In the morning Pope Leo XIV receives in audience the International Commission of Contemplative Dominican Nuns, just days after the recognition of the heroic virtues of the Servant of God Sister Maria Petra Giordano, a professed nun of the Order of Preachers. Recalling the tradition of Saint Dominic and Saint Thomas Aquinas, according to whom "every word of proclamation, in order to be true, must originate from silence," the Pontiff urges the religious not to ask "how to maintain structures that are emptying out," but rather to "listen to what the Spirit is asking, today, of Dominican contemplative life," safeguarding "a fire that burns and cannot be allowed to die," as Saint Catherine of Siena used to say. He lists the difficulties of religious life today — aging communities, declining vocations, economic problems, the burden of managing large properties, the challenges of shared formation and interculturality — warning against the "temptation of a survival spirit" that leads to isolation and a reduction of commitments. He invites the communities to be "oases of true and profound peace," where "the chaotic anxiety" tied to external things falls silent, and concludes by wishing the nuns to be "united without becoming uniform, faithful to tradition and open to what is new, contemplative because capable of bringing the world before God."