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CV NEWS FEED // In his new encyclical Dilexit Nos (“He Loved Us”), Pope Francis invites the faithful to rediscover the Sacred Heart of Jesus and let the Catholic Church be transformed by “the boundless grace that flows from His Sacred Heart.”
The 56-page-long document is Pope Francis’ fourth encyclical and is divided in five chapters and one conclusion.
Chapter 1: The importance of the heart
The Pope starts his letter delving into the importance of the heart in human history and tradition, since the Greek philosophers to our time. “In this ‘liquid’ world of ours, we need to start speaking once more about the heart” as the place where people “encounter the radical source of their strengths, convictions, passions and decisions,” he writes.
He points out that, in the age of Artificial Intelligence “no algorithm” is capable of capturing all the “little things, ordinary in themselves yet extraordinary for us,” that “live on as precious memories ‘kept’ deep in our heart.”
“It is only by starting from the heart that our communities will succeed in uniting and reconciling differing minds and wills, so that the Spirit can guide us in unity as brothers and sisters. Reconciliation and peace are also born of the heart,” he says.
Chapter 2: Actions and words of God
Here Pope Francis expands on how the heart of Christ “is the very core of the initial preaching of the Gospel,” presenting the argument that true love in Christian tradition, translates into actions, and works of evangelization and mercy, even in challenging circumstances.
“If we find it hard to trust others because we have been hurt by lies, injuries and disappointments, the Lord whispers in our ear: ‘Take heart, son!’ (Mt 9:2), ‘Take heart, daughter!’ (Mt 9:22). He encourages us to overcome our fear and to realize that, with him at our side, we have nothing to lose.”
“At first glance,” the Pope says, “all this may smack of pious sentimentalism. Yet it is supremely serious and of decisive importance, and finds its most sublime expression in Christ crucified. The cross is Jesus’ most eloquent word of love.”
Chapter 3: This is the heart that has loved so greatly
Pope Francis delves deeply and extensively in the meaning and the long history behind the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
This devotion, he explains, is “represented by an image that accentuates his heart. That heart of flesh is seen as the privileged sign of the inmost being of the incarnate Son and his love, both divine and human. More than any other part of his body, the heart of Jesus is the natural sign and symbol of his boundless love.”
“It is essential to realize,” he says, “that our relationship to the Person of Jesus Christ is one of friendship and adoration, drawn by the love represented under the image of his heart. We venerate that image, yet our worship is directed solely to the living Christ, in his divinity and his plenary humanity, so that we may be embraced by his human and divine love.”
“The venerable image portraying Christ holding out his loving heart also shows him looking directly at us, inviting us to encounter, dialogue and trust; it shows his strong hands capable of supporting us and his lips that speak personally to each of us,” he adds.
He also insists that the Sacred Heart of Jesus is “also Trinitarian,” because his love continuously points to both the Father and the Holy Spirit.
“Our relationship with the heart of Christ is thus changed, thanks to the prompting of the Spirit who guides us to the Father, the source of life and the ultimate wellspring of grace. Christ does not expect us simply to remain in him,” he writes.
Pope Francis then explains that the promotion of Eucharistic Communion on the first Friday of each month, as encouraged by the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, originally “sent a powerful message at a time when many people had stopped receiving communion because they were no longer confident of God’s mercy and forgiveness.”
But that practice has a new relevance today, since “amid the frenetic pace of today’s world and our obsession with free time, consumption and diversion, cell phones and social media, we forget to nourish our lives with the strength of the Eucharist.”
Pope Francis also highlights the importance of Eucharistic Adoration each Thursday.
“When we carry it out with devotion, in union with many of our brothers and sisters and discover in the Eucharist the immense love of the heart of Christ, we ‘adore, together with the Church, the sign and manifestation of the divine love that went so far as to love, through the heart of the incarnate Word, the human race.’”
“I would add,” the Pope says, “that the heart of Christ also frees us from another kind of dualism found in communities and pastors excessively caught up in external activities, structural reforms that have little to do with the Gospel, obsessive reorganization plans, worldly projects, secular ways of thinking and mandatory programmes. The result is often a Christianity stripped of the tender consolations of faith, the joy of serving others, the fervor of personal commitment to mission, the beauty of knowing Christ and the profound gratitude born of the friendship he offers and the ultimate meaning he gives to our lives.”
Chapter 4: A Love that gives itself to drink
The Pope explains that his goal in this chapter, the longest, is to emphasize personal spiritual experience and communal missionary commitment — “two essential aspects that contemporary devotion to the Sacred Heart needs to combine.”
Pope Francis takes a historical approach to review the teachings related to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, from the Scriptures to contemporary teaching, stopping by the many saints who have contributed to the understanding and the development of the devotion.
The Pontiff provides a wealth of quotes from the Old and New Testaments, the early fathers of the Church to medieval theologians, explaining that “gradually, the wounded side of Christ, as the abode of his love and the wellspring of the life of grace, began to be associated with his heart, especially in monastic life.”
“In modern times,” he adds, “mention should be made of the important contribution of Saint Francis de Sales. Francis frequently contemplated Christ’s open heart, which invites us to dwell therein, in a personal relationship of love that sheds light on the mysteries of his life.”
It is under the influence of the Sales spirituality, the Pope argues, that “the events of Paray-le-Monial took place at the end of the seventeenth century. Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque reported a remarkable series of apparitions of Christ between the end of December 1673 and June of 1675.”
“Fundamental to these,” Pope Francis highlights, “was a declaration of love that stood out in the first apparition. Jesus said: ‘My divine Heart is so inflamed with love for men, and for you in particular, that, no longer able to contain in itself the flames of its ardent charity, it must pour them out through you and be manifested to them, in order to enrich them with its precious treasures which I now reveal to you.’”
The Pope continues, “This apparition, then, invites us to grow in our encounter with Christ, putting our trust completely in his love, until we attain full and definitive union with him.”
Pope Francis also highlights the influence of fellow Jesuit Saint Claude de La Colombière, Saint Margaret Mary’s spiritual director. “Saint Claude insists that contemplation of the heart of Jesus, when authentic, does not provoke self-complacency or a vain confidence in our own experiences or human efforts, but rather an ineffable abandonment in Christ that fills our life with peace, security and decision.”
The Pope offers then extensive reflections on two modern saints closely related to the devotion to the Sacred Heart: Saint Charles de Foucauld and Saint Therese of the Child Jesus.
He later dedicates several paragraphs to explain his belief that the Sacred Heart of Jesus has an important role in the history of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits).
But he says that “the devotion to the heart of Christ reappears in the spiritual journey of many saints, all quite different from each other; in every one of them, the devotion takes on new hues.”
“Here I would also mention the experiences of Saint Faustina Kowalska, which re-propose devotion to the heart of Christ by greatly emphasizing the glorious life of the risen Lord and his divine mercy,” he writes.
“The enduring relevance of devotion to the heart of Christ is especially evident in the work of evangelization and education carried out by the numerous male and female religious congregations whose origins were marked by this profoundly Christological devotion. Mentioning all of them by name would be an endless undertaking.”
Pope Francis dedicates several paragraphs to defend the particular devotion of “consolation,” the practice of offering prayers and reparations for the sufferings of Jesus; questioned as “theologically unsound” by some.
“I ask, then, that no one make light of the fervent devotion of the holy faithful people of God, which in its popular piety seeks to console Christ.”
Chapter 5: Love for love
The chapter focuses on addressing the practical fruits that the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus should bear.
“We need once more to take up the word of God and to realize, in doing so, that our best response to the love of Christ’s heart is to love our brothers and sisters. There is no greater way for us to return love for love,” he says.
“This bond between devotion to the heart of Jesus and commitment to our brothers and sisters has been a constant in the history of Christian spirituality,” the Pope argues, before offering several examples from the history of the Church, from Origen to Saint Charles de Foucauld.
“Precisely because evangelical reparation possesses this vital social dimension, our acts of love, service and reconciliation, in order to be truly reparative, need to be inspired, motivated and empowered by Christ. Saint John Paul II also observed that ‘to build the civilization of love’ our world today needs the heart of Christ,” he adds.
He later explains the importance of asking for forgiveness as means of healing relationships.
“A heart capable of compunction will grow in fraternity and solidarity,” he says.
“Sisters and brothers, I propose that we develop this means of reparation, which is, in a word, to offer the heart of Christ a new possibility of spreading in this world the flames of his ardent and gracious love. While it remains true that reparation entails the desire to ‘render compensation for the injuries inflicted on uncreated Love, whether by negligence or grave offense,’ the most fitting way to do this is for our love to offer the Lord a possibility of spreading, in amends for all those occasions when his love has been rejected or refused.”
“Mission,” the Pope adds, “as a radiation of the love of the heart of Christ, requires missionaries who are themselves in love and who, enthralled by Christ, feel bound to share this love that has changed their lives.”
Conclusion
Pope Francis concludes: “I ask our Lord Jesus Christ to grant that his Sacred Heart may continue to pour forth the streams of living water that can heal the hurt we have caused, strengthen our ability to love and serve others, and inspire us to journey together towards a just, solidary and fraternal world.”
