Almost immediately, pundits responded with partisan “hot takes” that pulled a line or two from the document to illustrate how it aligned perfectly with their viewpoints. Others turned to critique or praised provisions they liked while ignoring those they did not.

This did not surprise me. I have taught courses in Catholic social teaching and understand the temptation to view this teaching through political frameworks. Yet, this exhortation warrants more. As an apostolic exhortation, Dilexi Te is less formal than an encyclical letter: “exhortation” means to encourage or to urge. It is, in Pope Leo’s words, a summons to “appreciate the close connection between Christ’s love and his summons to care for the poor.”

In reading Dilexi Te, three things challenged and encouraged my heart most deeply.

First, the opening line, “I have loved you,” encourages prayerful reflection. It is traditional to name papal documents with the Latin translation of their opening words. But, these four words convey a profound truth both fundamental to Christianity and largely unfathomable. To know that God says, “I have loved you” can take a lifetime to ponder. Dilexi Te encourages readers to center their lives on this truth and draw from it the inspiration for love that should motivate care for those living with poverty.

Second, Dilexi Te encourages readers to see that many of our sisters and brothers live in poverty, and that this can take many forms. Certainly, it includes material poverty, but it invites a broader view — deep poverty can afflict those who suffer from being “socially marginalized,” lacking “means to give voice to their dignity and abilities,” experiencing moral, spiritual or cultural poverty or lacking rights, space or freedom. Acknowledging poverty this broader way invites us to recognize that, in some way, each of us will know poverty some time in our lives. To know this is to know deeper solidarity with those whose suffering might otherwise seem distant.

Third, in what may be its most challenging section, Dilexi Te presents an extensive history of the Church’s service to the suffering. The challenge is for each of us to join our ancestors in faith who lived lives of loving service. They recognized, as Pope Leo explained, that “[n]o sign of affection, even the smallest, will ever be forgotten, especially if it is shown to those who are suffering, lonely or in need.”

Pope Leo described the service of the earliest deacons and Church Fathers — including Sts. Ignatius of Antioch, Justin, John Chrysostom, Ambrose and Augustine — who taught vehemently about serving the poor. He detailed how care of the sick has been accomplished through well-known saints and religious women who offered “comfort, a listening ear, a presence and, above all, tenderness.”

He spoke of monastic hospitality under Sts. Basil the Great, Benedict of Norcia and Bernard of Clairvaux, of orders ministering to prisoners and how Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians and Carmelites embraced poverty to bring others closer to God. He acknowledged orders offering education as a “gift from God and a community responsibility” and those caring for migrants, the poorest and persons with disabilities.

This journey through the centuries is not merely history — it is an invitation to see radical, caring love as integral to our faith.

Because Dilexi Te is a new document from a new pope, it will get much attention. But it deserves reflection on what it tells each of us to do. At its heart, it encourages us to love others as God has loved us, in all the days of our ordinary times.

Learn more 

Read the full text of Dilexi Te at https://bit.ly/dilexi-te.