On October 24, 2024, Pope Francis released his fourth encyclical, dedicated to the Heart of Jesus Christ: Dilexit Nos (“He Loved Us”).

What follows is a summary of the encyclical’s main themes. It does not replace a full reading of the document, especially since, given its focus on spirituality and caution against over-intellectualizing faith, it demands deep and thorough meditation.

This overview, however, still provides an understanding of the encyclical’s main highlights and connects them to other key themes of Francis’ pontificate and the teachings of previous popes.

Reason for the encyclical: To explain why the symbol of the heart is still relevant today to express the love of Jesus Christ (DN 2).

The meaning of “heart”: Defining “heart” is challenging, as the term’s meaning can be imprecise and points to the innermost, most mysterious aspects of human nature (DN 10). However, there are some qualities that allow us to explore the meaning of “heart”:

• Heart as a locus of desire and the place where important decisions take shape (DN 3): it unites the rational and instinctive aspects of the person. Both the higher faculties and the passions pass by the heart.
• Heart as a core lying hidden beneath all outward appearances (DN 4), even our own superficial thoughts that can sometimes mislead us.
• Heart as a locus of sincerity (DN 5): it indicates our true intentions, so deceit and disguise have no place there.
• Heart as the locus of love (DN 21): it is in the heart that people become who they are meant to be, since the human being is created to love and be loved.

Problem: There is a diminishing regard for the heart in modern society, making an urgent return to its importance necessary:

• Contemporary society, dominated by consumerism, alienation, and technology leads people to risk losing their core (DN 9).
• Still, this devaluation of the heart precedes our contemporary society, being influenced by pre-Christian (Greek) rationalism and post-Christian idealism and materialism, in various forms. Since the heart is difficult to define, many people, influenced by those philosophies, prefer to value the intelligence or the will, as these feel safer and easier to control (DN 10).
• Even in Christian contexts, theology has long marginalized the body and emotions, viewing them as pre- or sub-human due to the influence of Greek philosophy (DN 63).
• However, this depreciation of the heart may lead to a stunting of our personal center, since love is the one reality that can unify all others (DN 10).

Heart / Love as a unifying principle: The heart is what makes bonding possible.

• By counteracting the fragmentation brought on by individualism, it acts as a remedy for societal narcissism and self-centeredness (DN 17).
• It is the only way to reconcile diverse minds and wills within a community, enabling individuals to come together as brothers and sisters. “Our hearts, united with the heart of Christ, are capable of working this social miracle” (DN 28).
• It provides a synthesis between self-knowledge and openness to others, as well as between personal uniqueness and willingness to self-gift (DN 18).
• It also helps bring harmony to the fragmentation of our own personal history, making sense of what may seem hopelessly shattered in us (DN 19).
• Ultimately, the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the unifying principle of all reality, since “Christ is the heart of the world, and the paschal mistery of His death and resurrection is the center of history” (DN 31).

The Sacred Heart of Jesus: Based on Jesus’ earthly ministry, His Heart possesses the following characteristics:

• Proximity, closeness, encounter: Jesus allows Himself to be touched by sinners and the marginalized. Even when He is healing, He does so in close contact with those He heals (DN 34—36).
• Gaze, compassion: He looks upon the crowds and those who seek Him with compassion (DN 39—41).
• Words, as invitation, but also filled with emotion: He speaks to those who encounter Him, but these words do not exclude emotion (DN 43—44).
• Cross: Jesus’ most eloquent word of love (DN 46).

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus:

• As theology often dismissed feelings to the domain of the potentially inhuman, spirituality resolved in practice what theology left unresolved in theory (DN 63). The sensus fidelium filled this gap, grounding the devotion theologically (DN 154).
• This devotion is not the only way to encounter the love of Christ, nor can it completely express it. Still, it is an especially privileged way to do so (DN 83).
• As a private devotion, it’s not something the faithful are obliged to believe. Nevertheless, it’s a highly beneficial devotion. Also, taking into consideration the centrality of Jesus’ love in our faith, it cannot be said that it owes its origin to private revelations (DN 83).
• The object of worship is the living heart of Christ, not its representation (DN 50).
• Worship isn’t for the Heart’s own sake; it is about loving Him and allowing ourselves to be loved by Him (DN 50).
• The Sacred Heart is enfleshed and thus speaks of earthly realities, so it should not be made too abstract (DN 51).
• Two spiritual currents must go hand-in-hand: the Heart of Jesus is, at the same time, a source of the sacraments and of grace (from the side of Jesus, the water of the Spirit poured forth), but also a source of contemplation that becomes a personal encounter of love (so that the access to grace isn’t seen as a kind of magic, but rather as a direct relationship of friendship with Him) (DN 96, 106, 108).
• Also, this devotion doesn’t distract or separate us from Jesus and His love, but points towards Him and it (DN 51).
• The Sacred Heart’s devotion is not a relic of the past, but remains invaluable even today, since that Heart has never ceased to love (DN 149).

Trinitarian Perspectives: The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus must also be read in light of the Holy Trinity:

1. The Father:

• Jesus’s heart is directed towards Abba (an intimate expression for “father”), as He loves the Father and receives His love in return (DN 72—74).

2. The Son:

• The devotion to the Sacred Heart isn’t a veneration of a single organ apart from the Person of Jesus, but the worship of the whole Jesus Christ, His inmost being and His love, both human and divine (DN 48). The worship of Christ’s person is undivided, inseparably embracing both His divine and human natures (DN 68).
• The love of Christ speaks not only of divine charity, but also of human affection (DN 61).
• Nor do we remain only on the level of Jesus’ human feelings but should contemplate infinite divine love (DN 65).
• Jesus’s love is threefold (reference to Pius XII’s encyclical Haurietis Aquas, also about the Sacred Heart of Jesus):
  • It is a symbol of that divine love which He shares with the Father and the Holy Spirit (HS 55).
  • It is a symbol of that burning love which, infused into His soul, enriches the human will of Christ(HS 56).
  • It is the symbol also of sensible love, since the body of Jesus Christ, formed by the Holy Spirit, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, possesses full powers of feelings and perception.
• These three loves aren’t disconnected but work in tandem (DN 66).

3. The Holy Spirit:

• Jesus’s heart is the “masterpiece of the Holy Spirit”, as the latter’s fire fills His Heart and draws Him to the Father (DN 75).
• The Holy Spirit also works in us, making us also cry Abba (DN 76).
• Therefore, Jesus doesn’t want us to simply remain in Him, but that, impelled by the Holy Spirit, we should give glory to the Father “through Him, with Him, and in Him” (DN 77).

The Heart of Mary:

• Mary is an example, as she always pondered all things in her heart (DN 19).
• Devotion to the Heart of Mary does not detract from the sole worship due to the Heart of Jesus, but rather increases it (DN 176).

Historical contributions to the development of the devotion to the Sacred Heart:

a) Popes:

• Pre-conciliar popes: DN 79.
• St. John Paul II: DN 75, 77, 80, 101, 147, 149.
• Benedict XVI: DN 81.

b) Saints:

• Fathers of the Church: DN 62.
• Medieval holy women: DN 110.
• St. Ignatius of Loyola: DN 24, 145.
• St. Francis de Sales: DN 114—118.
• The apparitions to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque: DN 119—124.
• St. Claude de la Colombière: DN 125—128.
• St. Charles de Foucauld: DN 130—132.
• St. Therese of the Child Jesus: DN 133—114, 195—199.

Potential pitfalls: Francis cautions us that “returning to the heart” must avoid certain errors that he has been warning about throughout his pontificate, namely Neo-Gnosticism and Neo-Pelagianism (see Gaudete et Exsultate 36—62).

• An excessive dependence on the intellect and will may lead to Neo-Gnosticism and Neo-Pelagianism, respectively. We must be aware of this, since, as we have seen, contemporary society, non-Christian philosophies, and even Christian theology seem to have an affinity to the intellect and will to the detriment of the heart.
• Returning to the heart does not imply an undue reliance on our own abilities. Hearts are not self-sufficient, but frail and wounded. Hearts already possess dignity, but must also seek to live an ever more dignified life (DN 30).
• To live in accordance with the heart’s dignity, it isn’t enough to know the Gospel (Neo-Gnosticism) or to mechanically carry out what it demands (Neo-Pelagianism). Rather, we need the help of God’s love (DN 30).
• “The mind and will need to be put under the political rule of the heart” (DN 13).
• For example, the culmination of Ignatian spirituality is the offering of one’s understanding and will to the Heart that is the source of everything good (DN 145).

i) Neo-Gnosticism: “A purely subjective faith whose only interest is a certain experience or a set of ideas and bits of information which are meant to console and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feelings” (GE 36).

• Faith is in the intellect, but in such a way as to cause affection. The knowledge of Jesus’ love does not remain in knowledge but must become love (DN 26).
• The heresy of Jansenism has historically been opposed to the devotion of the Sacred Heart, as it was a rigorist and disembodied form of spirituality that neglected the Lord’s mercy (DN 80). Pope Francis warns about contemporary Jansenism and considers it a recrudescence of Gnosticism (DN 87).

ii) Neo-Pelagianism: To “ultimately trust only in [one’s] own powers and feel superior to others because [one] observes certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style” (GS 49).

• Our affections, enslaved by the pleasures of the world, are transformed not by blind obedience to commandments, but as a response to the love of Christ (DN 177).
• Even in the devotion to the Sacred Heart, we are to avoid focusing too much on accumulating sacrifices and good works. Rather, we are called to acknowledge that confidence in Him is the offer that most pleases Him (DN 138).
• It is not about doing or giving much, but in learning how to receive from Him (DN 139).

iii) Other pitfalls:

• Unfortunately, “heart” and “love” don’t always go together, since hatred and indifference can also reign in the heart (DN 59).
• Everyone needs a change of heart since the imbalances affecting the world today are a symptom of a deeper imbalance of the heart (DN 29).

How the faithful should respond to the Sacred Heart’s love: The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus demands three responses from the faithful: 1) compunction; 2) reparation; 3) mission.

1) Compunction:

• It is the natural desire to console Christ for His sufferings. This raises the question of how it is possible to console Him, when He is already in His glory. But asking this question is to not understand love (DN 155). Also, it is not possible to completely sever the past from the present (DN 156).
• Jesus has a thirst for our love but, according to an apparition to St. Margaret Alacoque, He is sad because He receives nothing but indifference in return (DN 165—166).
• In sorrowing in contemplation of what Jesus endured for us, we acknowledge our sins (DN 158).
• Compunction is not a feeling of guilt or self-pity, but a purifying experience in which we open our hearts to the workings of the Holy Spirit (DN 158). It is not a source of anxiety, but a healing for the soul (DN 161).
• What comes after grief is complete trust, which in turn gives consolation. By seeking to console Him, we find ourselves consoled (DN 161).
• After being consoled, we are called to go and console others (DN 163). Just like the pierced Heart of Jesus became a fountain of living water, so too our hearts, through the Holy Spirit, may become fountains from which others can drink (DN 174).
• Compunction shifts our feelings from anger and scandal over the failings of our brethren to weeping for their sins. This reverts our natural tendency of being indulgent with ourselves and inflexible with others, leading us to be merciful with others and strict with ourselves instead (DN 190).

2) Reparation:

• Reparation to the Sacred Heart means to cooperate with Him in restoring goodness to the world, building a civilization of love i.e., His Kingdom (DN 182).
• We must acknowledge that every sin, particularly those that harm our neighbors, affects the Church and society as a whole, constituting a social sin (DN 183). See St. John Paul II’s concept of “structures of sin” in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 36.
• The conversion of our heart and the response to the love of Jesus imposes an obligation to try to repair those structures of sin (DN 183).
• Outward reparation isn’t enough. Reparation obliges us to mend our own wounded hearts (DN 185).
• Likewise, good intentions aren’t enough. Our inward transformation must be expressed through outward actions (DN 187).
• Part of the spirit of reparation is to ask forgiveness, thus healing relationships, reopening dialogue and reestablishing bonds of charity (DN 189).
• Since Jesus respects our free will, He voluntarily limited the expansion of His love in this world to our free cooperation. Therefore, reparation can also mean removing the obstacles we place before the expansion of Christ’s love in the world through our lack of trust, gratitude and self-sacrifice (DN 195).
• Though reparation does entail the desire to render compensation for the injuries inflicted by Jesus (DN 200), it should not be seen primarily as a way to satisfy Divine Justice. Rather it should be seen mainly as allowing Jesus’ love to spread freely (DN 195). The act of oblation of St. Therese was not to His justice, but to His merciful love (DN 198).

3) Mission:

• Our love for the Heart of Jesus must have a missionary dimension (DN 205).
• This devotion isn’t to be a refuge of pious thoughts, so that one basks in private religious experience while ignoring its implications for society (DN 205).
• Equally, we shouldn’t obscure the religious inspiration of our works that may be inspired by this devotion (DN 205).
• We should not think of mission as something only between Jesus and ourselves. Mission must be experienced in community (DN 212).
• The Sacred Heart’s love spreads through the Church’s missionary outreach (DN 207).
• Mission requires missionaries who are in love with Christ and who wish to share this love (DN 209).
• This isn’t proselytism, since lovers do not make demands nor oblige, but with respect for the freedom and dignity of others, lovingly wait for them to inquire about the love that has filled their lives with such joy, leading others to marvel at such love (DN 210).
• Those who do not carry out their mission on this earth won’t find happiness, so we must be open to leave our comfort zone and go on mission, each carrying it out according to his or her own way (DN 215).

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