A person who’s been through such shattering experiences might well feel broken into unconnected bits and pieces. Not having a narrative that brings the bits together is itself an anguish. We need to know our story, even in an incomplete way; learning and telling that story helps brings beauty and meaning to our lives.

If readers of Pope Leo the XIV’s first apostolic exhortation, Dilexi te (‘I have loved you’) detect an echo of the late Pope Francis in the document they would not be wrong. The work, signed on the October 4 by Pope Leo, was originally written by Pope Francis before he died and was subsequently revised and approved by our new pontiff.