmatist, and confessor, he spent countless hours listening to hearts and pointing them to mercy. Every night he examined his soul, not out of fear, but devotion. "Do not let your soul sleep in disorder," he advised. "Sweep it clean, kiss the cross, and rest." He taught others to forgive without waiting for justice. He said, "Forgiveness is an act of faith. You release them not because they're right, but because God is." This was no abstraction for him. He endured suspicion and silence from his superiors for years and he never retaliated. Pope Leo frequently shares his advice. End your day by placing everyone in God's hands, friend and enemy alike. And when it came to trust, Padre Peio lived with fierce conviction. His advice to anxious souls was simple. Pray, hope, and don't worry. But perhaps no one embodied trust more purely than St. Faina Kowalsska, the apostle of divine mercy. Her diary is filled with raw encounters with divine tenderness. She often ended her night saying, "Jesus, I trust in you," not as a phrase, but as surrender. Pope Leo calls her life a ladder from fear to peace. She taught that trust is the vessel by which we receive mercy. The greater the trust, she wrote, the greater the grace. Her gratitude shone even through illness. Her forgiveness embraced those who doubted her visions. Her trust opened a doorway into the heart of Christ. Before sleeping, she offered her entire being. I give you my past, present, and future. Take it and do with it what you will. Pope Leo I 14th reminds us that these saints didn't perform spiritual gymnastics. They practiced small acts repeated nightly with hearts turned toward God. Their secret he says was consistency. They sowed peace at night and harvested strength by day. This trio John Paul Teresa Pio Fina embody how gratitude, forgiveness and trust work together. Gratitude opens the heart. Forgiveness cleanses the soul. Trust anchors the spirit. You do not need to be extraordinary to begin. Pope Leo assures, "You only need to be sincere. Begin with a single word. Let it grow. Grace will do the rest." After exploring the teachings and examples of Pope Leo I 14th and the saints, the question now is simple. How do I begin? The Pope is clear. Faith is not abstract. It must be lived and it must begin at home, especially in the quiet of the night. He proposes a five-step nightly ritual, not as a strict rule, but as a guide towards spiritual maturity. Each step echoes one of the sacred words we've explored, gratitude, forgiveness, and trust. First, set the moment. Choose a consistent time before sleep. Even five minutes of stillness can sanctify the rest of the night. Create a space. Dim the lights. Put the phone away. Pope Leo advises, "Silence is not empty. It is the room where God speaks." Second, begin with gratitude. Reflect on the day and name at least three blessings. The Pope insists, "Be specific. Thankfulness without detail is like light without focus." A conversation, a meal, a moment of laughter, small signs of divine love. You may write them in a journal. The Pope himself does this and encourages others to keep a ledger of light. Third, sweep the soul. Examine your heart. Ask, "Where did I fall short today? Whom did I hurt even unknowingly?" Do not accuse yourself. Observe with love. Then say, "Lord, forgive me. Tomorrow I will walk again." Pope Leo calls this brushing the dust from the conscience. Next, release all resentments. Is there anyone who offended you? Is there a grudge you carry? Speak forgiveness even if it's hard, even if you don't feel it. The Pope teaches, "Forgiveness spoken leads the heart to follow." Fourth, surrender. identify the worries clinging to your mind. One by one hand them to God. Speak each by name. Lord, I give you my job, my child, my fear, my health, my decision. After each say, Jesus, I trust in you. Pope Leo calls this placing your burdens on the altar of the night. Lastly, bless the next day. Offer tomorrow before it arrives. Say, "Into your hands, Lord, I place what is to come." This final act is not weakness. It is worship. Now, Pope Leo knows that obstacles will come. He speaks openly about them and offers solutions. One obstacle is inconsistency. New habits are fragile. That's why he suggests linking this practice to an existing routine like brushing your teeth or turning off the lights. Let it become part of the rhythm. Another obstacle is fatigue. After a long day, it's tempting to skip spiritual reflection. The Pope gently insists as the body needs food, the soul needs closure. Even 2 minutes offered with sincerity, feed the heart. A third obstacle is difficulty and gratitude, especially on hard days. On such nights, Pope Leo recommends beginning with the smallest things, breath, shelter, a name. And when nothing seems worthy of thanks, say, "Thank you, Lord, for still holding me." Some will struggle with forgiveness, the pain may feel too deep. Here the Pope offers a powerful phrase, "Lord, I am not ready, but I want to forgive." That desire itself is a seed of grace. When trust feels impossible, he invites us to recall the saints. Remember St. Fina who trusted in darkness recall St. Teresa who gave thanks through tears. They were not stronger. They were surrendered. These three words, Pope Leo says, are not magic. They are sacred habits. They shape the soul like water shapes the stone gently, daily, persistently. He closes with an invitation. Begin tonight. Don't wait for peace to come. Invite it. Don't wait for perfection. Begin in weakness. God meets us not at the finish line but at the first step. Imagine, he says, if every Catholic began to do this. Imagine homes where the night ends not in distraction but in prayer. Imagine children seeing their parents speak forgiveness aloud. Imagine spouses sharing their fears then entrusting them to God. Imagine parishes where people sleep with hearts unbburdened and awaken as new creatures. As St. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come." This renewal begins not at sunrise but at nightfall. Pope Leo leaves us with this charge. End your day not with screams but with surrender, not with noise, but with names, not with fear, but with faith. These three sacred words. Thank you. I forgive I trust are the language of heaven spoken on earth. Begin tonight. God is already waiting. If this message deepened your faith or brought clarity to your spiritual journey, don't forget to like this video, subscribe to the channel, and turn on the notification bell. Help us spread the teachings of the Holy Pope Leo I 14th to more souls seeking light and truth. [Music]