Since last October, when Pope Leo XIV issued his Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi Te, I have found myself continually returning to the document. I have taught it, discussed it, and prayed with it. Again and again, I am struck by the sections in which Pope Leo reflects on how monastic life reveals “that to be close to God, one must be close to the poor” (no. 54). He cites the Holy Rule: “The poor and pilgrims are to be received with all care and hospitality, for it is in them that Christ is received” (RB 53:15).
Pope Leo highlights something essential: long before social programs or charitable institutions existed, Benedictines were committed to the care of the poor through their hospitality. Benedictine hospitality incarnates the Gospel—love becomes real when it reaches out in welcome and inclusion. Monasteries have always been places where the hungry were fed, the sick were cared for, and the strangers were offered shelter.
This evangelical hospitality is illustrated in the Dialogues of Pope St. Gregory the Great, written around 595 AD. In Book II, Chapter 21, St. Gregory recounts that a famine in Campania, where St. Benedict’s monastery was located, became so severe the people were starving. True to their vocation, the monks gave away as much as they could. Eventually, the cellarer came to St. Benedict with a dire report: only five loaves of bread remained for the entire community. The monks were terrified and “disheartened,” but Benedict did not panic. Instead, he gently corrected their lack of faith. Gregory records Benedict saying, “Why are you so grieved at the lack of bread? Today you have little, but tomorrow you shall have plenty.” As the story goes, the very next day the monks found 200 sacks of flour at the monastery gate.
This same spirit of trust reappeared centuries later. In 1030, a famine struck the region around Monte Cassino. The memory of the “miracle of the flour” shaped the monks’ response. They believed that if they shared their food with the poor—even to the point of their own hunger—God would provide, just as he had in Benedict’s time. And God did just that.
When the granaries were nearly empty and winter approached, the cellarer was warning that continued giving would endanger the community itself. But the abbot insisted, “If Christ comes to us hungry, we must feed Him.” So the monks opened the granaries again. According to the chronicles, the grain did not run out. More importantly, the monastery became a lifeline for the entire region. People survived because the monks chose generosity over self-preservation. Their hospitality was an act of trust, rooted in the conviction that God’s love is so abundant it can be shared without fear. As our own Sister Martha Dowd would frequently say: “God’s generosity can never be outdone!” I pray that this same depth of trust may animate all our monastic undertakings today.
Another powerful theme in Dilexi Te is Pope Leo’s insistence that hospitality to the poor is a mutual encounter, marked by empathy and reciprocity. In paragraph 79, he describes service to the poor as “an encounter between equals, where Christ is both revealed and adored.” In paragraph 101, he calls for an attitude of “loving attentiveness” grounded in the beauty of each person. “It is not a question of ‘bringing God to the poor,’ but of encountering God in them.”
This teaching brings to mind a story once told by Sister Joan Chittister many years ago, drawn from Jewish tradition—a story that lingers in my mind and heart. In a small village, two women lived very different lives. One was a mother raising several children, stretching every meal, every coin, every ounce of energy. The other was a monastic, living simply, praying faithfully, and serving others out of love for God. Each believed the other was in greater need. The mother thought, “The Sister has nothing of her own, and has no children to take care of her in her old age. She must be provided for.” The monastic thought, “The mother has so many mouths to feed. She must be struggling to provide for all of them.” So each began secretly carrying provisions to the other. The mother tucked away a portion of her family’s food and left it at the monastery door. The monastic gathered what little she had—a bit of bread, a few coins—and left it at the mother’s doorstep. Night after night, they repeated this quiet ritual of generosity, each convinced she was helping the other survive. Then one twilight, they met on the path—each carrying a bundle meant for the other. They stopped, stared, and then responded with both tears and laughter at the realization of being so loved. The place of their encounter became a sacred place from that day forward.
Both women had been giving out of love. Both had been receiving out of love. Both were living the same truth. Their hospitality to each other was mutual. Their trust in God’s overwhelming generosity was enough to give away all they could.
This story is a living parable of Benedictine spirituality: the one who gives is also the one who receives, and Christ is found in the encounter. As Dilexi Te reminds us—and as Benedictine monastics have known for centuries—God loves us first, and we are called to respond to that love with evangelical hospitality, not out of our abundance but out of our trust. Giving and receiving are intertwined, each sustaining the other. Hospitality is not charity—it is communion. Meeting the flesh of Christ in the vulnerable. Hospitality is the sacred place where divine love meets human need and generous love becomes a way of Gospel living.
By Sister Madeline Contorno, OSB