The Encyclical Letter Dilexit nos, “He Loved Us” On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ, published on 24 October 2024, was born out of the spiritual experience of Pope Francis, who senses the drama of the enormous suffering produced by wars and the many ongoing acts of violence, and wants to be close to those who suffer by proposing the message of divine love that comes to save us.
The Encyclical offers the key to understanding the entire magisterium of this Pope, as he himself makes us understand: ‘What this document expresses allows us to discover that what is written in the social Encyclicals Laudato si’ and Fratelli tutti is not foreign to our encounter with the love of Jesus Christ, so that, drinking from this love, we may become capable of weaving fraternal bonds, of recognising the dignity of every human being and of caring for our common home together’ (n. 217).
The message that the Pope has given and gives to the Church and to the entire human family stems from a single source, presented here in the most explicit manner: Christ the Lord and His love for all humanity. It is the truth for which Jorge Mario Bergoglio or Pope Francis has spent his entire life and continues to spend it passionately in his ministry as Bishop of Rome and Pastor of the universal Church. In this light, it is particularly touching that he explicitly cites as the source of many of the ideas expounded some unpublished writings of a recently deceased Witness to the faith, whom he himself had welcomed into the Society of Jesus: ‘A good part of the reflections in this first chapter,’ it is said in the first note to the text, ‘were inspired by the unpublished writings of Father Diego Fares S.J. (note 1 to n. 2).
“Dilexit nos,” Pope Francis’ fourth Encyclical, retraces the tradition and relevance of thought on “the human and divine love of the heart of Jesus Christ,” calling for a renewal of authentic devotion to avoid forgetting the tenderness of faith, the joy of serving, and the fervour of mission.
“‘He loved us’, Saint Paul says of Christ (cf. Rom 8:37), in order to make us realize that nothing can ever “separate us” from that love (Rom 8:39)”: Thus begins Pope Francis’ his fourth encyclical, which takes its title from the opening words, Dilexit nos.
The encyclical is dedicated to the human and divine love of the Heart of Jesus Christ: “His open heart has gone before us and waits for us, unconditionally, asking only to offer us His love and friendship,” the Pope writes in the introductory paragraph. “For ‘He loved us first’ (cf. 1 Jn 4:10). Because of Jesus, ‘we have come to know and believe in the love that God has for us’ (1 Jn 4:16).”
Opening with a brief introduction and divided into five chapters, the Encyclical on the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus incorporates, “the precious reflections of previous Magisterial texts and a long history that goes back to the Sacred Scriptures, in order to re-propose today, to the whole Church, this devotion imbued with spiritual beauty.”
The first chapter, “The Importance of the Heart,” explains why it is necessary to “return to the heart” in a world where we are tempted to become “insatiable consumers and slaves to the mechanisms of the market” (2).
It analyses what we mean by “heart”: the Bible speaks of it as a core “that lies hidden beneath all outward appearances” (4),a place where what is shown on the outside or hidden doesn’t matter; there, we are truly ourselves (6).
The heart leads to questions that matter: what meaning do I want for my life, my choices, or my actions? Who am I before God (8)?
“The failure to make room for the heart… has resulted in a stunting of the idea of a personal centre, in which love, in the end, is the one reality that can unify all the others” (10), the Pope writes.
For Pope Francis, it is important to recognize that “I am my heart, for my heart is what sets me apart, shapes my spiritual identity and puts me in communion with other people” (14).
The second chapter is dedicated to the actions and words of love of Christ. The acts by which He treats us as friends and shows that God “is closeness, compassion, and tender love” are evident in His encounters with the Samaritan woman, Nicodemus, the prostitute, the adulterous woman, and the blind man on the road (35).
His gaze, which “examines the depths of your being” (39), shows “how attentive Jesus was to individuals and above all to their problems and needs” (40), in such a way “as to admire the good things he recognizes in us,” like in the centurion, even if others ignore them (41).
His most eloquent word of love is “being nailed to the Cross,” after having wept for His friend Lazarus and suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane, aware of His violent death “at the hands of those He loved so much” (45, 46).
In the third chapter, “This is the heart that has loved so greatly,” the Pope recalls how the Church reflects and has reflected on “the holy mystery of the Lord’s Sacred Heart.” He refers to Pius XII’s Encyclical Haurietis aquas, on the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1956). He clarifies that “devotion to the Heart of Christ is not the worship of a single organ apart from the Person of Jesus,” because we adore “the whole Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, represented in an image that accentuates His heart” (48).
The image of the heart of flesh helps us contemplate that the love of the Heart of Jesus Christ not only understands divine charity but also extends to human affection (61). His Heart, Pope Francis continues, quoting Pope Benedict XVI, contains a “threefold love”: the sensitive love of His physical heart and His twofold spiritual love, both human and divine, in which we find “the infinite in the finite” (67).
In the last two chapters, Pope Francis highlights two aspects that devotion to the Sacred Heart should unite, namely “to nourish us and bring us closer to the Gospel”: personal spiritual experience, and community and missionary commitment.
The Pope clarifies that the visions of some saints, particularly devoted to the Heart of Christ, “are rich sources of encouragement and can prove greatly beneficial,” but “are not something the faithful are obliged to believe as if they were the Word of God.”
At the same time, he reminds us, along with Pope Pius XII, that this devotion “cannot be said ‘to owe its origin to private revelations.’” Rather, “devotion to Christ’s heart is essential for our Christian life to the extent that it expresses our openness in faith and adoration to the mystery of the Lord’s divine and human love” and “in this sense, we can once more affirm that the Sacred Heart is a synthesis of the Gospel” (83).
The Pope calls for renewing devotion to the Heart of Christ, especially to counter “new manifestations of a disembodied spirituality” that are multiplying in society (87). He makes a specific mention of Jansenism and how it continues today in the Church in new Ways. It is essential, he says, to return to “the incarnate synthesis of the Gospel” (90) in the face of “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” (88).
One can recall St. Alphonsus and his fight against Jansenism and his using the devotion to the Sacred Heart as the antidote to the poison of Jansenism which was a spirituality of guilt and shame, rigour and fear, where God was presented as being distant and cold and fearful and demanding.
The Heart of Christ helps believers to free themselves from these constraints, as well as from the frequent dualism ‘of communities and pastors focused only on external activities, structural reforms devoid of the Gospel, obsessive organisations, worldly projects, secularised thinking’ (n. 88). The result is often a Christianity ‘that has forgotten the tenderness of faith, the joy of dedication to service, the fervour of the mission from person to person, being conquered by the beauty of Christ, the thrilling gratitude for the friendship He offers and for the ultimate meaning He gives to personal life’ (n. 88). Devotion to the Sacred Heart helps us to put love at the centre of everything.
In the fourth chapter, “A love that gives itself as drink,” he revisits the Scriptures, and with the early Christians, recognizes Christ and His pierced side in “the one whom they have pierced,” a prophecy from the book of Zechariah in which God refers to Himself as an open fountain for the people, to quench their thirst for God’s love, “to cleanse them from sin and impurity” (95).
Various Church Fathers have mentioned “the wounded side of Jesus as the source of the water of the Holy Spirit”—especially St. Augustine, who “opened the way to devotion to the Sacred Heart as the place of our personal encounter with the Lord” (103).
Gradually, this wounded side, recalls the Pope, “began to be associated with His Heart” (109) and he lists several holy women who “in recounting their experiences of encounter with Christ, have spoken of resting in the heart of the Lord as the source of life and interior peace (110).”
Apparitions to St Margaret Mary Alacoque: Under the influence of this spirituality, St Margaret Mary Alacoque recounted the apparitions of Jesus at Paray-le-Monial, between the end of December 1673 and June 1675. The core of the message conveyed to us can be summed up in the words heard by St Margaret: “This is the heart that so loved human beings that it has spared nothing, even to emptying and consuming itself in order to show them its love” (121).
Dilexit nos goes on to speak of St Therese of Lisieux, who described Jesus as the One “whose heart beat in unison with mine” (134); and of her letters to Sister Marie, which help avoid focusing the devotion to the Sacred Heart suffering, “since some had presented reparation primarily in terms of accumulating sacrifices and good works.” Instead, “Therese, for her part, presents confidence as the greatest and best offering, pleasing to the heart of Christ” (138).
Pope Francis also dedicates several passages of the encyclical to the place of the Sacred Heart in the history of the Society of Jesus, emphasising that in his Spiritual Exercises, St Ignatius of Loyola suggests to those following the method
The Holy Father offers the example of many saints in the recent history of the Church like Teresa of Kolkata, Faustina, Padre Pio as well as of St John Paul II who also “intimately linked his reflection on divine mercy with devotion to the Heart of Christ” (149).
Speaking of the “devotion of consolation,” the encyclical explains that seeing the signs of the Passion preserved by the heart of the Risen One, “it is natural, then, that the faithful should wish to respond not only to this immense outpouring of love, but also to the suffering that the Lord chose to endure for the sake of that love” (151).
Pope Francis also asks “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” (160). God, he says, “offers us consolation ‘so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction, with the consolation by which we ourselves are consoled by God’” (162).
The fifth and final chapter of the encyclical, “Love for Love,” developsthe communitarian, social, and missionary dimension of any authentic devotion to the Heart of Christ, which, as it “leads us to the Father,” also “sends us forth to our brothers and sisters” (163). Indeed, love for one’s brothers and sisters is the greatest gesture we can offer Him “to return for love for love’ (166).
Looking at the history of spirituality, the Pope recalls that St. Charles de Foucauld’s missionary commitment lived out in the Sahara Desert made him a “universal brother”: “Allowing himself to be shaped by the heart of Christ, he sought to shelter the whole of suffering humanity in his fraternal heart” (179).
Pope Francis then speaks of “reparation”: as St. John Paul II explained, “by entrusting ourselves together to the heart of Christ, ‘over the ruins accumulated by hatred and violence, the greatly desired civilization of love, the Kingdom of the heart of Christ, can be built’” (182).
The Encyclical recalls again with St. John Paul II that “Consecration to the heart of Christ is thus ‘to be seen in relation to the Church’s missionary activity, since it responds to the desire of Jesus’ heart to spread throughout the world, through the members of His Body, His complete commitment to the Kingdom.’ As a result, ‘through the witness of Christians, ‘love will be poured into human hearts, to build up the body of Christ, which is the Church, and to build a society of justice, peace and fraternity” (206).
To avoid the great risk, underlined by Pope Saint Paul VI, “amid all the things we say and do, we fail to bring about a joyful encounter with the love of Christ who embraces us and saves us” (208), we need “missionaries who are themselves in love and who, enthralled by Christ, feel bound to share this love that has changed their lives” (209).
Therefore, our mission is a mission of love. I quote from n. 213, “This love then becomes service within the community. I never tire of repeating that Jesus told us this in the clearest terms possible: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt25:40). He now asks you to meet him there, in every one of our brothers and sisters, and especially in the poor, the despised and the abandoned members of society. What a beautiful encounter that can be!”
Further in n. 215, the Holy Father insists, “Jesus is calling you and sending you forth to spread goodness in our world. His call is one of service, a summons to do good, perhaps as a physician, a mother, a teacher or a priest. Wherever you may be, you can hear his call and realize that he is sending you forth to carry out that mission.”
Conclusion
I wish to state 4 important aspects for me that stand out from this Encyclical
- “I am my Heart” The Decisiveness of our Heart: The Encyclical begins by emphasising the importance of the heart (Part I: nos. 2-30) particularly in the light of the Bible, where ‘heart’ means the unifying centre of the person. In this sense, in life ‘everything is played out in the heart’ (n. 3) and it is from the heart that the true questions come (cf. n. 8).
- Returning to the Heart of Christ, synthesis of the Gospel: After introducing us to the value of the heart, as the centre of our dignity and relationships, Pope Francis encourages us to look at Jesus, his gestures and words (cf. DN 33), which express the consistency of his loving heart. The heart of Jesus becomes attentive to each one of us, meets us, scrutinises us, sets his gaze on us (cf. DN 35.39-41) and invites us to trust him (cf. DN 37).
- The Heart of Jesus consoles and asks for repentance: Contemplating the Heart of Christ leads us to experience consolation, so ‘the sorrow we feel in our hearts gives way to total trust, and in the end, what remains is gratitude, tenderness, peace; his love remains that reigns in our lives’ (DN 161) and we come out lightened.
It is in this light that we also understand the profound meaning of the idea of reparation: ‘Together with Christ, on the ruins that we leave in this world with our sin, we are called to build a new civilisation of love’ (n. 182). Christian reparation, then, ‘cannot be understood only as a set of external works, which are indispensable and sometimes admirable. It requires a spirituality, a soul, a sense that gives it strength, impetus and untiring creativity. It needs the life, fire and light that come to it from the heart of Christ’ (No. 184). The Lord ‘enables us to love as He has loved and so He Himself loves and serves through us’ (no. 203).
- Love for Love: From all this derives a peculiar vision of mission in the service of the Gospel: ‘In the light of the Sacred Heart, mission becomes a matter of love, Therefore, the mission, ‘requires missionaries in love, who still allow themselves to be conquered by Christ and who cannot help but transmit this love that has changed their lives’ (n. 209).
The text concludes with this prayer of Pope Francis which I pray along with you:
“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. Until that day when we will rejoice in celebrating together the banquet of the heavenly kingdom in the presence of the risen Lord, who harmonizes all our differences in the light that radiates perpetually from his open heart. May he be blessed forever.”
Joseph Ivel Mendanha, C.Ss.R. S.T.D
