They will realize that I love you. – Revelations 3:9
An Apostolic Exhortation is a significant papal document that offers pastoral guidance and encouragement to Catholics, urging them to live out their faith more fully in response to contemporary issues. In general, they are meant to encourage a particular virtue or activity. Popes sometimes use exhortations to set the tone of their pastoral ministry. The first Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Leo XIV, Dilexi Te (I Have Loved You), was appropriately released on October 4, 2025, the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, reflecting on Jesus’ love of the poor. Pope Leo chose to begin his pontificate as a continuation of Pope Francis’ teaching, “on the human and divine love of the heart of Jesus Christ.” By contemplating Christ’s love for the poor, he says that “we, too, are inspired to be more attentive to the sufferings and needs of others.” You can find Dilexi Ti on the Vatican website, www.vatican.va.
As an encouragement that you do take the time to read this exhortation, I will be offering some points of reflection here in my column for the next few weeks. In a culture that is so strongly divided and lacking in love, I appreciate the Holy Father’s emphasis on learning to love as Christ loves. I intend to summarize each chapter of the exhortation as well as provide you with some personal reflection questions.
Chapter One is entitled A Few Essential Words. Within this first chapter, Pope Leo grounds the exhortation in sacred scripture. He begins with a scene found in Matthew’s gospel where a woman anoints Jesus’ head with costly perfume. The Pope says that while some see this action as wasteful, Jesus sees this woman’s gesture as a symbol of gratuitous love. The anointing of Jesus by the woman is a foreshadowing of his suffering and death. Small gestures of love for the suffering, therefore, matter to God. To show love to the suffering is showing love to Jesus himself.
Throughout the rest of the chapter, Pope Leo presents poverty, not only as material need, but that it also includes social exclusion, lack of dignity, cultural and spiritual fragility, and absence of basic rights or freedom. In doing so, Pope Leo is directing our attention to a reflection on poverty as something that we all experience. From this perspective, the title of the document becomes more inclusive. We are part of the “you” that Jesus loves.
In this opening chapter, the Holy Father also spends time responding to mindsets that attribute poverty to personal fault or lack of effort. Pope Leo acknowledges that among the poor, there are those who do not want to work. However, he says they are in the minority. “There are so many others — men and women — who nonetheless work from dawn to dusk, perhaps collecting scraps or the like, even though they know that their hard work will only help them to scrape by, but never really improve their lives.” Christians, the Pope says, cannot succumb “to attitudes shaped by secular ideologies or political and economic approaches that lead to gross generalizations and mistaken conclusions.”
In this first chapter, Pope Leo sets a foundation for the rest of the exhortation, neglecting the poor means neglecting the Gospel itself — and that genuine Christian life requires embracing the poor as central to the Church’s mission. We need to re-read the Gospels, he says, “Lest we risk replacing it with the wisdom of this world.”
In closing this week’s presentation, I offer you the following reflection questions:
Where do I encounter Christ in the poor?
Where is Christ inviting me to recognize his presence more clearly, especially among those who are marginalized, overlooked, or struggling?
What attitudes or assumptions shape how I see poverty?
How might cultural ideas about success, merit, or comfort influence the way I judge or distance myself from the poor, and what conversion of heart is the Gospel asking of me?
How is love for Christ expressed in my actions?
Does my prayer and worship lead me to acts of compassion, solidarity, and justice toward others in my daily life?
Peace!
