ENCICLICAL LETTER
DILEXIT NOS
OF THE HOLY FATHER
FRANCIS
ON THE HUMAN AND DIVINE LOVE
OF THE HEART OF JESUS CHRIST
1. “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). Paul could say this with certainty
because Jesus himself had told his disciples, “I
have loved you” (Jn 15:9, 12). Even now, the
Lord says to us, “I have called you friends” (Jn
15:15). His open heart has gone before us and
waits for us, unconditionally, asking only to
offer us his love and friendship. 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).
CHAPTER ONE
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE HEART
2. The symbol of the heart has often been used
to express the love of Jesus Christ. Some have
questioned whether this symbol is still
meaningful today. Yet living as we do in an age
of superficiality, rushing frenetically from one
thing to another without really knowing why, and
ending up as insatiable consumers and slaves to
the mechanisms of a market unconcerned about the
deeper meaning of our lives, all of us need to
rediscover the importance of the heart. [1]
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY “THE HEART”?
3. In classical Greek, the word kardía denotes
the inmost part of human beings, animals and
plants. For Homer, it indicates not only the
centre of the body, but also the human soul and
spirit. In the Iliad, thoughts and feelings
proceed from the heart and are closely bound one
to another. [2] The heart appears as the locus
of desire and the place where important
decisions take shape. [3] In Plato, the heart
serves, as it were, to unite the rational and
instinctive aspects of the person, since the
impulses of both the higher faculties and the
passions were thought to pass through the veins
that converge in the heart. [4] From ancient
times, then, there has been an appreciation of
the fact that human beings are not simply a sum
of different skills, but a unity of body and
soul with a coordinating centre that provides a
backdrop of meaning and direction to all that a
person experiences.
4. The Bible tells us that, “the Word of God is
living and active... it is able to judge the
thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb
4:12). In this way, it speaks to us of the heart
as a core that lies hidden beneath all outward
appearances, even beneath the superficial
thoughts that can lead us astray. The disciples
of Emmaus, on their mysterious journey in the
company of the risen Christ, experienced a
moment of anguish, confusion, despair and
disappointment. Yet, beyond and in spite of
this, something was happening deep within them:
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he
was talking to us on the road?” (Lk 24:32).
5. The heart is also the locus of sincerity,
where deceit and disguise have no place. It
usually indicates our true intentions, what we
really think, believe and desire, the “secrets”
that we tell no one: in a word, the naked truth
about ourselves. It is the part of us that is
neither appearance or illusion, but is instead
authentic, real, entirely “who we are”. That is
why Samson, who kept from Delilah the secret of
his strength, was asked by her, “How can you
say, ‘I love you’, when your heart is not with
me?” (Judg 16:15). Only when Samson opened his
heart to her, did she realize “that he had told
her his whole secret” (Judg 16:18).
6. This interior reality of each person is
frequently concealed behind a great deal of
“foliage”, which makes it difficult for us not
only to understand ourselves, but even more to
know others: “The heart is devious above all
else; it is perverse, who can understand it?”
(Jer 17:9). We can understand, then, the advice
of the Book of Proverbs: “Keep your heart with
all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of
life; put away from you crooked speech”
(4:23-24). Mere appearances, dishonesty and
deception harm and pervert the heart. Despite
our every attempt to appear as something we are
not, our heart is the ultimate judge, not of
what we show or hide from others, but of who we
truly are. It is the basis for any sound life
project; nothing worthwhile can be undertaken
apart from the heart. False appearances and
untruths ultimately leave us empty-handed.
7. As an illustration of this, I would repeat a
story I have already told on another occasion.
“For the carnival, when we were children, my
grandmother would make a pastry using a very
thin batter. When she dropped the strips of
batter into the oil, they would expand, but
then, when we bit into them, they were empty
inside. In the dialect we spoke, those cookies
were called ‘lies’… My grandmother explained
why: ‘Like lies, they look big, but are empty
inside; they are false, unreal’”. [5]
8. Instead of running after superficial
satisfactions and playing a role for the benefit
of others, we would do better to think about the
really important questions in life. Who am I,
really? What am I looking for? What direction do
I want to give to my life, my decisions and my
actions? Why and for what purpose am I in this
world? How do I want to look back on my life
once it ends? What meaning do I want to give to
all my experiences? Who do I want to be for
others? Who am I for God? All these questions
lead us back to the heart.
RETURNING TO THE HEART
9. In this “liquid” world of ours, we need to
start speaking once more about the heart and
thinking about this place where every person, of
every class and condition, creates a synthesis,
where they encounter the radical source of their
strengths, convictions, passions and decisions.
Yet, we find ourselves immersed in societies of
serial consumers who live from day to day,
dominated by the hectic pace and bombarded by
technology, lacking in the patience needed to
engage in the processes that an interior life by
its very nature requires. In contemporary
society, people “risk losing their centre, the
centre of their very selves”. [6] “Indeed, the
men and women of our time often find themselves
confused and torn apart, almost bereft of an
inner principle that can create unity and
harmony in their lives and actions. Models of
behaviour that, sadly, are now widespread
exaggerate our rational-technological dimension
or, on the contrary, that of our instincts”. [7]
No room is left for the heart.
10. The issues raised by today’s liquid society
are much discussed, but this depreciation of the
deep core of our humanity – the heart – has a
much longer history. We find it already present
in Hellenic and pre-Christian rationalism, in
post-Christian idealism and in materialism in
its various guises. The heart has been ignored
in anthropology, and the great philosophical
tradition finds it a foreign notion, preferring
other concepts such as reason, will or freedom.
The very meaning of the term is imprecise and
hard to situate within our human experience.
Perhaps this is due to the difficulty of
treating it as a “clear and distinct idea”, or
because it entails the question of
self-understanding, where the deepest part of us
is also that which is least known. Even
encountering others does not necessarily prove
to be a way of encountering ourselves, inasmuch
as our thought patterns are dominated by an
unhealthy individualism. Many people feel safer
constructing their systems of thought in the
more readily controllable domain of intelligence
and will. The failure to make room for the
heart, as distinct from our human powers and
passions viewed in isolation from one another,
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.
11. If we devalue the heart, we also devalue
what it means to speak from the heart, to act
with the heart, to cultivate and heal the heart.
If we fail to appreciate the specificity of the
heart, we miss the messages that the mind alone
cannot communicate; we miss out on the richness
of our encounters with others; we miss out on
poetry. We also lose track of history and our
own past, since our real personal history is
built with the heart. At the end of our lives,
that alone will matter.
12. It must be said, then, that we have a heart,
a heart that coexists with other hearts that
help to make it a “Thou”. Since we cannot
develop this theme at length, we will take a
character from one of Dostoevsky’s novels,
Nikolai Stavrogin. [8] Romano Guardini argues
that Stavrogin is the very embodiment of evil,
because his chief trait is his heartlessness:
“Stavrogin has no heart, hence his mind is cold
and empty and his body sunken in bestial sloth
and sensuality. He has no heart, hence he can
draw close to no one and no one can ever truly
draw close to him. For only the heart creates
intimacy, true closeness between two persons.
Only the heart is able to welcome and offer
hospitality. Intimacy is the proper activity and
the domain of the heart. Stavrogin is always
infinitely distant, even from himself, because a
man can enter into himself only with the heart,
not with the mind. It is not in a man’s power to
enter into his own interiority with the mind.
Hence, if the heart is not alive, man remains a
stranger to himself”. [9]
13. All our actions need to be put under the
“political rule” of the heart. In this way, our
aggressiveness and obsessive desires will find
rest in the greater good that the heart proposes
and in the power of the heart to resist evil.
The mind and the will are put at the service of
the greater good by sensing and savouring
truths, rather than seeking to master them as
the sciences tend to do. The will desires the
greater good that the heart recognizes, while
the imagination and emotions are themselves
guided by the beating of the heart.
14. It could be said, then, 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. The algorithms operating in the
digital world show that our thoughts and will
are much more “uniform” than we had previously
thought. They are easily predictable and thus
capable of being manipulated. That is not the
case with the heart.
15. The word “heart” proves its value for
philosophy and theology in their efforts to
reach an integral synthesis. Nor can its meaning
be exhausted by biology, psychology,
anthropology or any other science. It is one of
those primordial words that “describe realities
belonging to man precisely in so far as he is
one whole (as a corporeo-spiritual person)”.
[10] It follows that biologists are not being
more “realistic” when they discuss the heart,
since they see only one aspect of it; the whole
is not less real, but even more real. Nor can
abstract language ever acquire the same concrete
and integrative meaning. The word “heart” evokes
the inmost core of our person, and thus it
enables us to understand ourselves in our
integrity and not merely under one isolated
aspect.
16. This unique power of the heart also helps us
to understand why, when we grasp a reality with
our heart, we know it better and more fully.
This inevitably leads us to the love of which
the heart is capable, for “the inmost core of
reality is love”. [11] For Heidegger, as
interpreted by one contemporary thinker,
philosophy does not begin with a simple concept
or certainty, but with a shock: “Thought must be
provoked before it begins to work with concepts
or while it works with them. Without deep
emotion, thought cannot begin. The first mental
image would thus be goose bumps. What first
stirs one to think and question is deep emotion.
Philosophy always takes place in a basic mood (
Stimmung)”. [12] That is where the heart comes
in, since it “houses the states of mind and
functions as a ‘keeper of the state of mind’.
The ‘heart’ listens in a non-metaphoric way to
‘the silent voice’ of being, allowing itself to
be tempered and determined by it”. [13]
THE HEART UNITES THE FRAGMENTS
17. At the same time, the heart makes all
authentic bonding possible, since a relationship
not shaped by the heart is incapable of
overcoming the fragmentation caused by
individualism. Two monads may approach one
another, but they will never truly connect. A
society dominated by narcissism and
self-centredness will increasingly become
“heartless”. This will lead in turn to the “loss
of desire”, since as other persons disappear
from the horizon we find ourselves trapped
within walls of our own making, no longer
capable of healthy relationships. [14] As a
result, we also become incapable of openness to
God. As Heidegger puts it, to be open to the
divine we need to build a “guest house”. [15]
18. We see, then, that in the heart of each
person there is a mysterious connection between
self-knowledge and openness to others, between
the encounter with one’s personal uniqueness and
the willingness to give oneself to others. We
become ourselves only to the extent that we
acquire the ability to acknowledge others, while
only those who can acknowledge and accept
themselves are then able to encounter others.
19. The heart is also capable of unifying and
harmonizing our personal history, which may seem
hopelessly fragmented, yet is the place where
everything can make sense. The Gospel tells us
this in speaking of Our Lady, who saw things
with the heart. She was able to dialogue with
the things she experienced by pondering them in
her heart, treasuring their memory and viewing
them in a greater perspective. The best
expression of how the heart thinks is found in
the two passages in Saint Luke’s Gospel that
speak to us of how Mary “treasured (synetérei)
all these things and pondered (symbállousa) them
in her heart” (cf. Lk 2:19 and 51). The Greek
verb symbállein, “ponder”, evokes the image of
putting two things together (“symbols”) in one’s
mind and reflecting on them, in a dialogue with
oneself. In Luke 2:51, the verb used is
dietérei, which has the sense of “keep”. What
Mary “kept” was not only her memory of what she
had seen and heard, but also those aspects of it
that she did not yet understand; these
nonetheless remained present and alive in her
memory, waiting to be “put together” in her
heart.
20. In this age of artificial intelligence, we
cannot forget that poetry and love are necessary
to save our humanity. No algorithm will ever be
able to capture, for example, the nostalgia that
all of us feel, whatever our age, and wherever
we live, when we recall how we first used a fork
to seal the edges of the pies that we helped our
mothers or grandmothers to make at home. It was
a moment of culinary apprenticeship, somewhere
between child-play and adulthood, when we first
felt responsible for working and helping one
another. Along with the fork, I could also
mention thousands of other little things that
are a precious part of everyone’s life: a smile
we elicited by telling a joke, a picture we
sketched in the light of a window, the first
game of soccer we played with a rag ball, the
worms we collected in a shoebox, a flower we
pressed in the pages of a book, our concern for
a fledgling bird fallen from its nest, a wish we
made in plucking a daisy. All these little
things, ordinary in themselves yet extraordinary
for us, can never be captured by algorithms. The
fork, the joke, the window, the ball, the
shoebox, the book, the bird, the flower: all of
these live on as precious memories “kept” deep
in our heart.
21. This profound core, present in every man and
woman, is not that of the soul, but of the
entire person in his or her unique psychosomatic
identity. Everything finds its unity in the
heart, which can be the dwelling-place of love
in all its spiritual, psychic and even physical
dimensions. In a word, if love reigns in our
heart, we become, in a complete and luminous
way, the persons we are meant to be, for every
human being is created above all else for love.
In the deepest fibre of our being, we were made
to love and to be loved.
22. For this reason, when we witness the
outbreak of new wars, with the complicity,
tolerance or indifference of other countries, or
petty power struggles over partisan interests,
we may be tempted to conclude that our world is
losing its heart. We need only to see and listen
to the elderly women – from both sides – who are
at the mercy of these devastating conflicts. It
is heart-breaking to see them mourning for their
murdered grandchildren, or longing to die
themselves after losing the homes where they
spent their entire lives. Those women, who were
often pillars of strength and resilience amid
life’s difficulties and hardships, now, at the
end of their days, are experiencing, in place of
a well-earned rest, only anguish, fear and
outrage. Casting the blame on others does not
resolve these shameful and tragic situations. To
see these elderly women weep, and not feel that
this is something intolerable, is a sign of a
world that has grown heartless.
23. Whenever a person thinks, questions and
reflects on his or her true identity, strives to
understand the deeper questions of life and to
seek God, or experiences the thrill of catching
a glimpse of truth, it leads to the realization
that our fulfilment as human beings is found in
love. In loving, we sense that we come to know
the purpose and goal of our existence in this
world. Everything comes together in a state of
coherence and harmony. It follows that, in
contemplating the meaning of our lives, perhaps
the most decisive question we can ask is, “Do I
have a heart?”
FIRE
24. All that we have said has implications for
the spiritual life. For example, the theology
underlying the Spiritual Exercises of Saint
Ignatius Loyola is based on “affection” (
affectus). The structure of the Exercises
assumes a firm and heartfelt desire to
“rearrange” one’s life, a desire that in turn
provides the strength and the wherewithal to
achieve that goal. The rules and the
compositions of place that Ignatius furnishes
are in the service of something much more
important, namely, the mystery of the human
heart. Michel de Certeau shows how the
“movements” of which Ignatius speaks are the
“inbreaking” of God’s desire and the desire of
our own heart amid the orderly progression of
the meditations. Something unexpected and
hitherto unknown starts to speak in our heart,
breaking through our superficial knowledge and
calling it into question. This is the start of a
new process of “setting our life in order”,
beginning with the heart. It is not about
intellectual concepts that need to be put into
practice in our daily lives, as if affectivity
and practice were merely the effects of – and
dependent upon – the data of knowledge. [16]
25. Where the thinking of the philosopher halts,
there the heart of the believer presses on in
love and adoration, in pleading for forgiveness
and in willingness to serve in whatever place
the Lord allows us to choose, in order to follow
in his footsteps. At that point, we realize that
in God’s eyes we are a “Thou”, and for that very
reason we can be an “I”. Indeed, only the Lord
offers to treat each one of us as a “Thou”,
always and forever. Accepting his friendship is
a matter of the heart; it is what constitutes us
as persons in the fullest sense of that word.
26. Saint Bonaventure tells us that in the end
we should not pray for light, but for “raging
fire”. [17] He teaches that, “faith is in the
intellect, in such a way as to provoke
affection. In this sense, for example, the
knowledge that Christ died for us does not
remain knowledge, but necessarily becomes
affection, love”. [18] Along the same lines,
Saint John Henry Newman took as his motto the
phrase Cor ad cor loquitur, since, beyond all
our thoughts and ideas, the Lord saves us by
speaking to our hearts from his Sacred Heart.
This realization led him, the distinguished
intellectual, to recognize that his deepest
encounter with himself and with the Lord came
not from his reading or reflection, but from his
prayerful dialogue, heart to heart, with Christ,
alive and present. It was in the Eucharist that
Newman encountered the living heart of Jesus,
capable of setting us free, giving meaning to
each moment of our lives, and bestowing true
peace: “O most Sacred, most loving Heart of
Jesus, Thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist,
and Thou beatest for us still… I worship Thee
then with all my best love and awe, with my
fervent affection, with my most subdued, most
resolved will. O my God, when Thou dost
condescend to suffer me to receive Thee, to eat
and drink Thee, and Thou for a while takest up
Thy abode within me, O make my heart beat with
Thy Heart. Purify it of all that is earthly, all
that is proud and sensual, all that is hard and
cruel, of all perversity, of all disorder, of
all deadness. So fill it with Thee, that neither
the events of the day nor the circumstances of
the time may have power to ruffle it, but that
in Thy love and Thy fear it may have peace”.
[19]
27. Before the heart of Jesus, living and
present, our mind, enlightened by the Spirit,
grows in the understanding of his words and our
will is moved to put them into practice. This
could easily remain on the level of a kind of
self-reliant moralism. Hearing and tasting the
Lord, and paying him due honour, however, is a
matter of the heart. Only the heart is capable
of setting our other powers and passions, and
our entire person, in a stance of reverence and
loving obedience before the Lord.
THE WORLD CAN CHANGE, BEGINNING WITH THE HEART
28. 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. The heart of Christ is “ecstasy”,
openness, gift and encounter. In that heart, we
learn to relate to one another in wholesome and
happy ways, and to build up in this world God’s
kingdom of love and justice. Our hearts, united
with the heart of Christ, are capable of working
this social miracle.
29. Taking the heart seriously, then, has
consequences for society as a whole. The Second
Vatican Council teaches that, “every one of us
needs a change of heart; we must set our gaze on
the whole world and look to those tasks we can
all perform together in order to bring about the
betterment of our race”. [20] For “the
imbalances affecting the world today are in fact
a symptom of a deeper imbalance rooted in the
human heart”. [21] In pondering the tragedies
afflicting our world, the Council urges us to
return to the heart. It explains that human
beings “by their interior life, transcend the
entire material universe; they experience this
deep interiority when they enter into their own
heart, where God, who probes the heart, awaits
them, and where they decide their own destiny in
the sight of God”. [22]
30. This in no way implies an undue reliance on
our own abilities. Let us never forget that our
hearts are not self-sufficient, but frail and
wounded. They possess an ontological dignity,
yet at the same time must seek an ever more
dignified life. [23] The Second Vatican Council
points out that “the ferment of the Gospel has
aroused and continues to arouse in human hearts
an unquenchable thirst for human dignity”. [24]
Yet to live in accordance with this dignity, it
is not enough to know the Gospel or to carry out
mechanically its demands. We need the help of
God’s love. Let us turn, then, to the heart of
Christ, that core of his being, which is a
blazing furnace of divine and human love and the
most sublime fulfilment to which humanity can
aspire. There, in that heart, we truly come at
last to know ourselves and we learn how to love.
31. In the end, that Sacred Heart is the
unifying principle of all reality, since “Christ
is the heart of the world, and the paschal
mystery of his death and resurrection is the
centre of history, which, because of him, is a
history of salvation”. [25] All creatures “are
moving forward with us and through us towards a
common point of arrival, which is God, in that
transcendent fullness where the risen Christ
embraces and illumines all things”. [26] In the
presence of the heart of Christ, I once more ask
the Lord to have mercy on this suffering world
in which he chose to dwell as one of us. May he
pour out the treasures of his light and love, so
that our world, which presses forward despite
wars, socio-economic disparities and uses of
technology that threaten our humanity, may
regain the most important and necessary thing of
all: its heart.
CHAPTER TWO
ACTIONS AND WORDS OF LOVE
32. The heart of Christ, as the symbol of the
deepest and most personal source of his love for
us, is the very core of the initial preaching of
the Gospel. It stands at the origin of our
faith, as the wellspring that refreshes and
enlivens our Christian beliefs.
ACTIONS THAT REFLECT THE HEART
33. Christ showed the depth of his love for us
not by lengthy explanations but by concrete
actions. By examining his interactions with
others, we can come to realize how he treats
each one of us, even though at times this may be
difficult to see. Let us now turn to the place
where our faith can encounter this truth: the
word of God.
34. The Gospel tells us that Jesus “came to his
own” (cf. Jn 1:11). Those words refer to us, for
the Lord does not treat us as strangers but as a
possession that he watches over and cherishes.
He treats us truly as “his own”. This does not
mean that we are his slaves, something that he
himself denies: “I do not call you servants” (Jn
15:15). Rather, it refers to the sense of mutual
belonging typical of friends. Jesus came to meet
us, bridging all distances; he became as close
to us as the simplest, everyday realities of our
lives. Indeed, he has another name, “Emmanuel”,
which means “God with us”, God as part of our
lives, God as living in our midst. The Son of
God became incarnate and “emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave” (Phil 2:7).
35. This becomes clear when we see Jesus at
work. He seeks people out, approaches them, ever
open to an encounter with them. We see it when
he stops to converse with the Samaritan woman at
the well where she went to draw water (cf. Jn
4:5-7). We see it when, in the darkness of
night, he meets Nicodemus, who feared to be seen
in his presence (cf. Jn 3:1-2). We marvel when
he allows his feet to be washed by a prostitute
(cf. Lk 7:36-50), when he says to the woman
caught in adultery, “Neither do I condemn you”
(Jn 8:11), or again when he chides the disciples
for their indifference and quietly asks the
blind man on the roadside, “What do you want me
to do for you?” (Mk 10:51). Christ shows that
God is closeness, compassion and tender love.
36. Whenever Jesus healed someone, he preferred
to do it, not from a distance but in close
proximity: “He stretched out his hand and
touched him” ( Mt 8:3). “He touched her hand” (
Mt 8:15). “He touched their eyes” ( Mt 9:29).
Once he even stopped to cure a deaf man with his
own saliva (cf. Mk 7:33), as a mother would do,
so that people would not think of him as removed
from their lives. “The Lord knows the fine
science of the caress. In his compassion, God
does not love us with words; he comes forth to
meet us and, by his closeness, he shows us the
depth of his tender love”. [27]
37. 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. To Peter,
in his fright, “Jesus immediately reached out
his hand and caught him”, saying, “You of little
faith, why did you doubt?” (Mt 14:31). Nor
should you be afraid. Let him draw near and sit
at your side. There may be many people we
distrust, but not him. Do not hesitate because
of your sins. Keep in mind that many sinners
“came and sat with him” (Mt 9:10), yet Jesus was
scandalized by none of them. It was the
religious élite that complained and treated him
as “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax
collectors and sinners” (Mt 11:19). When the
Pharisees criticized him for his closeness to
people deemed base or sinful, Jesus replied, “I
desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Mt 9:13).
38. That same Jesus is now waiting for you to
give him the chance to bring light to your life,
to raise you up and to fill you with his
strength. Before his death, he assured his
disciples, “I will not leave you orphaned; I am
coming to you. In a little while the world will
no longer see me, but you will see me” (Jn
14:18-19). Jesus always finds a way to be
present in your life, so that you can encounter
him.
JESUS’ GAZE
39. The Gospel tells us that a rich man came up
to Jesus, full of idealism yet lacking in the
strength needed to change his life. Jesus then
“looked at him” (Mk 10:21). Can you imagine that
moment, that encounter between his eyes and
those of Jesus? If Jesus calls you and summons
you for a mission, he first looks at you, plumbs
the depths of your heart and, knowing everything
about you, fixes his gaze upon you. So it was
when, “as he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he
saw two brothers... and as he went from there,
he saw two other brothers” (Mt 4:18, 21).
40. Many a page of the Gospel illustrates how
attentive Jesus was to individuals and above all
to their problems and needs. We are told that,
“when he saw the crowds, he had compassion for
them, because they were harassed and helpless”
(Mt 9:36). Whenever we feel that everyone
ignores us, that no one cares what becomes of
us, that we are of no importance to anyone, he
remains concerned for us. To Nathanael, standing
apart and busy about his own affairs, he could
say, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip
called you” (Jn 1:48).
41. Precisely out of concern for us, Jesus knows
every one of our good intentions and small acts
of charity. The Gospel tells us that once he
“saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins”
in the Temple treasury (Lk 21:2) and immediately
brought it to the attention of his disciples.
Jesus thus appreciates the good that he sees in
us. When the centurion approached him with
complete confidence, “Jesus listened to him and
was amazed” (Mt 8:10). How reassuring it is to
know that, even if others are not aware of our
good intentions or actions, Jesus sees them and
regards them highly.
42. In his humanity, Jesus learned this from
Mary, his mother. Our Lady carefully pondered
the things she had experienced; she “treasured
them… in her heart” (Lk 2:19, 51) and, with
Saint Joseph, she taught Jesus from his earliest
years to be attentive in this same way.
JESUS’ WORDS
43. Although the Scriptures preserve Jesus’
words, ever alive and timely, there are moments
when he speaks to us inwardly, calls us and
leads us to a better place. That better place is
his heart. There he invites us to find fresh
strength and peace: “Come to me, all who are
weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will
give you rest” (Mt 11:28). In this sense, he
could say to his disciples, “Abide in me” (Jn
15:4).
44. Jesus’ words show that his holiness did not
exclude deep emotions. On various occasions, he
demonstrated a love that was both passionate and
compassionate. He could be deeply moved and
grieved, even to the point of shedding tears. It
is clear that Jesus was not indifferent to the
daily cares and concerns of people, such as
their weariness or hunger: “I have compassion
for this crowd... they have nothing to eat...
they will faint on the way, and some of them
have come from a great distance” (Mk 8:2-3).
45. The Gospel makes no secret of Jesus’ love
for Jerusalem: “As he came near and saw the
city, he wept over it” (Lk 19:41). He then
voiced the deepest desire of his heart: “If you
had only recognized on this day the things that
make for peace” (Lk 19:42). The evangelists,
while at times showing him in his power and
glory, also portray his profound emotions in the
face of death and the grief felt by his friends.
Before recounting how Jesus, standing before the
tomb of Lazarus, “began to weep” (Jn 11:35), the
Gospel observes that, “Jesus loved Martha and
her sister and Lazarus” (Jn 11:5) and that,
seeing Mary and those who were with her weeping,
“he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply
moved” (Jn 11:33). The Gospel account leaves no
doubt that his tears were genuine, the sign of
inner turmoil. Nor do the Gospels attempt to
conceal Jesus’ anguish over his impending
violent death at the hands of those whom he had
loved so greatly: he “began to be distressed and
agitated” (Mk 14:33), even to the point of
crying out, “I am deeply grieved, even to death”
(Mk 14:34). This inner turmoil finds its most
powerful expression in his cry from the cross:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk
15:34).
46. At first glance, 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. A
word that is not shallow, sentimental or merely
edifying. It is love, sheer love. That is why
Saint Paul, struggling to find the right words
to describe his relationship with Christ, could
speak of “the Son of God, who loved me and gave
himself for me” (Gal 2:20). This was Paul’s
deepest conviction: the knowledge that he was
loved. Christ’s self-offering on the cross
became the driving force in Paul’s life, yet it
only made sense to him because he knew that
something even greater lay behind it: the fact
that “he loved me”. At a time when many were
seeking salvation, prosperity or security
elsewhere, Paul, moved by the Spirit, was able
to see farther and to marvel at the greatest and
most essential thing of all: “Christ loved me”.
47. Now, after considering Christ and seeing how
his actions and words grant us insight into his
heart, let us turn to the Church’s reflection on
the holy mystery of the Lord’s Sacred Heart.
CHAPTER THREE
THIS IS THE HEART THAT HAS LOVED SO GREATLY
48. Devotion to the heart of Christ is not the
veneration of a single organ apart from the
Person of Jesus. What we contemplate and adore
is the whole Jesus Christ, the Son of God made
man, 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”.[28]
WORSHIPING CHRIST
49. It is essential to realize 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.
50. Whatever the image employed, it is clear
that the living heart of Christ – not its
representation – is the object of our worship,
for it is part of his holy risen body, which is
inseparable from the Son of God who assumed that
body forever. We worship it because it is “the
heart of the Person of the Word, to whom it is
inseparably united”.[29] Nor do we worship it
for its own sake, but because with this heart
the incarnate Son is alive, loves us and
receives our love in return. Any act of love or
worship of his heart is thus “really and truly
given to Christ himself”,[30] since it
spontaneously refers back to him and is “a
symbol and a tender image of the infinite love
of Jesus Christ”.[31]
51. For this reason, it should never be imagined
that this devotion may distract or separate us
from Jesus and his love. In a natural and direct
way, it points us to him and to him alone, who
calls us to a precious friendship marked by
dialogue, affection, trust and adoration. The
Christ we see depicted with a pierced and
burning heart is the same Christ who, for love
of us, was born in Bethlehem, passed through
Galilee healing the sick, embracing sinners and
showing mercy. The same Christ who loved us to
the very end, opening wide his arms on the
cross, who then rose from the dead and now lives
among us in glory.
VENERATING HIS IMAGE
52. While the image of Christ and his heart is
not in itself an object of worship, neither is
it simply one among many other possible images.
It was not devised at a desk or designed by an
artist; it is “no imaginary symbol, but a real
symbol which represents the centre, the source
from which salvation flowed for all
humanity”.[32]
53. Universal human experience has made the
image of the heart something unique. Indeed,
throughout history and in different parts of the
world, it has become a symbol of personal
intimacy, affection, emotional attachment and
capacity for love. Transcending all scientific
explanations, a hand placed on the heart of a
friend expresses special affection: when two
persons fall in love and draw close to one
another, their hearts beat faster; when we are
abandoned or deceived by someone we love, our
hearts sink. So too, when we want to say
something deeply personal, we often say that we
are speaking “from the heart”. The language of
poetry reflects the power of these experiences.
In the course of history, the heart has taken on
unique symbolic value that is more than merely
conventional.
54. It is understandable, then, that the Church
has chosen the image of the heart to represent
the human and divine love of Jesus Christ and
the inmost core of his Person. Yet, while the
depiction of a heart afire may be an eloquent
symbol of the burning love of Jesus Christ, it
is important that this heart not be represented
apart from him. In this way, his summons to a
personal relationship of encounter and dialogue
will become all the more meaningful.[33] 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.
55. The heart, too, has the advantage of being
immediately recognizable as the profound
unifying centre of the body, an expression of
the totality of the person, unlike other
individual organs. As a part that stands for the
whole, we could easily misinterpret it, were we
to contemplate it apart from the Lord himself.
The image of the heart should lead us to
contemplate Christ in all the beauty and
richness of his humanity and divinity.
56. Whatever particular aesthetic qualities we
may ascribe to various portrayals of Christ’s
heart when we pray before them, it is not the
case that “something is sought from them or that
blind trust is put in images as once was done by
the Gentiles”. Rather, “through these images
that we kiss, and before which we kneel and
uncover our heads, we are adoring Christ”.[34]
57. Certain of these representations may indeed
strike us as tasteless and not particularly
conducive to affection or prayer. Yet this is of
little importance, since they are only
invitations to prayer, and, to cite an Eastern
proverb, we should not limit our gaze to the
finger that points us to the moon. Whereas the
Eucharist is a real presence to be worshiped,
sacred images, albeit blessed, point beyond
themselves, inviting us to lift up our hearts
and to unite them to the heart of the living
Christ. The image we venerate thus serves as a
summons to make room for an encounter with
Christ, and to worship him in whatever way we
wish to picture him. Standing before the image,
we stand before Christ, and in his presence,
“love pauses, contemplates mystery, and enjoys
it in silence”.[35]
58. At the same time, we must never forget that
the image of the heart speaks to us of the flesh
and of earthly realities. In this way, it points
us to the God who wished to become one of us, a
part of our history, and a companion on our
earthly journey. A more abstract or stylized
form of devotion would not necessarily be more
faithful to the Gospel, for in this eloquent and
tangible sign we see how God willed to reveal
himself and to draw close to us.
A LOVE THAT IS TANGIBLE
59. On the other hand, love and the human heart
do not always go together, since hatred,
indifference and selfishness can also reign in
our hearts. Yet we cannot attain our fulfilment
as human beings unless we open our hearts to
others; only through love do we become fully
ourselves. The deepest part of us, created for
love, will fulfil God’s plan only if we learn to
love. And the heart is the symbol of that love.
60. The eternal Son of God, in his utter
transcendence, chose to love each of us with a
human heart. His human emotions became the
sacrament of that infinite and endless love. His
heart, then, is not merely a symbol for some
disembodied spiritual truth. In gazing upon the
Lord’s heart, we contemplate a physical reality,
his human flesh, which enables him to possess
genuine human emotions and feelings, like
ourselves, albeit fully transformed by his
divine love. Our devotion must ascend to the
infinite love of the Person of the Son of God,
yet we need to keep in mind that his divine love
is inseparable from his human love. The image of
his heart of flesh helps us to do precisely
this.
61. Since the heart continues to be seen in the
popular mind as the affective centre of each
human being, it remains the best means of
signifying the divine love of Christ, united
forever and inseparably to his wholly human
love. Pius XII observed that the Gospel, in
referring to the love of Christ’s heart, speaks
“not only of divine charity but also human
affection”. Indeed, “the heart of Jesus Christ,
hypostatically united to the divine Person of
the Word, beyond doubt throbbed with love and
every other tender affection”.[36]
62. The Fathers of the Church, opposing those
who denied or downplayed the true humanity of
Christ, insisted on the concrete and tangible
reality of the Lord’s human affections. Saint
Basil emphasized that the Lord’s incarnation was
not something fanciful, and that “the Lord
possessed our natural affections”.[37] Saint
John Chrysostom pointed to an example: “Had he
not possessed our nature, he would not have
experienced sadness from time to time”.[38]
Saint Ambrose stated that “in taking a soul, he
took on the passions of the soul”.[39] For Saint
Augustine, our human affections, which Christ
assumed, are now open to the life of grace: “The
Lord Jesus assumed these affections of our human
weakness, as he did the flesh of our human
weakness, not out of necessity, but consciously
and freely... lest any who feel grief and sorrow
amid the trials of life should think themselves
separated from his grace”.[40] Finally, Saint
John Damascene viewed the genuine affections
shown by Christ in his humanity as proof that he
assumed our nature in its entirety in order to
redeem and transform it in its entirety: Christ,
then, assumed all that is part of human nature,
so that all might be sanctified.[41]
63. Here, we can benefit from the thoughts of a
theologian who maintains that, “due to the
influence of Greek thought, theology long
relegated the body and feelings to the world of
the pre-human or sub-human or potentially
inhuman; yet what theology did not resolve in
theory, spirituality resolved in practice. This,
together with popular piety, preserved the
relationship with the corporal, psychological
and historical reality of Jesus. The Stations of
the Cross, devotion to Christ’s wounds, his
Precious Blood and his Sacred Heart, and a
variety of Eucharist devotions... all bridged
the gaps in theology by nourishing our hearts
and imagination, our tender love for Christ, our
hope and memory, our desires and feelings.
Reason and logic took other directions”.[42]
A THREEFOLD LOVE
64. Nor do we remain only on the level of the
Lord’s human feelings, beautiful and moving as
they are. In contemplating Christ’s heart we
also see how, in his fine and noble sentiments,
his kindness and gentleness and his signs of
genuine human affection, the deeper truth of his
infinite divine love is revealed. In the words
of Benedict XVI, “from the infinite horizon of
his love, God wished to enter into the limits of
human history and the human condition. He took
on a body and a heart. Thus, we can contemplate
and encounter the infinite in the finite, the
invisible and ineffable mystery in the human
heart of Jesus the Nazarene”.[43]
65. The image of the Lord’s heart speaks to us
in fact of a threefold love. First, we
contemplate his infinite divine love. Then our
thoughts turn to the spiritual dimension of his
humanity, in which the heart is “the symbol of
that most ardent love which, infused into his
soul, enriches his human will”. Finally, “it is
a symbol also of his sensible love”.[44]
66. These three loves are not separate, parallel
or disconnected, but together act and find
expression in a constant and vital unity. For
“by faith, through which we believe that the
human and divine nature were united in the
Person of Christ, we can see the closest bonds
between the tender love of the physical heart of
Jesus and the twofold spiritual love, namely
human and divine”.[45]
67. Entering into the heart of Christ, we feel
loved by a human heart filled with affections
and emotions like our own. Jesus’ human will
freely choose to love us, and that spiritual
love is flooded with grace and charity. When we
plunge into the depths of his heart, we find
ourselves overwhelmed by the immense glory of
his infinite love as the eternal Son, which we
can no longer separate from his human love. It
is precisely in his human love, and not apart
from it, that we encounter his divine love: we
discover “the infinite in the finite”.[46]
68. It is the constant and unequivocal teaching
of the Church that our worship of Christ’s
person is undivided, inseparably embracing both
his divine and his human natures. From ancient
times, the Church has taught that we are to
“adore one and the same Christ, the Son of God
and of man, consisting of and in two inseparable
and undivided natures”.[47] And we do so “with
one act of adoration… inasmuch as the Word
became flesh”.[48] Christ is in no way
“worshipped in two natures, whereby two acts of
worship are introduced”; instead, we venerate
“by one act of worship God the Word made flesh,
together with his own flesh”.[49]
69. Saint John of the Cross sought to explain
that in mystical experience the infinite love of
the risen Christ is not perceived as alien to
our lives. The infinite in some way
“condescends” to enable us, through the open
heart of Christ, to experience an encounter of
truly reciprocal love, for “it is indeed
credible that a bird of lowly flight can capture
the royal eagle of the heights, if this eagle
descends with the desire of being captured”.[50]
He also explains that the Bridegroom, “beholding
that the bride is wounded with love for him,
because of her moan he too is wounded with love
for her. Among lovers, the wound of one is the
wound of both”.[51] John of the Cross regards
the image of Christ’s pierced side as an
invitation to full union with the Lord. Christ
is the wounded stag, wounded when we fail to let
ourselves be touched by his love, who descends
to the streams of water to quench his thirst and
is comforted whenever we turn to him:
“Return, dove!
The wounded stag
is in sight on the hill,
cooled by the breeze of your flight”.[52]
TRINITARIAN PERSPECTIVES
70. Devotion to the heart of Jesus, as a direct
contemplation of the Lord that draws us into
union with him, is clearly Christological in
nature. We see this in the Letter to the
Hebrews, which urges us to “run with
perseverance the race that is set before us,
looking to Jesus” (12:2). At the same time, we
need to realize that Jesus speaks of himself as
the way to the Father: “I am the way… No one
comes to the Father except through me” (Jn
14:6). Jesus wants to bring us to the Father.
That is why, from the very beginning, the
Church’s preaching does not end with Jesus, but
with the Father. As source and fullness, the
Father is ultimately the one to be
glorified.[53]
71. If we turn, for example, to the Letter to
the Ephesians, we can see clearly how our
worship is directed to the Father: “I bow my
knees before the Father” (3:14). There is “one
God and Father of all, who is above all and
through all and in all” (4:6). “Give thanks to
God the Father at all times and for everything”
(5:20). It is the Father “for whom we exist” (1
Cor 8:6). In this sense, Saint John Paul II
could say that, “the whole of the Christian life
is like a great pilgrimage to the house of the
Father”.[54] This too was the experience of
Saint Ignatius of Antioch on his path to
martyrdom: “In me there is left no spark of
desire for mundane things, but only a murmur of
living water that whispers within me, ‘Come to
the Father’”.[55]
72. The Father is, before all else, the Father
of Jesus Christ: “Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:3). He is “the
God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
glory” ( Eph 1:17). When the Son became man, all
the hopes and aspirations of his human heart
were directed towards the Father. If we consider
the way Christ spoke of the Father, we can grasp
the love and affection that his human heart felt
for him, this complete and constant orientation
towards him. [56] Jesus’ life among us was a
journey of response to the constant call of his
human heart to come to the Father. [57]
73. We know that the Aramaic word Jesus used to
address the Father was “Abba”, an intimate and
familiar term that some found disconcerting (cf.
Jn 5:18). It is how he addressed the Father in
expressing his anguish at his impending death:
“Abba, Father, for you all things are possible;
remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want,
but what you want” (Mk 14:36). Jesus knew well
that he had always been loved by the Father:
“You loved me before the foundation of the
world” (Jn 17:24). In his human heart, he had
rejoiced at hearing the Father say to him: “You
are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well
pleased” (Mk 1:11).
74. The Fourth Gospel tells us that the eternal
Son was always “close to the Father’s heart” (Jn
1:18).[58] Saint Irenaeus thus declares that
“the Son of God was with the Father from the
beginning”.[59] Origen, for his part, maintains
that the Son perseveres “in uninterrupted
contemplation of the depths of the Father”.[60]
When the Son took flesh, he spent entire nights
conversing with his beloved Father on the
mountaintop (cf. Lk 6:12). He told us, “I must
be in my Father’s house” (Lk 2:49). We see too
how he expressed his praise: “Jesus rejoiced in
the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth’ (Lk 10:21). His last
words, full of trust, were, “Father, into your
hands I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46).
75. Let us now turn to the Holy Spirit, whose
fire fills the heart of Christ. As Saint John
Paul II once said, Christ’s heart is “the Holy
Spirit’s masterpiece”.[61] This is more than
simply a past event, for even now “the heart of
Christ is alive with the action of the Holy
Spirit, to whom Jesus attributed the inspiration
of his mission (cf. Lk 4:18; Is 61:1) and whose
sending he had promised at the Last Supper. It
is the Spirit who enables us to grasp the
richness of the sign of Christ’s pierced side,
from which the Church has sprung (cf.
Sacrosanctum Concilium, 5)”.[62] In a word,
“only the Holy Spirit can open up before us the
fullness of the ‘inner man’, which is found in
the heart of Christ. He alone can cause our
human hearts to draw strength from that
fullness, step by step”.[63]
76. If we seek to delve more deeply into the
mysterious working of the Spirit, we learn that
he groans within us, saying “Abba!” Indeed, “the
proof that you are children is that God has sent
the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying,
‘Abba! Father!’” (Gal 4:6). For “the Spirit
bears witness with our spirit that we are
children of God” (Rom 8:16). The Holy Spirit at
work in Christ’s human heart draws him
unceasingly to the Father. When the Spirit
unites us to the sentiments of Christ through
grace, he makes us sharers in the Son’s
relationship to the Father, whereby we receive
“a spirit of adoption through which we cry out,
‘Abba! Father!’” (Rom 8:15).
77. 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. His love is “the revelation of the Father’s
mercy”,[64] and his desire is that, impelled by
the Spirit welling up from his heart, we should
ascend to the Father “with him and in him”. We
give glory to the Father “through” Christ,[65]
“with” Christ,[66] and “in” Christ.[67] Saint
John Paul II taught that, “the Saviour’s heart
invites us to return to the Father’s love, which
is the source of every authentic love”.[68] This
is precisely what the Holy Spirit, who comes to
us through the heart of Christ, seeks to nurture
in our hearts. For this reason, the liturgy,
through the enlivening work of the Spirit,
always addresses the Father from the risen heart
of Christ.
RECENT TEACHINGS OF THE MAGISTERIUM
78. In numerous ways, Christ’s heart has always
been present in the history of Christian
spirituality. In the Scriptures and in the early
centuries of the Church’s life, it appeared
under the image of the Lord’s wounded side, as a
fountain of grace and a summons to a deep and
loving encounter. In this same guise, it has
reappeared in the writings of numerous saints,
past and present. In recent centuries, this
spirituality has gradually taken on the specific
form of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
79. A number of my Predecessors have spoken in
various ways about the heart of Christ and
exhorted us to unite ourselves to it. At the end
of the nineteenth century, Leo XIII encouraged
us to consecrate ourselves to the Sacred Heart,
thus uniting our call to union with Christ and
our wonder before the magnificence of his
infinite love.[69] Some thirty years later, Pius
XI presented this devotion as a “summa” of the
experience of Christian faith.[70] Pius XII went
on to declare that adoration of the Sacred Heart
expresses in an outstanding way, as a sublime
synthesis, the worship we owe to Jesus
Christ.[71]
80. More recently, Saint John Paul II presented
the growth of this devotion in recent centuries
as a response to the rise of rigorist and
disembodied forms of spirituality that neglected
the richness of the Lord’s mercy. At the same
time, he saw it as a timely summons to resist
attempts to create a world that leaves no room
for God. “Devotion to the Sacred Heart, as it
developed in Europe two centuries ago, under the
impulse of the mystical experiences of Saint
Margaret Mary Alacoque, was a response to
Jansenist rigor, which ended up disregarding
God’s infinite mercy... The men and women of the
third millennium need the heart of Christ in
order to know God and to know themselves; they
need it to build the civilization of love”.[72]
81. Benedict XVI asked us to recognize in the
heart of Christ an intimate and daily presence
in our lives: “Every person needs a ‘centre’ for
his or her own life, a source of truth and
goodness to draw upon in the events, situations
and struggles of daily existence. All of us,
when we pause in silence, need to feel not only
the beating of our own heart, but deeper still,
the beating of a trustworthy presence,
perceptible with faith’s senses and yet much
more real: the presence of Christ, the heart of
the world”.[73]
FURTHER REFLECTIONS AND RELEVANCE FOR OUR TIMES
82. The expressive and symbolic image of
Christ’s heart is not the only means granted us
by the Holy Spirit for encountering the love of
Christ, yet it is, as we have seen, an
especially privileged one. Even so, it
constantly needs to be enriched, deepened and
renewed through meditation, the reading of the
Gospel and growth in spiritual maturity. Pius
XII made it clear that the Church does not claim
that, “we must contemplate and adore in the
heart of Jesus a ‘formal’ image, that is, a
perfect and absolute sign of his divine love,
for the essence of this love can in no way be
adequately expressed by any created image
whatsoever”.[74]
83. 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.
In this sense, we can once more affirm that the
Sacred Heart is a synthesis of the Gospel.[75]
We need to remember that the visions or mystical
showings related by certain saints who
passionately encouraged devotion to Christ’s
heart are not something that the faithful are
obliged to believe as if they were the word of
God.[76] Nonetheless, they are rich sources of
encouragement and can prove greatly beneficial,
even if no one need feel forced to follow them
should they not prove helpful on his or her own
spiritual journey. At the same time, however, we
should be mindful that, as Pius XII pointed out,
this devotion cannot be said “to owe its origin
to private revelations”.[77]
84. The promotion of Eucharistic communion on
the first Friday of each month, for example,
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 and regarded communion as a kind of
reward for the perfect. In the context of
Jansenism, the spread of this practice proved
immensely beneficial, since it led to a clearer
realization that in the Eucharist the merciful
and ever-present love of the heart of Christ
invites us to union with him. It can also be
said that this practice can prove similarly
beneficial in our own time, for a different
reason. 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.
85. While no one should feel obliged to spend an
hour in adoration each Thursday, the practice
ought surely to be recommended. 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”.[78]
86. Many Jansenists found this difficult to
comprehend, for they looked askance on all that
was human, affective and corporeal, and so
viewed this devotion as distancing us from pure
worship of the Most High God. Pius XII described
as “false mysticism”[79] the elitist attitude of
those groups that saw God as so sublime,
separate and distant that they regarded
affective expressions of popular piety as
dangerous and in need of ecclesiastical
oversight.
87. It could be argued that today, in place of
Jansenism, we find ourselves before a powerful
wave of secularization that seeks to build a
world free of God. In our societies, we are also
seeing a proliferation of varied forms of
religiosity that have nothing to do with a
personal relationship with the God of love, but
are new manifestations of a disembodied
spirituality. I must warn that within the Church
too, a baneful Jansenist dualism has re-emerged
in new forms. This has gained renewed strength
in recent decades, but it is a recrudescence of
that Gnosticism which proved so great a
spiritual threat in the early centuries of
Christianity because it refused to acknowledge
the reality of “the salvation of the flesh”. For
this reason, I turn my gaze to the heart of
Christ and I invite all of us to renew our
devotion to it. I hope this will also appeal to
today’s sensitivities and thus help us to
confront the dualisms, old and new, to which
this devotion offers an effective response.
88. I would add 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 fervour 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. This too is the expression of an illusory
and disembodied otherworldliness.
89. Once we succumb to these attitudes, so
widespread in our day, we tend to lose all
desire to be cured of them. This leads me to
propose to the whole Church renewed reflection
on the love of Christ represented in his Sacred
Heart. For there we find the whole Gospel, a
synthesis of the truths of our faith, all that
we adore and seek in faith, all that responds to
our deepest needs.
90. As we contemplate the heart of Christ, the
incarnate synthesis of the Gospel, we can,
following the example of Saint Therese of the
Child Jesus, “place heartfelt trust not in
ourselves but in the infinite mercy of a God who
loves us unconditionally and has already given
us everything in the cross of Jesus Christ”.
[80] Therese was able to do this because she had
discovered in the heart of Christ that God is
love: “To me he has granted his infinite mercy,
and through it I contemplate and adore the other
divine perfections”. [81] That is why a popular
prayer, directed like an arrow towards the heart
of Christ, says simply: “Jesus, I trust in you”.
[82] No other words are needed.
91. In the following chapters, we will emphasize
two essential aspects that contemporary devotion
to the Sacred Heart needs to combine, so that it
can continue to nourish us and bring us closer
to the Gospel: personal spiritual experience and
communal missionary commitment.
CHAPTER FOUR
A LOVE THAT GIVES ITSELF AS DRINK
92. Let us now return to the Scriptures, the
inspired texts where, above all, we encounter
God’s revelation. There, and in the Church’s
living Tradition, we hear what the Lord has
wished to tell us in the course of history. By
reading several texts from the Old and the New
Testaments, we will gain insight into the word
of God that has guided the great spiritual
pilgrimage of his people down the ages.
A GOD WHO THIRSTS FOR LOVE
93. The Bible shows that the people that
journeyed through the desert and yearned for
freedom received the promise of an abundance of
life-giving water: “With joy you will draw water
from the wells of salvation” (Is 12:3). The
messianic prophecies gradually coalesced around
the imagery of purifying water: “I will sprinkle
clean water upon you, and you shall be clean… a
new spirit I will put within you” (Ezek
36:25-26). This water would bestow on God’s
people the fullness of life, like a fountain
flowing from the Temple and bringing a wealth of
life and salvation in its wake. “I saw on the
bank of the river a great many trees on the one
side and on the other… and wherever that river
goes, every living creature will live… and when
that river enters the sea, its waters will
become fresh; everything will live where the
river goes” (Ezek 47:7-9).
94. The Jewish festival of Booths ( Sukkot),
which recalls the forty-year sojourn of Israel
in the desert, gradually adopted the symbolism
of water as a central element. It included a
rite of offering water each morning, which
became most solemn on the final day of the
festival, when a great procession took place
towards the Temple, the altar was circled seven
times and the water was offered to God amid loud
cries of joy. [83]
95. The dawn of the messianic era was described
as a fountain springing up for the people: “I
will pour out a spirit of compassion and
supplication on the house of David and the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, and they shall look on
him whom they have pierced… On that day, a
fountain shall be opened for the house of David
and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse
them from sin and impurity” (Zech 12:10; 13:1).
96. One who is pierced, a flowing fountain, the
outpouring of a spirit of compassion and
supplication: the first Christians inevitably
considered these promises fulfilled in the
pierced side of Christ, the wellspring of new
life. In the Gospel of John, we contemplate that
fulfilment. From Jesus’ wounded side, the water
of the Spirit poured forth: “One of the soldiers
pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood
and water flowed out” (Jn 19:34). The evangelist
then recalls the prophecy that had spoken of a
fountain opened in Jerusalem and the pierced one
(Jn 19:37; cf. Zech 12:10). The open fountain is
the wounded side of Christ.
97. Earlier, John’s Gospel had spoken of this
event, when on “the last day of the festival”
(Jn 7:37), Jesus cried out to the people
celebrating the great procession: “Let anyone
who is thirsty come to me and drink… out of his
heart shall flow rivers of living water” (Jn
7:37-38). For this to be accomplished, however,
it was necessary for Jesus’ “hour” to come, for
he “was not yet glorified” (Jn 7:39). That
fulfilment was to come on the cross, in the
blood and water that flowed from the Lord’s
side.
98. The Book of Revelation takes up the
prophecies of the pierced one and the fountain:
“every eye will see him, even those who pierced
him” (Rev 1:7); “Let everyone who is thirsty
come; let anyone who wishes take the water of
life as a gift” (Rev 22:17).
99. The pierced side of Jesus is the source of
the love that God had shown for his people in
countless ways. Let us now recall some of his
words:
“Because
you are precious in my sight and honoured, I
love you” (Is 43:4).
“Can a
woman forget her nursing child, or show no
compassion for the child of her womb? Even if
these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my
hands” (Is 49:15-16).
“For the
mountains may depart, and the hills be removed,
but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,
and my covenant of peace shall not be removed”
(Is 54:10).
“I have
loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I
have continued my faithfulness to you” (Jer
31:3).
“The
Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who
gives you victory; he will rejoice over you with
gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will
exult over you with loud singing” (Zeph 3:17).
100. The prophet Hosea goes so far as to speak
of the heart of God, who “led them with cords of
human kindness, with bands of love” (Hos 11:4).
When that love was spurned, the Lord could say,
“My heart is stirred within me; my compassion
grows warm and tender (Hos 11:8). God’s merciful
love always triumphs (cf. Hos 11:9), and it was
to find its most sublime expression in Christ,
his definitive Word of love.
101. The pierced heart of Christ embodies all
God’s declarations of love present in the
Scriptures. That love is no mere matter of
words; rather, the open side of his Son is a
source of life for those whom he loves, the
fount that quenches the thirst of his people. As
Saint John Paul II pointed out, “the essential
elements of devotion [to the Sacred Heart]
belong in a permanent fashion to the
spirituality of the Church throughout her
history; for since the beginning, the Church has
looked to the heart of Christ pierced on the
Cross”. [84]
ECHOES OF THE WORD IN HISTORY
102. Let us consider some of the ways that, in
the history of the Christian faith, these
prophecies were understood to have been
fulfilled. Various Fathers of the Church,
especially those in Asia Minor, spoke of the
wounded side of Jesus as the source of the water
of the Holy Spirit: the word, its grace and the
sacraments that communicate it. The courage of
the martyrs is born of “the heavenly fount of
living waters flowing from the side of Christ”
[85] or, in the version of Rufinus, “the
heavenly and eternal streams that flow from the
heart of Christ”. [86] We believers, reborn in
the Spirit, emerge from the cleft in the rock;
“we have come forth from the heart of Christ”.
[87] His wounded side, understood as his heart,
filled with the Holy Spirit, comes to us as a
flood of living water. “The fount of the Spirit
is entirely in Christ”. [88] Yet the Spirit whom
we have received does not distance us from the
risen Lord, but fills us with his presence, for
by drinking of the Spirit we drink of the same
Christ. In the words of Saint Ambrose: “Drink of
Christ, for he is the rock that pours forth a
flood of water. Drink of Christ, for he is the
source of life. Drink of Christ, for he is the
river whose streams gladden the city of God.
Drink of Christ, for he is our peace. Drink of
Christ, for from his side flows living water”.
[89]
103. Saint Augustine opened the way to devotion
to the Sacred Heart as the locus of our personal
encounter with the Lord. For Augustine, Christ’s
wounded side is not only the source of grace and
the sacraments, but also the symbol of our
intimate union with Christ, the setting of an
encounter of love. There we find the source of
the most precious wisdom of all, which is
knowledge of him. In effect, Augustine writes
that John, the beloved disciple, reclining on
Jesus’ bosom at the Last Supper, drew near to
the secret place of wisdom. [90] Here we have no
merely intellectual contemplation of an abstract
theological truth. As Saint Jerome explains, a
person capable of contemplation “does not
delight in the beauty of that stream of water,
but drinks of the living water flowing from the
side of the Lord”. [91]
104. Saint Bernard takes up the symbolism of the
pierced side of the Lord and understands it
explicitly as a revelation and outpouring of all
of the love of his heart. Through that wound,
Christ opens his heart to us and enables us to
appropriate the boundless mystery of his love
and mercy: “I take from the bowels of the Lord
what is lacking to me, for his bowels overflow
with mercy through the holes through which they
stream. Those who crucified him pierced his
hands and feet, they pierced his side with a
lance. And through those holes I can taste wild
honey and oil from the rocks of flint, that is,
I can taste and see that the Lord is good… A
lance passed through his soul even to the region
of his heart. No longer is he unable to take
pity on my weakness. The wounds inflicted on his
body have disclosed to us the secrets of his
heart; they enable us to contemplate the great
mystery of his compassion”. [92]
105. This theme reappears especially in William
of Saint-Thierry, who invites us to enter into
the heart of Jesus, who feeds us from his own
breast. [93] This is not surprising if we recall
that for William, “the art of arts is the art of
love… Love is awakened by the Creator of nature,
and is a power of the soul that leads it, as if
by its natural gravity, to its proper place and
end”. [94] That proper place, where love reigns
in fullness, is the heart of Christ: “Lord,
where do you lead those whom you embrace and
clasp to your heart? Your heart, Jesus, is the
sweet manna of your divinity that you hold
within the golden jar of your soul (cf. Heb
9:4), and that surpasses all knowledge. Happy
those who, having plunged into those depths,
have been hidden by you in the recess of your
heart”. [95]
106. Saint Bonaventure unites these two
spiritual currents. He presents the heart of
Christ as the source of the sacraments and of
grace, and urges that our contemplation of that
heart become a relationship between friends, a
personal encounter of love.
107. Bonaventure makes us appreciate first the
beauty of the grace and the sacraments flowing
from the fountain of life that is the wounded
side of the Lord. “In order that from the side
of Christ sleeping on the cross, the Church
might be formed and the Scripture fulfilled that
says: ‘They shall look upon him whom they
pierced’, one of the soldiers struck him with a
lance and opened his side. This was permitted by
divine Providence so that, in the blood and
water flowing from that wound, the price of our
salvation might flow from the hidden wellspring
of his heart, enabling the Church’s sacraments
to confer the life of grace and thus to be, for
those who live in Christ, like a cup filled from
the living fount springing up to life eternal”.
[96]
108. Bonaventure then asks us to take another
step, in order that our access to grace not be
seen as a kind of magic or neo-platonic
emanation, but rather as a direct relationship
with Christ, a dwelling in his heart, so that
whoever drinks from that source becomes a friend
of Christ, a loving heart. “Rise up, then, O
soul who are a friend of Christ, and be the dove
that nests in the cleft in the rock; be the
sparrow that finds a home and constantly watches
over it; be the turtledove that hides the
offspring of its chaste love in that most holy
cleft”. [97]
THE SPREAD OF DEVOTION TO THE HEART OF CHRIST
109. 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. We know that
in the course of history, devotion to the heart
of Christ was not always expressed in the same
way, and that its modern developments, related
to a variety of spiritual experiences, cannot be
directly derived from the mediaeval forms, much
less the biblical forms in which we glimpse the
seeds of that devotion. This notwithstanding,
the Church today rejects nothing of the good
that the Holy Spirit has bestowed on us down the
centuries, for she knows that it will always be
possible to discern a clearer and deeper meaning
in certain aspects of that devotion, and to gain
new insights over the course of time.
110. A number of holy women, 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. This was
the case with Saints Lutgarde and Mechtilde of
Hackeborn, Saint Angela of Foligno and Dame
Julian of Norwich, to mention only a few. Saint
Gertrude of Helfta, a Cistercian nun, tells of a
time in prayer when she reclined her head on the
heart of Christ and heard its beating. In a
dialogue with Saint John the Evangelist, she
asked him why he had not described in his Gospel
what he experienced when he did the same.
Gertrude concludes that “the sweet sound of
those heartbeats has been reserved for modern
times, so that, hearing them, our aging and
lukewarm world may be renewed in the love of
God”. [98] Might we think that this is indeed a
message for our own times, a summons to realize
how our world has indeed “grown old”, and needs
to perceive anew the message of Christ’s love?
Saint Gertrude and Saint Mechtilde have been
considered among “the most intimate confidants
of the Sacred Heart”. [99]
111. The Carthusians, encouraged above all by
Ludolph of Saxony, found in devotion to the
Sacred Heart a means of growth in affection and
closeness to Christ. All who enter through the
wound of his heart are inflamed with love. Saint
Catherine of Siena wrote that the Lord’s
sufferings are impossible for us to comprehend,
but the open heart of Christ enables us to have
a lively personal encounter with his boundless
love. “I wished to reveal to you the secret of
my heart, allowing you to see it open, so that
you can understand that I have loved you so much
more than I could have proved to you by the
suffering that I once endured”. [100]
112. Devotion to the heart of Christ slowly
passed beyond the walls of the monasteries to
enrich the spirituality of saintly teachers,
preachers and founders of religious
congregations, who then spread it to the
farthest reaches of the earth. [101]
113. Particularly significant was the initiative
taken by Saint John Eudes, who, “after preaching
with his confrères a fervent mission in Rennes,
convinced the bishop of that diocese to approve
the celebration of the feast of the Adorable
Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ. This was the
first time that such a feast was officially
authorized in the Church. Following this,
between the years 1670 and 1671, the bishops of
Coutances, Evreux, Bayeux, Lisieux and Rouen
authorized the celebration of the feast for
their respective dioceses”. [102]
SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES
114. In modern times, 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. In his
writings, the saintly Doctor of the Church
opposes a rigorous morality and a legalistic
piety by presenting the heart of Jesus as a
summons to complete trust in the mysterious
working of his grace. We see this expressed in
his letter to Saint Jane Francis de Chantal: “I
am certain that we will remain no longer in
ourselves… but dwell forever in the Lord’s
wounded side, for apart from him not only can we
do nothing, but even if we were able, we would
lack the desire to do anything”. [103]
115. For Francis de Sales, true devotion had
nothing to do with superstition or perfunctory
piety, since it entails a personal relationship
in which each of us feels uniquely and
individually known and loved by Christ. “This
most adorable and lovable heart of our Master,
burning with the love which he professes to us,
[is] a heart on which all our names are written…
Surely it is a source of profound consolation to
know that we are loved so deeply by our Lord,
who constantly carries us in his heart”. [104]
With the image of our names written on the heart
of Christ, Saint Francis sought to express the
extent to which Christ’s love for each of us is
not something abstract and generic, but utterly
personal, enabling each believer to feel known
and respected for who he or she is. “How lovely
is this heaven, in which the Lord is its sun and
his breast a fountain of love from which the
blessed drink to their heart’s content! Each of
us can look therein and see our name carved in
letters of love, which true love alone can read
and true love has written. Dear God! And what
too, beloved daughter, of our loved ones? Surely
they will be there too; for even if our hearts
have no love, they nonetheless possess a desire
for love and the beginnings of love”. [105]
116. Francis saw this experience of Christ’s
love as essential to the spiritual life, indeed
one of the great truths of faith: “Yes, my
beloved daughter, he thinks of you and not only,
but even the smallest hair of your head: this is
an article of faith and in no way must it be
doubted”. [106] It follows that the believer
becomes capable of complete abandonment in the
heart of Christ, in which he or she finds
repose, comfort and strength: “Oh God! What
happiness to be thus embraced and to recline in
the bosom of the Saviour. Remain thus, beloved
daughter, and like another little one, Saint
John, while others are tasting different kinds
of food at the table of the Lord, lay your head,
your soul and your spirit, in a gesture of utter
trust, on the loving bosom of this dear Lord”.
[107] “I hope that you are resting in the cleft
of the turtledove and in the pierced side of our
beloved Saviour… How good is this Lord, my
beloved daughter! How loving is his Heart! Let
us remain here, in this holy abode”. [108]
117. At the same time, faithful to his teaching
on the sanctification of ordinary life, Francis
proposes that this experience take place in the
midst of the activities, tasks and obligations
of our daily existence. “You asked me how souls
that are attracted in prayer to this holy
simplicity, to this perfect abandonment in God,
should conduct themselves in all their actions?
I would reply that, not only in prayer, but also
in the conduct of everyday life they should
advance always in the spirit of simplicity,
abandoning and completely surrendering their
soul, their actions and their accomplishments to
God’s will. And to do so with a love marked by
perfect and absolute trust, abandoning
themselves to grace and to the care of the
eternal love that divine Providence feels for
them”. [109]
118. For this reason, when looking for a symbol
to convey his vision of spiritual life, Francis
de Sales concluded: “I have thought, dear
Mother, if you agree, that we should take as our
emblem a single heart pierced by two arrows, the
whole enclosed in a crown of thorns”. [110]
A NEW DECLARATION OF LOVE
119. Under the salutary influence of this
Salesian spirituality, 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 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”. [111]
120. Saint Margaret Mary’s account is powerful
and deeply moving: “He revealed to me the
wonders of his love and the inexplicable secrets
of his Sacred Heart which he had hitherto kept
hidden from me, until he opened it to me for the
first time, in such a striking and sensible
manner that he left me no room for doubt”. [112]
In subsequent appearances, that consoling
message was reiterated: “He revealed to me the
ineffable wonders of his pure love and to what
extremes it had led him to love mankind”. [113]
121. This powerful realization of the love of
Jesus Christ bequeathed to us by Saint Margaret
Mary can spur us to greater union with him. We
need not feel obliged to accept or appropriate
every detail of her spiritual experience, in
which, as often happens, God’s intervention
combines with human elements related to the
individual’s own desires, concerns and interior
images. [114] Such experiences must always be
interpreted in the light of the Gospel and the
rich spiritual tradition of the Church, even as
we acknowledge the good they accomplish in many
of our brothers and sisters. In this way, we can
recognize the gifts of the Holy Spirit present
in those experiences of faith and love. More
important than any individual detail is the core
of the message handed on to us, which can be
summed up in the words heard by Saint Margaret
Mary: “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”. [115]
122. 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. “It is necessary that
the divine heart of Jesus in some way replace
our own; that he alone live and work in us and
for us; that his will… work absolutely and
without any resistance on our part; and finally
that its affections, thoughts and desires take
the place of our own, especially his love, so
that he is loved in himself and for our sakes.
And so, this lovable heart being our all in all,
we can say with Saint Paul that we no longer
live our own lives, but it is he who lives
within us”. [116]
123. In the first message that Saint Margaret
Mary received, this invitation was expressed in
vivid, fervent and loving terms. “He asked for
my heart, which I asked him to take, which he
did and then placed myself in his own adorable
heart, from which he made me see mine like a
little atom consumed in the fiery furnace of his
own”. [117]
124. At another point, we see that the one who
gives himself to us is the risen and glorified
Christ, full of life and light. If indeed, at
different times, he spoke of the suffering that
he endured for our sake and of the ingratitude
with which it is met, what we see here are not
so much his blood and painful wounds, but rather
the light and fire of the Lord of life. The
wounds of the passion have not disappeared, but
are now transfigured. Here we see the paschal
mystery in all its splendour: “Once, when the
Blessed Sacrament was exposed, Jesus appeared,
resplendent in glory, with his five wounds that
appeared as so many suns blazing forth from his
sacred humanity, but above all from his adorable
breast, which seemed a fiery furnace. Opening
his robe, he revealed his most loving and
lovable heart, which was the living source of
those flames. Then it was that I discovered the
ineffable wonders of his pure love, with which
he loves men to the utmost, yet receives from
them only ingratitude and indifference”. [118]
SAINT CLAUDE DE LA COLOMBIÈRE
125. When Saint Claude de La Colombière learned
of the experiences of Saint Margaret Mary, he
immediately undertook her defence and began to
spread word of the apparitions. Saint Claude
played a special role in developing the
understanding of devotion to the Sacred Heart
and its meaning in the light of the Gospel.
126. Some of the language of Saint Margaret
Mary, if poorly understood, might suggest undue
trust in our personal sacrifices and offerings.
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. He
expressed this absolute confidence most
eloquently in a celebrated prayer:
“My God, I am so convinced that you keep watch
over those who hope in you, and that we can want
for nothing when we look for all in you, that I
am resolved in the future to live free from
every care and to turn all my anxieties over to
you... I shall never lose my hope. I shall keep
it to the last moment of my life; and at that
moment all the demons in hell will strive to
tear it from me… Others may look for happiness
from their wealth or their talents; others may
rest on the innocence of their life, or the
severity of their penance, or the amount of
their alms, or the fervour of their prayers. As
for me, Lord, all my confidence is confidence
itself. This confidence has never deceived
anyone… I am sure, therefore, that I shall be
eternally happy, since I firmly hope to be, and
because it is from you, O God, that I hope for
it”. [119]
127. In a note of January 1677, after mentioning
the assurance he felt regarding his mission,
Claude continued: “I have come to know that God
wanted me to serve him by obtaining the
fulfilment of his desires regarding the devotion
that he suggested to a person to whom he
communicates in confidence, and for whose sake
he has desired to make use of my weakness. I
have already used it to help several persons”.
[120]
128. It should be recognized that the
spirituality of Blessed Claude de La Colombière
resulted in a fine synthesis of the profound and
moving spiritual experience of Saint Margaret
Mary and the vivid and concrete form of
contemplation found in the Spiritual Exercises
of Saint Ignatius Loyola. At the beginning of
the third week of the Exercises, Claude
reflected: “Two things have moved me in a
striking way. First, the attitude of Christ
towards those who sought to arrest him. His
heart is full of bitter sorrow; every violent
passion is unleashed against him and all nature
is in turmoil, yet amid all this confusion, all
these temptations, his heart remains firmly
directed to God. He does not hesitate to take
the part that virtue and the highest virtue
suggested to him. Second, the attitude of that
same heart towards Judas who betrayed him, the
apostles who cravenly abandoned him, the priests
and the others responsible for the persecution
he suffered; none of these things was able to
arouse in him the slightest sentiment of hatred
or indignation. I present myself anew to this
heart free of anger, free of bitterness, filled
instead with genuine compassion towards its
enemies”. [121]
SAINT CHARLES DE FOUCAULD AND SAINT THERESE OF
THE CHILD JESUS
129. Saint Charles de Foucauld and Saint Therese
of the Child Jesus, without intending to,
reshaped certain aspects of devotion to the
heart of Christ and thus helped us understand it
in an even more evangelical spirit. Let us now
examine how this devotion found expression in
their lives. In the following chapter, we will
return to them, in order to illustrate the
distinctively missionary dimension that each of
them brought to the devotion.
Iesus Caritas
130. In Louye, Charles de Foucauld was
accustomed to visit the Blessed Sacrament with
his cousin, Marie de Bondy. One day she showed
him an image of the Sacred Heart. [122] His
cousin played a fundamental role in Charles’s
conversion, as he himself acknowledged: “Since
God has made you the first instrument of his
mercies towards me, from you everything else
began. Had you not converted me, brought me to
Jesus and taught me little by little, letter by
letter, all that is holy and good, where would I
be today?” [123] What Marie awakened in him was
an intense awareness of the love of Jesus. That
was the essential thing, and centred on devotion
to the heart of Jesus, in which he encountered
unbounded mercy: “Let us trust in the infinite
mercy of the one whose heart you led me to
know”. [124]
131.Later, his spiritual director, Father Henri
Huvelin, helped Charles to deepen his
understanding of the inestimable mystery of
“this blessed heart of which you spoke to me so
often”. [125] On 6 June 1889, Charles
consecrated himself to the Sacred Heart, in
which he found a love without limits. He told
Christ, “You have bestowed on me so many
benefits, that it would appear ingratitude
towards your heart not to believe that it is
disposed to bestow on me every good, however
great, and that your love and your generosity
are boundless”. [126] He was to become a hermit
“under the name of the heart of Jesus”. [127]
132. On 17 May 1906, the same day in which
Brother Charles, alone, could no longer
celebrate Mass, he wrote of his promise “to let
the heart of Jesus live in me, so that it is no
longer I who live, but the heart of Jesus that
lives in me, as he lived in Nazareth”. [128] His
friendship with Jesus, heart to heart, was
anything but a privatized piety. It inspired the
austere life he led in Nazareth, born of a
desire to imitate Christ and to be conformed to
him. His loving devotion to the heart of Jesus
had a concrete effect on his style of life, and
his Nazareth was nourished by his personal
relationship with the heart of Christ.
Saint Therese of the Child Jesus
133. Like Saint Charles de Foucauld, Saint
Therese of the Child Jesus was influenced by the
great renewal of devotion that swept
nineteenth-century France. Father Almire Pichon,
the spiritual director of her family, was seen
as a devoted apostle of the Sacred Heart. One of
her sisters took as her name in religion “Sister
Marie of the Sacred Heart”, and the monastery
that Therese entered was dedicated to the Sacred
Heart. Her devotion nonetheless took on certain
distinctive traits with regard to the customary
piety of that age.
134. When Therese was fifteen, she could speak
of Jesus as the one “whose heart beats in unison
with my own”. [129] Two years later, speaking of
the image of Christ’s heart crowned with thorns,
she wrote in a letter: “You know that I myself
do not see the Sacred Heart as everyone else. I
think that the Heart of my Spouse is mine alone,
just as mine is his alone, and I speak to him
then in the solitude of this delightful heart to
heart, while waiting to contemplate him one day
face to face”. [130]
135.In one of her poems, Therese voiced the
meaning of her devotion, which had to do more
with friendship and assurance than with trust in
her sacrifices:
“I need a heart burning with tenderness,
Who will be my support forever,
Who loves everything in me, even my
weakness…
And who never leaves me day or night…
I must have a God who takes on my nature,
And becomes my brother and is able to
suffer! …
Ah! I know well, all our righteousness
Is worthless in your sight…
So I, for my purgatory,
Choose your burning love, O heart of my
God!” [131]
136. Perhaps the most important text for
understanding the devotion of Therese to the
heart of Christ is a letter that she wrote three
months before her death to her friend Maurice
Bellière. “When I see Mary Magdalene walking up
before the many guests, washing with her tears
the feet of her adored Master, whom she is
touching for the first time, I feel that her
heart has understood the abysses of love and
mercy of the heart of Jesus, and, sinner though
she is, this heart of love was disposed not only
to pardon her but to lavish on her the blessings
of his divine intimacy, to lift her to the
highest summits of contemplation. Ah! dear
little Brother, ever since I have been given the
grace to understand also the love of the heart
of Jesus, I admit that it has expelled all fear
from my heart. The remembrance of my faults
humbles me, draws me never to depend on my
strength which is only weakness, but this
remembrance speaks to me of mercy and love even
more”. [132]
137. Those moralizers who want to keep a tight
rein on God’s mercy and grace might claim that
Therese could say this because she was a saint,
but a simple person could not say the same. In
that way, they excise from the spirituality of
Saint Therese its wonderful originality, which
reflects the heart of the Gospel. Sadly, in
certain Christian circles we often encounter
this attempt to fit the Holy Spirit into a
certain preconceived pattern in a way that
enables them to keep everything under their
supervision. Yet this astute Doctor of the
Church reduces them to silence and directly
contradicts their reductive view in these clear
words: “If I had committed all possible crimes,
I would always have the same confidence; I feel
that this whole multitude of offenses would be
like a drop of water thrown into a fiery
furnace”. [133]
138. To Sister Marie, who praised her generous
love of God, prepared even to embrace martyrdom,
Therese responded at length in a letter that is
one of the great milestones in the history of
spirituality. This page ought to be read a
thousand times over for its depth, clarity and
beauty. There, Therese helps her sister, “Marie
of the Sacred Heart”, to avoid focusing this
devotion on suffering, since some had presented
reparation primarily in terms of accumulating
sacrifices and good works. Therese, for her
part, presents confidence as the greatest and
best offering, pleasing to the heart of Christ:
“My desires of martyrdom are nothing; they are
not what give me the unlimited confidence that I
feel in my heart. They are, to tell the truth,
the spiritual riches that render one unjust,
when one rests in them with complacence and one
believes that they are something great… what
pleases [Jesus] is that he sees me loving my
littleness and my poverty, the blind hope that I
have in his mercy… That is my only treasure… If
you want to feel joy, to have an attraction for
suffering, it is your consolation that you are
seeking… Understand that to be his victim of
love, the weaker one is, without desires or
virtues, the more suited one is for the workings
of this consuming and transforming Love… Oh! How
I would like to be able to make you understand
what I feel!... It is confidence and nothing but
confidence that must lead us to Love”. [134]
139. In many of her writings, Therese speaks of
her struggle with forms of spirituality overly
focused on human effort, on individual merit, on
offering sacrifices and carrying out certain
acts in order to “win heaven”. For her, “merit
does not consist in doing or in giving much, but
rather in receiving”. [135] Let us read once
again some of these deeply meaningful texts
where she emphasizes this and presents it as a
simple and rapid means of taking hold of the
Lord “by his heart”.
140. To her sister Léonie she writes, “I assure
you that God is much better than you believe. He
is content with a glance, a sigh of love… As for
me, I find perfection very easy to practise
because I have understood it is a matter of
taking hold of Jesus by his heart… Look at a
little child who has just annoyed his mother… If
he comes to her, holding out his little arms,
smiling and saying: ‘Kiss me, I will not do it
again’, will his mother be able not to press him
to her heart tenderly and forget his childish
mischief? However, she knows her dear little one
will do it again on the next occasion, but this
does not matter; if he takes her again by her
heart, he will not be punished”. [136]
141. So too, in a letter to Father Adolphe
Roulland she writes, “[M]y way is all confidence
and love. I do not understand souls who fear a
friend so tender. At times, when I am reading
certain spiritual treatises in which perfection
is shown through a thousand obstacles,
surrounded by a crowd of illusions, my poor
little mind quickly tires; I close the learned
book that is breaking my head and drying up my
heart, and I take up Holy Scripture. Then all
seems luminous to me; a single word uncovers for
my soul infinite horizons, perfection seems
simple to me. I see that it is sufficient to
recognize one’s nothingness and to abandon
oneself like a child into God’s arms”. [137]
142. In yet another letter, she relates this to
the love shown by a parent: “I do not believe
that the heart of [a] father could resist the
filial confidence of his child, whose sincerity
and love he knows. He realizes, however, that
more than once his son will fall into the same
faults, but he is prepared to pardon him always,
if his son always takes him by his heart”. [138]
RESONANCES WITHIN THE SOCIETY OF JESUS
143. We have seen how Saint Claude de La
Colombière combined the spiritual experience of
Saint Margaret Mary with the aim of the
Spiritual Exercises. I believe that the place of
the Sacred Heart in the history of the Society
of Jesus merits a few brief words.
144. The spirituality of the Society of Jesus
has always proposed an “interior knowledge of
the Lord in order to love and follow him more
fully”. [139] Saint Ignatius invites us in his
Spiritual Exercises to place ourselves before
the Gospel that tells us that, “[Christ’s] side
was pierced by the lance and blood and water
flowed forth”. [140] When retreatants
contemplate the wounded side of the crucified
Lord, Ignatius suggests that they enter into the
heart of Christ. Thus we have a way to enlarge
our own hearts, recommended by one who was a
“master of affections”, to use the words of
Saint Peter Faber in one of his letters to Saint
Ignatius. [141] Father Juan Alfonso de Polanco
echoed that same expression in his biography of
Saint Ignatius: “He [Cardinal Gasparo Contarini]
realized that in Father Ignatius he had
encountered a master of affections”. [142] The
colloquies that Saint Ignatius proposed are an
essential part of this training of the heart,
for in them we sense and savour with the heart a
Gospel message and converse about it with the
Lord. Saint Ignatius tells us that we can share
our concerns with the Lord and seek his counsel.
Anyone who follows the Exercises can readily see
that they involve a dialogue, heart to heart.
145. Saint Ignatius brings his contemplations to
a crescendo at the foot of the cross and invites
the retreatant to ask the crucified Lord with
great affection, “as one friend to another, as a
servant to his master”, what he or she must do
for him. [143] The progression of the Exercises
culminates in the “Contemplation to Attain
Love”, which gives rise to thanksgiving and the
offering of one’s “memory, understanding and
will” to the heart which is the fount and origin
of every good thing. [144] This interior
contemplation is not the fruit of our
understanding and effort, but is to be implored
as a gift.
146. This same experience inspired the great
succession of Jesuit priests who spoke
explicitly of the heart of Jesus: Saint Francis
Borgia, Saint Peter Faber, Saint Alphonsus
Rodriguez, Father Álvarez de Paz, Father Vincent
Carafa, Father Kasper Drużbicki and countless
others. In 1883, the Jesuits declared that, “the
Society of Jesus accepts and receives with an
overflowing spirit of joy and gratitude the most
agreeable duty entrusted to it by our Lord Jesus
Christ to practise, promote and propagate
devotion to his divine heart”. [145] In
September 1871, Father Pieter Jan Beckx
consecrated the Society to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus and, as a sign that it remains an
outstanding element in the life of the Society,
Father Pedro Arrupe renewed that consecration in
1972, with a conviction that he explained in
these words: “I therefore wish to say to the
Society something about which I feel I cannot
remain silent. From my novitiate on, I have
always been convinced that what we call devotion
to the Sacred Heart contains a symbolic
expression of what is most profound in Ignatian
spirituality, and of an extraordinary efficacy –
ultra quam speraverint – both for its own
perfection and for its apostolic fruitfulness. I
continue to have this same conviction… In this
devotion I encounter one of the deepest sources
of my interior life”. [146]
147. When Saint John Paul II urged “all the
members of the Society to be even more zealous
in promoting this devotion, which corresponds
more than ever to the expectations of our time”,
he did so because he recognized the profound
connection between devotion to the heart of
Christ and Ignatian spirituality. For “the
desire to ‘know the Lord intimately’ and to
‘have a conversation’ with him, heart to heart,
is characteristic of the Ignatian spiritual and
apostolic dynamism, thanks to the Spiritual
Exercises, and this dynamism is wholly at the
service of the love of the heart of God”. [147]
A BROAD CURRENT OF THE INTERIOR LIFE
148. 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. Saint
Vincent de Paul, for example, used to say that
what God desires is the heart: “God asks
primarily for our heart – our heart – and that
is what counts. How is it that a man who has no
wealth will have greater merit than someone who
has great possessions that he gives up? Because
the one who has nothing does it with greater
love; and that is what God especially wants…”
[148] This means allowing one’s heart to be
united to that of Christ. “What blessing should
a Sister not hope for from God if she does her
utmost to put her heart in the state of being
united with the heart of our Lord!” [149]
149. At times, we may be tempted to consider
this mystery of love as an admirable relic from
the past, a fine spirituality suited to other
times. Yet we need to remind ourselves
constantly that, as a saintly missionary once
said, “this divine heart, which let itself be
pierced by an enemy’s lance in order to pour
forth through that sacred wound the sacraments
by which the Church was formed, has never ceased
to love”. [150] More recent saints, like Saint
Pius of Pietrelcina, Saint Teresa of Calcutta
and many others, have spoken with deep devotion
of the heart of Christ. 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.
Inspired by her experiences and the spiritual
legacy of Saint Józef Sebastian Pelczar
(1842-1924), [151] Saint John Paul II intimately
linked his reflections on divine mercy with
devotion to the heart of Christ: “The Church
seems in a singular way to profess the mercy of
God and to venerate it when she directs herself
to the heart of Christ. In fact, it is precisely
this drawing close to Christ in the mystery of
his heart which enables us to dwell on this
point of the revelation of the merciful love of
the Father, a revelation that constituted the
central content of the messianic mission of the
Son of Man”. [152] Saint John Paul also spoke of
the Sacred Heart in very personal terms,
acknowledging that, “it has spoken to me ever
since my youth”. [153]
150. 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. Let us simply consider two examples
taken at random: “The Founder [Saint Daniel
Comboni] discovered in the mystery of the heart
of Jesus the source of strength for his
missionary commitment”. [154] “Caught up as we
are in the desires of the heart of Jesus, we
want people to grow in dignity, as human beings
and as children of God. Our starting point is
the Gospel, with all that it demands from us of
love, forgiveness and justice, and of solidarity
with those who are poor and rejected by the
world”. [155] So too, the many shrines worldwide
that are consecrated to the heart of Christ
continue to be an impressive source of renewal
in prayer and spiritual fervour. To all those
who in any way are associated with these spaces
of faith and charity I send my paternal
blessing.
THE DEVOTION OF CONSOLATION
151. The wound in Christ’s side, the wellspring
of living water, remains open in the risen body
of the Saviour. The deep wound inflicted by the
lance and the wounds of the crown of thorns that
customarily appear in representations of the
Sacred Heart are an inseparable part of this
devotion, in which we contemplate the love of
Christ who offered himself in sacrifice to the
very end. The heart of the risen Lord preserves
the signs of that complete self-surrender, which
entailed intense sufferings for our sake. 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.
With Jesus on the cross
152. It is fitting to recover one particular
aspect of the spirituality that has accompanied
devotion to the heart of Christ, namely, the
interior desire to offer consolation to that
heart. Here I will not discuss the practice of
“reparation”, which I deem better suited to the
social dimension of this devotion to be
discussed in the next chapter. I would like
instead to concentrate on the desire often felt
in the hearts of the faithful who lovingly
contemplate the mystery of Christ’s passion and
experience it as a mystery which is not only
recollected but becomes present to us by grace,
or better, allows us to be mystically present at
the moment of our redemption. If we truly love
the Lord, how could we not desire to console
him?
153. Pope Pius XI wished to ground this
particular devotion in the realization that the
mystery of our redemption by Christ’s passion
transcends, by God’s grace, all boundaries of
time and space. On the cross, Jesus offered
himself for all sins, including those yet to be
committed, including our own sins. In the same
way, the acts we now offer for his consolation,
also transcending time, touch his wounded heart.
“If, because of our sins too, as yet in the
future but already foreseen, the soul of Jesus
became sorrowful unto death, it cannot be
doubted that at the same time he derived some
solace from our reparation, likewise foreseen,
at the moment when ‘there appeared to him an
angel from heaven’ ( Lk 22:43), in order that
his heart, oppressed with weariness and anguish,
might find consolation. And so even now, in a
wondrous yet true manner, we can and ought to
console that Most Sacred Heart, which is
continually wounded by the sins of thankless
men”. [156]
Reasons of the heart
154. It might appear to some that this aspect of
devotion to the Sacred Heart lacks a firm
theological basis, yet the heart has its
reasons. Here the sensus fidelium perceives
something mysterious, beyond our human logic,
and realizes that the passion of Christ is not
merely an event of the past, but one in which we
can share through faith. Meditation on Christ’s
self-offering on the cross involves, for
Christian piety, something much more than mere
remembrance. This conviction has a solid
theological grounding. [157] We can also add the
recognition of our own sins, which Jesus took
upon his bruised shoulders, and our inadequacy
in the face of that timeless love, which is
always infinitely greater.
155. We may also question how we can pray to the
Lord of life, risen from the dead and reigning
in glory, while at the same time comforting him
in the midst of his sufferings. Here we need to
realize that his risen heart preserves its wound
as a constant memory, and that the working of
grace makes possible an experience that is not
restricted to a single moment of the past. In
pondering this, we find ourselves invited to
take a mystical path that transcends our mental
limitations yet remains firmly grounded in the
word of God. Pope Pius XI makes this clear: “How
can these acts of reparation offer solace now,
when Christ is already reigning in the beatitude
of heaven? To this question, we may answer in
the words of Saint Augustine, which are very
apposite here – ‘Give me the one who loves, and
he will understand what I say’. Anyone possessed
of great love for God, and who looks back to the
past, can dwell in meditation on Christ, and see
him labouring for man, sorrowing, suffering the
greatest hardships, ‘for us men and for our
salvation’, well-nigh worn out with sadness,
with anguish, nay ‘bruised for our sins’ ( Is
53:5), and bringing us healing by those very
bruises. The more the faithful ponder all these
things the more clearly they see that the sins
of mankind, whenever they were committed, were
the reason why Christ was delivered up to
death”. [158]
156. Those words of Pius XI merit serious
consideration. When Scripture states that
believers who fail to live in accordance with
their faith “are crucifying again the Son of
God” (Heb 6:6), or when Paul, offering his
sufferings for the sake of others, says that,
“in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in
Christ’s afflictions” (Col 1:24), or again, when
Christ in his passion prays not only for his
disciples at that time, but also for “those who
will believe in me through their word” (Jn
17:20), all these statements challenge our usual
way of thinking. They show us that it is not
possible to sever the past completely from the
present, however difficult our minds find this
to grasp. The Gospel, in all its richness, was
written not only for our prayerful meditation,
but also to enable us to experience its reality
in our works of love and in our interior life.
This is certainly the case with regard to the
mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection. The
temporal distinctions that our minds employ
appear incapable of embracing the fullness of
this experience of faith, which is the basis
both of our union with Christ in his suffering
and of the strength, consolation and friendship
that we enjoy with him in his risen life.
157. We see, then, the unity of the paschal
mystery in these two inseparable and mutually
enriching aspects. The one mystery, present by
grace in both these dimensions, ensures that
whenever we offer some suffering of our own to
Christ for his consolation, that suffering is
illuminated and transfigured in the paschal
light of his love. We share in this mystery in
our own life because Christ himself first chose
to share in that life. He wished to experience
first, as Head, what he would then experience in
his Body, the Church: both our wounds and our
consolations. When we live in God’s grace, this
mutual sharing becomes for us a spiritual
experience. In a word, the risen Lord, by the
working of his grace, mysteriously unites us to
his passion. The hearts of the faithful, who
experience the joy of the resurrection, yet at
the same time desire to share in the Lord’s
passion, understand this. They desire to share
in his sufferings by offering him the
sufferings, the struggles, the disappointments
and the fears that are part of their own lives.
Nor do they experience this as isolated
individuals, since their sufferings are also a
participation in the suffering of the mystical
Body of Christ, the holy pilgrim People of God,
which shares in the passion of Christ in every
time and place. The devotion of consolation,
then, is in no way ahistorical or abstract; it
becomes flesh and blood in the Church’s
pilgrimage through history.
Compunction
158. The natural desire to console Christ, which
begins with our sorrow in contemplating what he
endured for us, grows with the honest
acknowledgment of our bad habits, compulsions,
attachments, weak faith, vain goals and,
together with our actual sins, the failure of
our hearts to respond to the Lord’s love and his
plan for our lives. This experience proves
purifying, for love needs the purification of
tears that, in the end, leave us more desirous
of God and less obsessed with ourselves.
159. In this way, we see that the deeper our
desire to console the Lord, the deeper will be
our sincere sense of “compunction”. Compunction
is “not a feeling of guilt that makes us
discouraged or obsessed with our unworthiness,
but a beneficial ‘piercing’ that purifies and
heals the heart. Once we acknowledge our sin,
our hearts can be opened to the working of the
Holy Spirit, the source of living water that
wells up within us and brings tears to our eyes…
This does not mean weeping in self-pity, as we
are so often tempted to do… To shed tears of
compunction means seriously to repent of
grieving God by our sins; recognizing that we
always remain in God’s debt… Just as drops of
water can wear down a stone, so tears can slowly
soften hardened hearts. Here we see the miracle
of sorrow, that ‘salutary sorrow’ which brings
great peace... Compunction, then, is not our
work but a grace and, as such, it must be sought
in prayer.” [159] It means, “asking for sorrow
in company with Christ in his sorrow, for
anguish with Christ in his anguish, for tears
and a deep sense of pain at the great pains that
Christ endured for my sake”. [160]
160. 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. I also encourage everyone to consider
whether there might be greater reasonableness,
truth and wisdom in certain demonstrations of
love that seek to console the Lord than in the
cold, distant, calculated and nominal acts of
love that are at times practised by those who
claim to possess a more reflective,
sophisticated and mature faith.
Consoled ourselves in order to console others
161. In contemplating the heart of Christ and
his self-surrender even to death, we ourselves
find great consolation. The grief that we feel
in our hearts gives way to complete trust and,
in the end, what endures is gratitude,
tenderness, peace; what endures is Christ’s love
reigning in our lives. Compunction, then, “is
not a source of anxiety but of healing for the
soul, since it acts as a balm on the wounds of
sin, preparing us to receive the caress of the
Lord”. [161] Our sufferings are joined to the
suffering of Christ on the cross. If we believe
that grace can bridge every distance, this means
that Christ by his sufferings united himself to
the sufferings of his disciples in every time
and place. In this way, whenever we endure
suffering, we can also experience the interior
consolation of knowing that Christ suffers with
us. In seeking to console him, we will find
ourselves consoled.
162. At some point, however, in our
contemplation, we should likewise hear the
urgent plea of the Lord: “Comfort, comfort my
people!” (Is 40:1). As Saint Paul tells us, God
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” (2 Cor 1:4).
163. This then challenges us to seek a deeper
understanding of the communitarian, social and
missionary dimension of all authentic devotion
to the heart of Christ. For even as Christ’s
heart leads us to the Father, it sends us forth
to our brothers and sisters. In the fruits of
service, fraternity and mission that the heart
of Christ inspires in our lives, the will of the
Father is fulfilled. In this way, we come full
circle: “My Father is glorified by this, that
you bear much fruit” (Jn 15:8).
CHAPTER FIVE
LOVE FOR LOVE
164. In the spiritual experiences of Saint
Margaret Mary Alacoque, we encounter, along with
an ardent declaration of love for Jesus Christ,
a profoundly personal and challenging invitation
to entrust our lives to the Lord. The knowledge
that we are loved, and our complete confidence
in that love, in no way lessens our desire to
respond generously, despite our frailty and our
many shortcomings.
A LAMENT AND A REQUEST
165. Beginning with his second great apparition
to Saint Margaret Mary, Jesus spoke of the
sadness he feels because his great love for
humanity receives in exchange “nothing but
ingratitude and indifference”, “coldness and
contempt”. And this, he added, “is more grievous
to me than all that I endured in my Passion”.
[162]
166. Jesus spoke of his thirst for love and
revealed that his heart is not indifferent to
the way we respond to that thirst. In his words,
“I thirst, but with a thirst so ardent to be
loved by men in the Most Blessed Sacrament, that
this thirst consumes me; and I have not
encountered anyone who makes an effort,
according to my desire, to quench my thirst,
giving back a return for my love”. [163] Jesus
asks for love. Once the faithful heart realizes
this, its spontaneous response is one of love,
not a desire to multiply sacrifices or simply
discharge a burdensome duty: “I received from my
God excessive graces of his love, and I felt
moved by the desire to respond to some of them
and to respond with love for love”. [164] As my
Predecessor Leo XIII pointed out, through the
image of his Sacred Heart, the love of Christ
“moves us to return love for love”. [165]
EXTENDING CHRIST’S LOVE TO OUR BROTHERS AND
SISTERS
167. 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. The
Scriptures make this patently clear:
“Just as
you did it to one of the least of these my
brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40).
“For the
whole law is summed up in a single commandment:
‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’”
(Gal 5:14).
“We know
that we have passed from death to life because
we love one another. Whoever does not love
abides in death” (1 Jn 3:14).
“Those
who do not love a brother or sister whom they
have seen, cannot love God whom they have not
seen” (1 Jn 4:20).
168. Love for our brothers and sisters is not
simply the fruit of our own efforts; it demands
the transformation of our selfish hearts. This
realization gave rise to the oft-repeated
prayer: “Jesus, make our hearts more like your
own”. Saint Paul, for his part, urged his
hearers to pray not for the strength to do good
works, but “to have the same mind among you that
was in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5).
169. We need to remember that in the Roman
Empire many of the poor, foreigners and others
who lived on the fringes of society met with
respect, affection and care from Christians.
This explains why the apostate emperor Julian,
in one of his letters, acknowledged that one
reason why Christians were respected and
imitated was the assistance they gave the poor
and strangers, who were ordinarily ignored and
treated with contempt. For Julian, it was
intolerable that the Christians whom he
despised, “in addition to feeding their own,
also feed our poor and needy, who receive no
help from us”. [166] The emperor thus insisted
on the need to create charitable institutions to
compete with those of the Christians and thus
gain the respect of society: “There should be
instituted in each city many accommodations so
that the immigrants may enjoy our philanthropy…
and make the Greeks accustomed to such works of
generosity”. [167] Julian did not achieve his
objective, no doubt because underlying those
works there was nothing comparable to the
Christian charity that respected the unique
dignity of each person.
170. By associating with the lowest ranks of
society (cf. Mt 25:31-46), “Jesus brought the
great novelty of recognizing the dignity of
every person, especially those who were
considered ‘unworthy’. This new principle in
human history – which emphasizes that
individuals are even more ‘worthy’ of our
respect and love when they are weak, scorned, or
suffering, even to the point of losing the human
‘figure’ – has changed the face of the world. It
has given life to institutions that take care of
those who find themselves in disadvantaged
conditions, such as abandoned infants, orphans,
the elderly who are left without assistance, the
mentally ill, people with incurable diseases or
severe deformities, and those living on the
streets”. [168]
171. In contemplating the pierced heart of the
Lord, who “took our infirmities and bore our
diseases” ( Mt 8:17), we too are inspired to be
more attentive to the sufferings and needs of
others, and confirmed in our efforts to share in
his work of liberation as instruments for the
spread of his love. [169] As we meditate on
Christ’s self-offering for the sake of all, we
are naturally led to ask why we too should not
be ready to give our lives for others: “We know
love by this, that he laid down his life for us
– and that we ought to lay down our lives for
one another” ( 1 Jn 3:16).
ECHOES IN THE HISTORY OF SPIRITUALITY
172. 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. Let us consider a few examples.
Being a fountain from which others can drink
173. Starting with Origen, various Fathers of
the Church reflected on the words of John 7:38 –
“out of his heart shall flow rivers of living
water” – which refer to those who, having drunk
of Christ, put their faith in him. Our union
with Christ is meant not only to satisfy our own
thirst, but also to make us springs of living
water for others. Origen wrote that Christ
fulfils his promise by making fountains of fresh
water well up within us: “The human soul, made
in the image of God, can itself contain and pour
forth wells, fountains and rivers”. [170]
174. Saint Ambrose recommended drinking deeply
of Christ, “in order that the spring of water
welling up to eternal life may overflow in you”.
[171] Marius Victorinus was convinced that the
Holy Spirit has given of himself in such
abundance that, “whoever receives him becomes a
heart that pours forth rivers of living water”.
[172] Saint Augustine saw this stream flowing
from the believer as benevolence. [173] Saint
Thomas Aquinas thus maintained that whenever
someone “hastens to share various gifts of grace
received from God, living water flows from his
heart”. [174]
175. Although “the sacrifice offered on the
cross in loving obedience renders most abundant
and infinite satisfaction for the sins of
mankind”, [175] the Church, born of the heart of
Christ, prolongs and bestows, in every time and
place, the fruits of that one redemptive
passion, which lead men and women to direct
union with the Lord.
176. In the heart of the Church, the mediation
of Mary, as our intercessor and mother, can only
be understood as “a sharing in the one source,
which is the mediation of Christ himself”, [176]
the sole Redeemer. For this reason, “the Church
does not hesitate to profess the subordinate
role of Mary”. [177] Devotion to the heart of
Mary in no way detracts from the sole worship
due the heart of Christ, but rather increases
it: “Mary’s function as mother of humanity in no
way obscures or diminishes this unique mediation
of Christ, but rather shows its power”. [178]
Thanks to the abundant graces streaming from the
open side of Christ, in different ways the
Church, the Virgin Mary and all believers become
themselves streams of living water. In this way,
Christ displays his glory in and through our
littleness.
Fraternity and mysticism
177. Saint Bernard, in exhorting us to union
with the heart of Christ, draws upon the
richness of this devotion to call for a
conversion grounded in love. Bernard believed
that our affections, enslaved by pleasures, may
nonetheless be transformed and set free, not by
blind obedience to a commandment but rather in
response to the delectable love of Christ. Evil
is overcome by good, conquered by the flowering
of love: “Love the Lord your God with the full
and deep affection of all your heart; love him
with your mind wholly alert and intent; love him
with all your strength, so much so that you
would not even fear to die for love of him… Your
affection for the Lord Jesus should be both
sweet and intimate, to oppose the sweet
enticements of the sensual life. Sweetness
conquers sweetness, as one nail drives out
another”. [179]
178. Saint Francis de Sales was particularly
taken by Jesus’ words, “Learn from me; for I am
gentle and humble in heart” ( Mt 11:29). Even in
the most simple and ordinary things, he said, we
can “steal” the Lord’s heart. “Those who would
serve him acceptably must give heed not only to
lofty and important matters, but to things mean
and little, since by both alike we may win his
heart and love… I mean the acts of daily
forbearance, the headache, the toothache, the
heavy cold; the tiresome peculiarities of a
husband or wife, the broken glass, the loss of a
ring, a handkerchief, a glove; the sneer of a
neighbour; the effort of going to bed early in
order to rise early for prayer or communion, the
little shyness some people feel in openly
performing religious duties… Be sure that all
these sufferings, small as they are, if accepted
lovingly, are most pleasing to God’s goodness”.
[180] Ultimately, however, our response to the
love of the heart of Christ is manifested in
love of our neighbour: “a love that is firm,
constant, steady, unconcerned with trivial
matters or people’s station in life, not subject
to changes or animosity… Our Lord loves us
unceasingly, puts up with so many of our defects
and our flaws. Precisely because of this, we
must do the same with our brothers and sisters,
never tiring of putting up with them”. [181]
179. Saint Charles de Foucauld sought to imitate
Jesus by living and acting as he did, in a
constant effort to do what Jesus would have done
in his place. Only by being conformed to the
sentiments of the heart of Christ could he fully
achieve this goal. Here too we find the idea of
“love for love”. In his words, “I desire
sufferings in order to return love for love, to
imitate him… to enter into his work, to offer
myself with him, the nothingness that I am, as a
sacrifice, as a victim, for the sanctification
of men”. [182] The desire to bring the love of
Jesus to others, his missionary outreach to the
poorest and most forgotten of our world, led him
to take as his emblem the words, “Iesus-Caritas”,
with the symbol of the heart of Christ
surmounted by a cross. [183] Nor was this a
light decision: “With all my strength I try to
show and prove to these poor lost brethren that
our religion is all charity, all fraternity, and
that its emblem is a heart”. [184] He wanted to
settle with other brothers “in Morocco, in the
name of the heart of Jesus”. [185] In this way,
their evangelizing work could radiate outwards:
“Charity has to radiate from our fraternities,
as it radiates from the heart of Jesus”. [186]
This desire gradually 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:
“Our heart, like that of Jesus, must embrace all
men and women”. [187] “The love of the heart of
Jesus for men and women, the love that he
demonstrated in his passion, this is what we
need to have for all human beings”. [188]
180. Father Henri Huvelin, the spiritual
director of Saint Charles de Foucauld, observed
that, “when our Lord dwells in a heart, he gives
it such sentiments, and this heart reaches out
to the least of our brothers and sisters. Such
was the heart of Saint Vincent de Paul… When our
Lord lives in the soul of a priest, he makes him
reach out to the poor”. [189] It is important to
realize that the apostolic zeal of Saint
Vincent, as Father Huvelin describes it, was
also nurtured by devotion to the heart of
Christ. Saint Vincent urged his confreres to
“find in the heart of our Lord a word of
consolation for the poor sick person”. [190] If
that word is to be convincing, our own heart
must first have been changed by the love and
tenderness of the heart of Christ. Saint Vincent
often reiterated this conviction in his homilies
and counsels, and it became a notable feature of
the Constitutions of his Congregation: “We
should make a great effort to learn the
following lesson, also taught by Christ: ‘Learn
from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart’.
We should remember that he himself said that by
gentleness we inherit the earth. If we act on
this, we will win people over so that they will
turn to the Lord. That will not happen if we
treat people harshly or sharply”. [191]
REPARATION: BUILDING ON THE RUINS
181. All that has been said thus far enables us
to understand in the light of God’s word the
proper meaning of the “reparation” to the heart
of Christ that the Lord expects us, with the
help of his grace, to “offer”. The question has
been much discussed, but Saint John Paul II has
given us a clear response that can guide
Christians today towards a spirit of reparation
more closely attuned to the Gospels.
The social significance of reparation to the
heart of Christ
182.
Saint John Paul explained that 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”. This clearly requires that we “unite
filial love for God and love of neighbour”, and
indeed this is “the true reparation asked by the
heart of the Saviour”. [192] In union with
Christ, amid the ruins we have left in this
world by our sins, we are called to build a new
civilization of love. That is what it means to
make reparation as the heart of Christ would
have us do. Amid the devastation wrought by
evil, the heart of Christ desires that we
cooperate with him in restoring goodness and
beauty to our world.
183. All sin harms the Church and society; as a
result, “every sin can undoubtedly be considered
as a social sin” and this is especially true for
those sins that “by their very matter constitute
a direct attack on one’s neighbour”. [193] Saint
John Paul II explained that the repetition of
these sins against others often consolidates a
“structure of sin” that has an effect on the
development of peoples. [194] Frequently, this
is part of a dominant mind-set that considers
normal or reasonable what is merely selfishness
and indifference. This then gives rise to social
alienation: “A society is alienated if its forms
of social organization, production and
consumption make it more difficult to offer the
gift of self and to establish solidarity between
people”. [195] It is not only a moral norm that
leads us to expose and resist these alienated
social structures and to support efforts within
society to restore and consolidate the common
good. Rather, it is our “conversion of heart”
that “imposes the obligation” [196] to repair
these structures. It is our response to the love
of the heart of Jesus, which teaches us to love
in turn.
184. 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”, [197] our world today
needs the heart of Christ. Christian reparation
cannot be understood simply as a congeries of
external works, however indispensable and at
times admirable they may be. These need a
“mystique”, a soul, a meaning that grants them
strength, drive and tireless creativity. They
need the life, the fire and the light that
radiate from the heart of Christ.
Mending wounded hearts
185. Nor is a merely outward reparation
sufficient, either for our world or for the
heart of Christ. If each of us considers his or
her own sins and their effect on others, we will
realize that repairing the harm done to this
world also calls for a desire to mend wounded
hearts where the deepest harm was done, and the
hurt is most painful.
186. A spirit of reparation thus “leads us to
hope that every wound can be healed, however
deep it may be. Complete reparation may at times
seem impossible, such as when goods or loved
ones are definitively lost, or when certain
situations have become irremediable. Yet the
intention to make amends, and to do so in a
concrete way, is essential for the process of
reconciliation and a return to peace of heart”.
[198]
The beauty of asking forgiveness
187. Good intentions are not enough. There has
to be an inward desire that finds expression in
our outward actions. “Reparation, if it is to be
Christian, to touch the offended person’s heart
and not be a simple act of commutative justice,
presupposes two demanding things: acknowledging
our guilt and asking forgiveness… It is from the
honest acknowledgment of the wrong done to our
brother or sister, and from the profound and
sincere realization that love has been
compromised, that the desire to make amends
arises”. [199]
188. We should never think that acknowledging
our sins before others is somehow demeaning or
offensive to our human dignity. On the contrary,
it demands that we stop deceiving ourselves and
acknowledge our past for what it is, marred by
sin, especially in those cases when we caused
hurt to our brothers and sisters.
“Self-accusation is part of Christian wisdom… It
is pleasing to the Lord, because the Lord
accepts a contrite heart”. [200]
189. Part of this spirit of reparation is the
custom of asking forgiveness from our brothers
and sisters, which demonstrates great nobility
amid our human weakness. Asking forgiveness is a
means of healing relationships, for it “re-opens
dialogue and manifests the will to re-establish
the bond of fraternal charity… It touches the
heart of our brother or sister, brings
consolation and inspires acceptance of the
forgiveness requested. Even if the irreparable
cannot be completely repaired, love can always
be reborn, making the hurt bearable”. [201]
190. A heart capable of compunction will grow in
fraternity and solidarity. Otherwise, “we
regress and grow old within”, whereas when “our
prayer becomes simpler and deeper, grounded in
adoration and wonder in the presence of God, we
grow and mature. We become less attached to
ourselves and more attached to Christ. Made poor
in spirit, we draw closer to the poor, those who
are dearest to God”. [202] This leads to a true
spirit of reparation, for “those who feel
compunction of heart increasingly feel
themselves brothers and sisters to all the
sinners of the world; renouncing their airs of
superiority and harsh judgments, they are filled
with a burning desire to show love and make
reparation”. [203] The sense of solidarity born
of compunction also enables reconciliation to
take place. The person who is capable of
compunction, “rather than feeling anger and
scandal at the failings of our brothers and
sisters, weeps for their sins. There occurs a
sort of reversal, where the natural tendency to
be indulgent with ourselves and inflexible with
others is overturned and, by God’s grace, we
become strict with ourselves and merciful
towards others”. [204]
REPARATION: AN EXTENSION OF THE HEART OF CHRIST
191. There is another, complementary, approach
to reparation, which allows us to set it in an
even more direct relationship with the heart of
Christ, without excluding the aspect of concrete
commitment to our brothers and sisters.
192. Elsewhere I have suggested that, “God has
in some way sought to limit himself in such a
way that many of the things we think of as
evils, dangers or sources of suffering, are in
reality part of the pains of childbirth which he
uses to draw us into the act of cooperation with
the Creator”. [205] This cooperation on our part
can allow the power and the love of God to
expand in our lives and in the world, whereas
our refusal or indifference can prevent it.
Several passages of the Bible express this
metaphorically, as when the Lord cries out, “If
only you would return to me, O Israel!” (cf. Jer
4:1). Or when, confronted with rejection by his
people, he says, “My heart recoils within me; my
compassion grows warm and tender” ( Hos 11:8).
193. Even though it is not possible to speak of
new suffering on the part of the glorified Lord,
“the paschal mystery of Christ… and all that
Christ is – all that he did and suffered for all
men – participates in the divine eternity, and
so transcends all times while being made present
in them all”. [206] We can say that he has
allowed the expansive glory of his resurrection
to be limited and the diffusion of his immense
and burning love to be contained, in order to
leave room for our free cooperation with his
heart. Our rejection of his love erects a
barrier to that gracious gift, whereas our
trusting acceptance of it opens a space, a
channel enabling it to pour into our hearts. Our
rejection or indifference limits the effects of
his power and the fruitfulness of his love in
us. If he does not encounter openness and
confidence in me, his love is deprived – because
he himself has willed it – of its extension,
unique and unrepeatable, in my life and in this
world, where he calls me to make him present.
Again, this does not stem from any weakness on
his part but rather from his infinite freedom,
his mysterious power and his perfect love for
each of us. When God’s power is revealed in the
weakness of our human freedom, “only faith can
discern it”. [207]
194. Saint Margaret Mary recounted that, in one
of Christ’s appearances, he spoke of his heart’s
passionate love for us, telling her that,
“unable to contain the flames of his burning
charity, he must spread them abroad”. [208]
Since the Lord, who can do all things, desired
in his divine freedom to require our
cooperation, reparation can be understood as our
removal of the obstacles we place before the
expansion of Christ’s love in the world by our
lack of trust, gratitude and self-sacrifice.
An Oblation to Love
195. To help us reflect more deeply on this
mystery, we can turn once more to the luminous
spirituality of Saint Therese of the Child
Jesus. Therese was aware that in certain
quarters an extreme form of reparation had
developed, based on a willingness to offer
oneself in sacrifice for others, and to become
in some sense a “lightning rod” for the
chastisements of divine justice. In her words,
“I thought about the souls who offer themselves
as victims of God’s justice in order to turn
away the punishments reserved to sinners,
drawing them upon themselves”. [209] However, as
great and generous as such an offering might
appear, she did not find it overly appealing: “I
was far from feeling attracted to making it”.
[210] So great an emphasis on God’s justice
might eventually lead to the notion that
Christ’s sacrifice was somehow incomplete or
only partly efficacious, or that his mercy was
not sufficiently powerful.
196. With her great spiritual insight, Saint
Therese discovered that we can offer ourselves
in another way, without the need to satisfy
divine justice but by allowing the Lord’s
infinite love to spread freely: “O my God! Is
your disdained love going to remain closed up
within your heart? It seems to me that if you
were to find souls offering themselves as
victims of holocaust to your love, you would
consume them rapidly; it seems to me, too, that
you would be happy not to hold back the waves of
infinite tenderness within you”. [211]
197. While nothing need be added to the one
redemptive sacrifice of Christ, it remains true
that our free refusal can prevent the heart of
Christ from spreading the “waves of his infinite
tenderness” in this world. Again, this is
because the Lord wishes to respect our freedom.
More than divine justice, it was the fact that
Christ’s love might be refused that troubled the
heart of Saint Therese, because for her, God’s
justice is understood only in the light of his
love. As we have seen, she contemplated all
God’s perfections through his mercy, and thus
saw them transfigured and resplendent with love.
In her words, “even his justice (and perhaps
this even more so than the others) seems to me
clothed in love”. [212]
198. This was the origin of her Act of Oblation,
not to God’s justice but to his merciful love.
“I offer myself as a victim of holocaust to your
merciful love, asking you to consume me
incessantly, allowing the waves of infinite
tenderness shut up within you to overflow into
my soul, and that thus I may become a martyr of
your love”. [213] It is important to realize
that, for Therese, this was not only about
allowing the heart of Christ to fill her heart,
through her complete trust, with the beauty of
his love, but also about letting that love,
through her life, spread to others and thus
transform the world. Again, in her words, “In
the heart of the Church, my Mother, I shall be
love… and thus my dream will be realized”. [214]
The two aspects were inseparably united.
199. The Lord accepted her oblation. We see that
shortly thereafter she stated that she felt an
intense love for others and maintained that it
came from the heart of Christ, prolonged through
her. So she told her sister Léonie: “I love you
a thousand times more tenderly than ordinary
sisters love each other, for I can love you with
the heart of our celestial spouse”. [215] Later,
to Maurice Bellière she wrote, “How I would like
to make you understand the tenderness of the
heart of Jesus, what he expects from you!” [216]
Integrity and Harmony
200. 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”, [217] 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. This involves more than
simply the “consolation” of Christ of which we
spoke in the previous chapter; it finds
expression in acts of fraternal love by which we
heal the wounds of the Church and of the world.
In this way, we offer the healing power of the
heart of Christ new ways of expressing itself.
201. The sacrifices and sufferings required by
these acts of love of neighbour unite us to the
passion of Christ. In this way, “by that mystic
crucifixion of which the Apostle speaks, we
shall receive the abundant fruits of its
propitiation and expiation, for ourselves and
for others”. [218] Christ alone saves us by his
offering on the cross; he alone redeems us, for
“there is one God; there is also one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who
gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:5-6).
The reparation that we offer is a freely
accepted participation in his redeeming love and
his one sacrifice. We thus complete in our flesh
“what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the
sake of his body, that is, the Church” ( Col
1:24); and Christ himself prolongs through us
the effects of his complete and loving
self-oblation.
202. Often, our sufferings have to do with our
own wounded ego. The humility of the heart of
Christ points us towards the path of abasement.
God chose to come to us in condescension and
littleness. The Old Testament had already shown
us, with a variety of metaphors, a God who
enters into the heart of history and allows
himself to be rejected by his people. Christ’s
love was shown amid the daily life of his
people, begging, as it were, for a response, as
if asking permission to manifest his glory. Yet
“perhaps only once did the Lord Jesus refer to
his own heart, in his own words. And he stresses
this sole feature: ‘gentleness and lowliness’,
as if to say that only in this way does he wish
to win us to himself”. [219] When he said,
“Learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in
heart” ( Mt 11:29), he showed us that “to make
himself known, he needs our littleness, our
self-abasement”. [220]
203. In what we have said, it is important to
note several inseparable aspects. Acts of love
of neighbour, with the renunciation,
self-denial, suffering and effort that they
entail, can only be such when they are nourished
by Christ’s own love. He enables us to love as
he loved, and in this way he loves and serves
others through us. He humbles himself to show
his love through our actions, yet even in our
slightest works of mercy, his heart is glorified
and displays all its grandeur. Once our hearts
welcome the love of Christ in complete trust,
and enable its fire to spread in our lives, we
become capable of loving others as Christ did,
in humility and closeness to all. In this way,
Christ satisfies his thirst and gloriously
spreads the flames of his ardent and gracious
love in us and through us. How can we fail to
see the magnificent harmony present in all this?
204. Finally, in order to appreciate this
devotion in all of its richness, it is necessary
to add, in the light of what we have said about
its Trinitarian dimension, that the reparation
made by Christ in his humanity is offered to the
Father through the working of the Holy Spirit in
each of us. Consequently, the reparation we
offer to the heart of Christ is directed
ultimately to the Father, who is pleased to see
us united to Christ whenever we offer ourselves
through him, with him and in him.
BRINGING LOVE TO THE WORLD
205. The Christian message is attractive when
experienced and expressed in its totality: not
simply as a refuge for pious thoughts or an
occasion for impressive ceremonies. What kind of
worship would we give to Christ if we were to
rest content with an individual relationship
with him and show no interest in relieving the
sufferings of others or helping them to live a
better life? Would it please the heart that so
loved us, if we were to bask in a private
religious experience while ignoring its
implications for the society in which we live?
Let us be honest and accept the word of God in
its fullness. On the other hand, our work as
Christians for the betterment of society should
not obscure its religious inspiration, for that,
in the end, would be to seek less for our
brothers and sisters than what God desires to
give them. For this reason, we should conclude
this chapter by recalling the missionary
dimension of our love for the heart of Christ.
206. Saint John Paul II spoke of the social
dimension of devotion to the heart of Christ,
but also about “reparation, which is apostolic
cooperation in the salvation of the world”.
[221] 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”. [222] 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”. [223]
207. The flames of love of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus also expand through the Church’s
missionary outreach, which proclaims the message
of God’s love revealed in Christ. Saint Vincent
de Paul put this nicely when he invited his
disciples to pray to the Lord for “this spirit,
this heart that causes us to go everywhere, this
heart of the Son of God, the heart of our Lord,
that disposes us to go as he went… he sends us,
like [the apostles], to bring fire everywhere”.
[224]
208. Saint Paul VI, addressing religious
Congregations dedicated to the spread of
devotion to the Sacred Heart, made the following
observation. “There can be no doubt that
pastoral commitment and missionary zeal will fan
into flame, if priests and laity alike, in their
desire to spread the glory of God, contemplate
the example of eternal love that Christ has
shown us, and direct their efforts to make all
men and women sharers in the unfathomable riches
of Christ”. [225] As we contemplate the Sacred
Heart, mission becomes a matter of love. For the
greatest danger in mission is that, 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.
209. Mission, 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. They are impatient when
time is wasted discussing secondary questions or
concentrating on truths and rules, because their
greatest concern is to share what they have
experienced. They want others to perceive the
goodness and beauty of the Beloved through their
efforts, however inadequate they may be. Is that
not the case with any lover? We can take as an
example the words with which Dante Alighieri
sought to express this logic of love:
“Io dico che, pensando al suo valore
amor si dolce si mi si fa sentire,
che s’io allora non perdessi ardire
farei parlando innamorar la gente”.
[226]
210. To be able to speak of Christ, by witness
or by word, in such a way that others seek to
love him, is the greatest desire of every
missionary of souls. This dynamism of love has
nothing to do with proselytism; the words of a
lover do not disturb others, they do not make
demands or oblige, they only lead others to
marvel at such love. With immense respect for
their freedom and dignity, the lover simply
waits for them to inquire about the love that
has filled his or her life with such great joy.
211. Christ asks you never to be ashamed to tell
others, with all due discretion and respect,
about your friendship with him. He asks that you
dare to tell others how good and beautiful it is
that you found him. “Everyone who acknowledges
me before others, I also will acknowledge before
my Father in heaven” (Mt 10:32). For a heart
that loves, this is not a duty but an
irrepressible need: “Woe to me if I do not
proclaim the Gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16). “Within me
there is something like a burning fire shut up
in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and
I cannot” (Jer 20:9).
In communion of service
212. We should not think of this mission of
sharing Christ as something only between Jesus
and me. Mission is experienced in fellowship
with our communities and with the whole Church.
If we turn aside from the community, we will be
turning aside from Jesus. If we turn our back on
the community, our friendship with Jesus will
grow cold. This is a fact, and we must never
forget it. Love for the brothers and sisters of
our communities – religious, parochial, diocesan
and others – is a kind of fuel that feeds our
friendship with Jesus. Our acts of love for our
brothers and sisters in community may well be
the best and, at times, the only way that we can
witness to others our love for Jesus Christ. He
himself said, “By this everyone will know that
you are my disciples, if you have love for one
another” (Jn 13:35).
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” (Mt 25:40). 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!
214. If we are concerned with helping others,
this in no way means that we are turning away
from Jesus. Rather, we are encountering him in
another way. Whenever we try to help and care
for another person, Jesus is at our side. We
should never forget that, when he sent his
disciples on mission, “the Lord worked with
them” (Mk 16:20). He is always there, always at
work, sharing our efforts to do good. In a
mysterious way, his love becomes present through
our service. He speaks to the world in a
language that at times has no need of words.
215. 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. He himself told us, “I am
sending you out” (Lk 10:3). It is part of our
being friends with him. For this friendship to
mature, however, it is up to you to let him send
you forth on a mission in this world, and to
carry it out confidently, generously, freely and
fearlessly. If you stay trapped in your own
comfort zone, you will never really find
security; doubts and fears, sorrow and anxiety
will always loom on the horizon. Those who do
not carry out their mission on this earth will
find not happiness, but disappointment. Never
forget that Jesus is at your side at every step
of the way. He will not cast you into the abyss,
or leave you to your own devices. He will always
be there to encourage and accompany you. He has
promised, and he will do it: “For I am with you
always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:20).
216. In your own way, you too must be a
missionary, like the apostles and the first
disciples of Jesus, who went forth to proclaim
the love of God, to tell others that Christ is
alive and worth knowing. Saint Therese
experienced this as an essential part of her
oblation to merciful Love: “I wanted to give my
Beloved to drink and I felt myself consumed with
a thirst for souls”. [227] That is your mission
as well. Each of us must carry it out in his or
her own way; you will come to see how you can be
a missionary. Jesus deserves no less. If you
accept the challenge, he will enlighten you,
accompany you and strengthen you, and you will
have an enriching experience that will bring you
much happiness. It is not important whether you
see immediate results; leave that to the Lord
who works in the secret of our hearts. Keep
experiencing the joy born of our efforts to
share the love of Christ with others.
CONCLUSION
217. The present document can help us see that
the teaching of the social Encyclicals Laudato
Si’ and Fratelli Tutti is not unrelated to our
encounter with the love of Jesus Christ. For it
is by drinking of that same love that we become
capable of forging bonds of fraternity, of
recognizing the dignity of each human being, and
of working together to care for our common home.
218. In a world where everything is bought and
sold, people’s sense of their worth appears
increasingly to depend on what they can
accumulate with the power of money. We are
constantly being pushed to keep buying,
consuming and distracting ourselves, held
captive to a demeaning system that prevents us
from looking beyond our immediate and petty
needs. The love of Christ has no place in this
perverse mechanism, yet only that love can set
us free from a mad pursuit that no longer has
room for a gratuitous love. Christ’s love can
give a heart to our world and revive love
wherever we think that the ability to love has
been definitively lost.
219. The Church also needs that love, lest the
love of Christ be replaced with outdated
structures and concerns, excessive attachment to
our own ideas and opinions, and fanaticism in
any number of forms, which end up taking the
place of the gratuitous love of God that
liberates, enlivens, brings joy to the heart and
builds communities. The wounded side of Christ
continues to pour forth that stream which is
never exhausted, never passes away, but offers
itself time and time again to all those who wish
to love as he did. For his love alone can bring
about a new humanity.
220. 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.
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 24 October
of the year 2024, the twelfth of my Pontificate.
__________________________________
[1] Many of the reflections in this first
chapter were inspired by the unpublished
writings of the late Father Diego Fares, S.J.
May the Lord grant him eternal rest.
[2] Cf. HOMER, Iliad, XXI, 441.
[3] Cf. Iliad, X, 244.
[4] Cf. PLATO, Timaeus, 65 c-d; 70.
[5] Homily at Morning Mass in Domus Sanctae
Marthae, 14 October 2016: L’Osservatore Romano,
15 October 2016, p. 8.
[6] SAINT JOHN PAUL II, Angelus, 2 July 2000:
L’Osservatore Romano, 3-4 July 2000, p. 4.
[7] ID., Catechesis, 8 June 1994: L’Osservatore
Romano, 9 June 1994, p. 5.
[8] The Demons (1873).
[9] ROMANO GUARDINI, Religiöse Gestalten in
Dostojewskijs Werk, Mainz/Paderborn, 1989, pp.
236ff.
[10] KARL RAHNER, “Some Theses for a Theology of
Devotion to the Sacred Heart”, in Theological
Investigations, vol. III, Baltimore-London,
1967, p. 332.
[11] Ibid., p. 333.
[12] BYUNG-CHUL HAN, Heideggers Herz.
Zum Begriff der Stimmung bei Martin Heidegger,
München, 1996, p. 39.
[13] Ibid., p. 60; cf. p. 176.
[14] Cf. ID., Agonie des Eros, Berlin, 2012.
[15] Cf. MARTIN HEIDEGGER, Erläuterungen zu
Hölderlins Dichtung, Frankfürt a. M., 1981, p.
120.
[16] Cf. MICHEL DE CERTEAU, L’espace du désir ou
le «fondement» des Exercises Spirituels:
Christus 77 (1973), pp. 118-128.
[17] Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, VII, 6.
[18] ID., Proemium in I Sent., q. 3.
[19] SAINT JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, Meditations and
Devotions, London, 1912, Part III [XVI], par. 3,
pp. 573-574.
[20] Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 82.
[21] Ibid., 10.
[22] Ibid., 14.
[23] Cf. DICASTERY FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE
FAITH, Declaration Dignitas Infinita (2 April
2024), 8. Cf. L’Osservatore Romano, 8 April
2024.
[24] Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 26.
[25] SAINT JOHN PAUL II, Angelus, 28 June 1998:
L’Osservatore Romano, 30 June-1 July 1998, p. 7.
[26] Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ (24 May
2015), 83: AAS 107 (2015), 880.
[27] Homily at Morning Mass in Domus Sanctae
Marthae, 7 June 2013: L’Osservatore Romano, 8
June 2013, p. 8.
[28] PIUS XII, Encyclical Letter Haurietis Aquas
(15 May 1956), I: AAS 48 (1956), 316.
[29] PIUS VI, Constitution Auctorem Fidei (28
August 1794), 63: DH 2663.
[30] LEO XIII, Encyclical Letter Annum Sacrum
(25 May 1899): ASS 31 (1898-1899), 649.
[31] Ibid: “Inest in Sacro Corde symbolum et
expressa imago infinitæ Iesu Christi caritatis”.
[32] Angelus, 9 June 2013: L’Osservatore Romano,
10-11 June 2013, p. 8.
[33] We can thus understand why the Church has
forbidden placing on the altar representations
of the heart of Jesus or Mary alone (cf.
Response of the Congregation of Sacred Rites to
the Reverend Charles Lecoq, P.S.S., 5 April
1879: Decreta Authentica Congregationis Sacrorum
Rituum ex Actis ejusdem Collecta, vol. III,
107-108, n. 3492). Outside the liturgy, “for
private devotion” (ibid.), the symbolism of a
heart can be used as a teaching aid, an
aesthetic figure or an emblem that invites one
to meditate on the love of Christ, but this
risks taking the heart as an object of adoration
or spiritual dialogue apart from the Person of
Christ. On 31 March 1887, the Congregation gave
another, similar response (ibid., 187, n. 3673).
[34] ECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF TRENT, Session XXV,
Decree Mandat Sancta Synodus (3 December 1563):
DH 1823.
[35] FIFTH GENERAL CONFERENCE OF THE LATIN
AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN BISHOPS, Aparecida
Document (29 June 2007), n. 259.
[36] Encyclical Letter Haurietis Aquas (15 May
1956), I: AAS 48 (1956), 323-324.
[37] Ep. 261, 3: PG 32, 972.
[38] In Io. homil. 63, 2: PG 59, 350.
[39] De fide ad Gratianum, II, 7, 56: PL 16, 594
(ed. 1880).
[40] Enarr. in Ps. 87, 3: PL 37, 1111.
[41] Cf. De fide orth. 3, 6, 20: PG 94, 1006,
1081.
[42] OLEGARIO GONZÁLEZ DE CARDEDAL, La entraña
del cristianismo, Salamanca, 2010, 70-71.
[43] Angelus, 1 June 2008: L’Osservatore Romano,
2-3 June 2008, p. 1.
[44] PIUS XII, Encyclical Letter Haurietis Aquas
(15 May 1956), II: AAS 48 (1956), 327-328.
[45] Ibid.: AAS 48 (1956), 343-344.
[46] BENEDICT XVI, Angelus, 1 June 2008:
L’Osservatore Romano, 2-3 June 2008, p. 1.
[47] VIGILIUS, Constitution Inter Innumeras
Sollicitudines (14 May 553): DH 420.
[48] ECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF EPHESUS, Anathemas of
Cyril of Alexandria, 8: DH 259.
[49] SECOND ECUMENICAL COUNCIL OF
CONSTANTINOPLE, Session VIII (2 June 553), Canon
9: DH 431.
[50] SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS, Spiritual
Canticle, red. A, Stanza 22, 4.
[51] Ibid., Stanza 12, 8.
[52] Ibid., Stanza 12, 1.
[53] “There is one God, the Father, from whom
are all things and for whom we exist” ( 1 Cor
8:6). “To our God and Father be glory forever
and ever. Amen” ( Phil 4:20). “Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of mercies and the God of all
consolation” ( 2 Cor 1:3).
[54] Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio
Adveniente (10 November 1994), 49: AAS 87
(1995), 35.
[55] Ad Rom., 7: PG 5, 694.
[56] “That the world may know that I love the
Father” ( Jn 14:31); “The Father and I are one”
( Jn 10:30); “I am in the Father and the Father
is in me” ( Jn 14:10).
[57] “I am going to the Father” ( pros ton
Patéra: Jn 16:28). “I am coming to you” ( pros
se: Jn 17:11).
[58] “ eis ton kolpon tou Patrós”.
[59] Adv. Haer., III, 18, 1: PG 7, 932.
[60] In Joh. II, 2: PG 14, 110.
[61] Angelus, 23 June 2002: L’Osservatore
Romano, 24-25 June 2002, p. 1.
[62] SAINT JOHN PAUL II, Message on the
Hundredth Anniversary of the Consecration of the
Human Race to the Divine Heart of Jesus, Warsaw,
11 June 1999, Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus, 3: L’Osservatore Romano, 12 June 1999, p.
5.
[63] ID., Angelus, 8 June 1986: L’Osservatore
Romano, 9-10 June 1986, p. 5
[64] Homily, Visit to the Gemelli Hospital and
to the Faculty of Medicine of the Catholic
University of the Sacred Heart, 27 June 2014:
L’Osservatore Romano, 29 June 2014, p. 7.
[65] Eph 1:5, 7; 2:18; 3:12.
[66] Eph 2:5, 6; 4:15.
[67] Eph 1:3, 4, 6, 7, 11, 13, 15; 2:10, 13, 21,
22; 3:6, 11, 21.
[68] Message on the Hundredth Anniversary of the
Consecration of the Human Race to the Divine
Heart of Jesus, Warsaw, 11 June 1999, Solemnity
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, 2: L’Osservatore
Romano, 12 June 1999, p. 5.
[69] “Since there is in the Sacred Heart a
symbol and the express image of the infinite
love of Jesus Christ that moves us to love one
another, it is fit and proper that we should
consecrate ourselves to his most Sacred Heart –
an act that is nothing else than an offering and
a binding of oneself to Jesus Christ, for
whatever honour, veneration and love is given to
this divine Heart is really and truly given to
Christ himself…And now, today, behold another
blessed and heavenly token is offered to our
sight – the most Sacred Heart of Jesus, with a
cross rising from it and shining forth with
dazzling splendour amidst flames of love. In
that Sacred Heart all our hopes should be
placed, and from it the salvation of men is to
be confidently besought” (Encyclical Letter
Annum Sacrum [25 May 1899]: ASS 31 [1898-1899],
649, 651).
[70] “For is not the sum of all religion and
therefore the pattern of more perfect life,
contained in that most auspicious sign and in
the form of piety that follows from it inasmuch
as it more readily leads the minds of men to an
intimate knowledge of Christ our Lord, and more
efficaciously moves their hearts to love him
more vehemently and to imitate him more
closely?” (Encyclical Letter Miserentissimus
Redemptor [8 May 1928]: AAS 20 [1928], 167).
[71] “For it is perfectly clear that this
devotion, if we examine its proper nature, is a
most excellent act of religion, inasmuch as it
demands the full and absolute determination of
surrendering and consecrating oneself to the
love of the divine Redeemer whose wounded heart
is the living sign and symbol of that love… In
it, we can contemplate not only the symbol, but
also, as it were, the synthesis of the whole
mystery of our redemption… Christ expressly and
repeatedly pointed to his heart as the symbol by
which men are drawn to recognize and acknowledge
his love, and at the same time constituted it as
the sign and pledge of his mercy and his grace
for the needs of the Church in our time”
(Encyclical Letter Haurietis Aquas [15 May
1956], Proemium, III, IV: AAS 48 [1956], 311,
336, 340).
[72] Catechesis, 8 June 1994, 2: L’Osservatore
Romano, 9 June 1994, p. 5.
[73] Angelus, 1 June 2008: L’Osservatore Romano,
2-3 June 2008, p. 1.
[74] Encyclical Letter Haurietis Aquas (15 May
1956), IV: AAS 48 (1956), 344.
[75] Cf. ibid.: AAS 48 (1956), 336.
[76] “The value of private revelations is
essentially different from that of the one
public revelation: the latter demands faith… A
private revelation… is a help which is
proffered, but its use is not obligatory”
(BENEDICT XVI, Apostolic Exhortation Verbum
Domini [30 September 2010], 14: AAS 102 [2010]),
696).
[77] Encyclical Letter Haurietis Aquas (15 May
1956), IV: AAS 48 (1956), 340.
[78] Ibid.: AAS 48 (1956), 344.
[79] Ibid.
[80] Apostolic Exhortation C’est la Confiance
(15 October 2023), 20: L’Osservatore Romano, 16
October 2023.
[81] SAINT THERESE OF THE CHILD JESUS,
Autobiography, Ms A, 83v°.
[82] SAINT MARIA FAUSTINA KOWALSKA, Diary, 47
(22 February 1931) , Marian Press, Stockbridge,
2011, p. 46.
[83] Mishnah Sukkah, IV, 5, 9.
[84] Letter to the Superior General of the
Society of Jesus, Paray-le-Monial (France), 5
October 1986: L’Osservatore Romano, 7 October
1986, p. IX.
[85] Acta Martyrum Lugdunensium, in EUSEBIUS OF
CAESARIA, Historia Ecclesiastica, V, 1: PG 20,
418.
[86] RUFINUS, V, 1, 22, in GCS, Eusebius II, 1,
p. 411, 13ff.
[87] SAINT JUSTIN, Dial. 135,3: PG 6, 787
[88] NOVATIAN, De Trinitate, 29: PL 3, 994; cf.
SAINT GREGORY OF ELVIRA, Tractatus Origenis de
libris Sanctarum Scripturarum, XX, 12: CSSL 69,
144.
[89] Expl. Ps. 1:33: PL 14, 983-984.
[90] Cf. Tract. in Ioannem 61, 6: PL 35, 1801.
[91] Ep. ad Rufinum, 3, 4.3: PL 22, 334.
[92] Sermones in Cant. 61, 4: PL 183, 1072.
[93] Expositio altera super Cantica Canticorum,
c. 1: PL 180, 487.
[94] WILLIAM OF SAINT-THIERRY, De natura et
dignitate amoris, 1: PL 184, 379.
[95] ID., Meditivae Orationes, 8, 6: PL 180,
230.
[96] SAINT BONAVENTURE, Lignum Vitae. De
mysterio passionis, 30.
[97] Ibid., 47.
[98] Legatus divinae pietatis, IV, 4, 4: SCh
255, 66.
[99] LÉON DEHON, Directoire spirituel des
prêtres su Sacré Cœur de Jésus, Turnhout, 1936,
II, ch. VII, n. 141.
[100] Dialogue on Divine Providence, LXXV:
FIORILLI M.-CARAMELLA S., eds., Bari, 1928, 144.
[101] Cf., for example, ANGELUS WALZ, De
veneratione divini cordis Iesu in Ordine
Praedicatorum, Pontificium Institutum Angelicum,
Rome, 1937.
[102] RAFAEL GARCÍA HERREROS , Vida de San Juan
Eudes, Bogotá, 1943, 42.
[103] SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES, Letter to Jane
Frances de Chantal, 24 April 1610.
[104] Sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent, 20
February 1622.
[105] Letter to Jane Frances de Chantal,
Solemnity of the Ascension, 1612.
[106] Letter to Marie Aimée de Blonay, 18
February 1618.
[107] Letter to Jane Frances de Chantal, late
November 1609.
[108] Letter to Jane Frances de Chantal, ca. 25
February 1610.
[109] Entretien XIV, on religious simplicity and
prudence.
[110] Letter to Jane Frances de Chantal, 10 June
1611.
[111] SAINT MARGARET MARY ALACOQUE,
Autobiography, n. 53.
[112] Ibid.
[113] Ibid., n. 55.
[114] Cf. DICASTERY FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE
FAITH, Norms for Proceeding in the Discernment
of Alleged Supernatural Phenomena, 17 May 2024,
I, A, 12.
[115] SAINT MARGARET MARY ALACOQUE,
Autobiography, n. 92.
[116] Letter to Sœur de la Barge, 22 October
1689.
[117] Autobiography, n. 53.
[118] Ibid., n. 55.
[119] Sermon on Trust in God, in Œuvres du R.P
de La Colombière, t. 5, Perisse, Lyon, 1854, p.
100.
[120] Spiritual Exercises in London, 1-8
February 1677, in Œuvres du R.P de La Colombière,
t. 7, Seguin, Avignon, 1832, p. 93.
[121] Spiritual Exercises in Lyon,
October-November 1674, ibid., p. 45.
[122] SAINT CHARLES DE FOUCAULD, Letter to
Madame de Bondy, 27 April 1897.
[123] Letter to Madame de Bondy, 28 April 1901.
Cf. Letter to Madame de Bondy, 5 April 1909:
“Through you I came to know the adoration of the
Blessed Sacrament, the benedictions and the
Sacred Heart”.
[124] Letter to Madame de Bondy, 7 April 1890.
[125] Letter to l’Abbé Huvelin, 27 June 1892.
[126] SAINT CHARLES DE FOUCAULD, Méditations sur
l’Ancien Testament (1896-1897), XXX, 1-21.
[127] ID., Letter to l’Abbé Huvelin,16 May 1900.
[128] ID., Diary, 17 May 1906.
[129] Letter 67 to Mme. Guérin, 18 November
1888.
[130] Letter 122 to Céline, 14 October 1890.
[131] Poem 23, “To the Sacred Heart of Jesus”,
June or October 1895.
[132] Letter 247 to l’Abbé Maurice Bellière, 21
June 1897.
[133] Last Conversations. Yellow Notebook, 11
July 1897, 6.
[134] Letter 197 to Sister Marie of the Sacred
Heart, 17 September 1896. This does not mean
that Therese did not offer sacrifices, sorrows
and troubles as a way of associating herself
with the suffering of Christ, but that, in the
end, she was concerned not to give these
offerings an importance they did not have.
[135] Letter 142 to Céline, 6 July 1893.
[136] Letter 191 to Léonie, 12 July 1896.
[137] Letter 226 to Father Roulland, 9 May 1897.
[138] Letter 258 to l’Abbé Maurice Bellière, 18
July 1897.
[139] Cf. SAINT IGNATIUS LOYOLA, Spiritual
Exercises, 104.
[140] Ibid., 297.
[141] Cf. Letter to Ignatius Loyola, 23 January
1541.
[142] De Vita P. Ignatii et Societatis Iesu
initiis, ch. 8.
96.
[143] Spiritual Exercises, 54.
[144] Ibid., 230ff.
[145] THIRTY-THIRD GENERAL CONGREGATION OF THE
SOCIETY OF JESUS, Decree 46, 1: Institutum
Societatis Iesu, 2, Florence, 1893, 511.
[146] In Him Alone is Our Hope. Texts on the
Heart of Christ, St. Louis, 1984.
[147] Letter to the Superior General of the
Society of Jesus, Paray-le-Monial, 5 October
1986: L’Osservatore Romano, 6 October 1986, p.
7.
[148] Conference to Priests, “Poverty”, 13
August 1655.
[149] Conference to the Daughters of Charity,
“Mortification, Correspondence, Meals and
Journeys (Common Rules , art. 24-27), 9 December
1657.
[150] SAINT DANIELE COMBONI, Gli scritti,
Bologna, 1991, 998 (n. 3324).
[151] Homily at the Mass of Canonization, 18 May
2003: L’Osservatore Romano, 19-20 May 2003, p.
6.
[152] SAINT JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Letter
Dives in Misericordia (30 November 1980), 1: AAS
72 (1980), 1219.
[153] ID., Catechesis, 20 June 1979:
L’Osservatore Romano, 22 June 1979, 1.
[154] COMBONIAN MISSIONARIES OF THE HEART OF
JESUS, Rule of Life, 3.
[155] SOCIETY OF THE SACRED HEART, Constitutions
of 1982, 7.
[156] Encyclical Letter Miserentissimus
Redemptor (8 May 1928): AAS 20 (1928), 174.
[157] The believer’s act of faith has as its
object not simply the doctrine proposed, but
also union with Christ himself in the reality of
his divine life (cf. SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa
Theologiae, II-II, q. 1, a. 2, ad 2; q. 4, a.
1).
[158] PIUS XI, Encyclical Letter Miserentissimus
Redemptor (8 May 1928): AAS 20 (1928), 174.
[159] Homily at the Chrism Mass, 28 March 2024:
L’Osservatore Romano, 28 March 2024, p. 2.
[160] SAINT IGNATIUS LOYOLA, Spiritual Exercises,
203.
[161] Homily at the Chrism Mass, 28 March 2024:
L’Osservatore Romano, 28 March 2024, p. 2.
[162] SAINT MARGARET MARY ALACOQUE,
Autobiography, n. 55.
[163] Letter 133 to Father Croiset.
[164] Autobiography, n. 92.
[165] Encyclical Letter Annum Sacrum (25 May
1899): ASS 31 (1898-1899), 649.
[166] IULIANUS IMP., Ep. XLIX ad Arsacium
Pontificem Galatiae, Mainz, 1828, 90-91.
[167] Ibid.
[168] DICASTERY FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH,
Declaration Dignitas Infinita (2 April 2024),
19: L’Osservatore Romano, 8 April 2024.
[169] Cf. BENEDICT XVI, Letter to the Superior
General of the Society of Jesus on the Fiftieth
Anniversary of the Encyclical “Haurietis Aquas”
(15 May 2006): AAS 98 (2006), 461.
[170] In Num. homil. 12, 1: PG 12, 657.
[171] Epist. 29, 24: PL 16, 1060.
[172] Adv. Arium 1, 8: PL 8, 1044.
[173] Tract. in Joannem 32, 4: PL 35, 1643.
[174] Expos. in Ev. S. Joannis, cap. VII, lectio
5.
[175] PIUS XII, Encyclical Letter Haurietis
Aquas, 15 May 1956: AAS 48 (1956), 321.
[176] SAINT JOHN PAUL II, Encyclical Letter
Redemptoris Mater (25 March 1987), 38: AAS 79
(1987), 411.
[177] SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL,
Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium, 62.
[178] Ibid., 60.
[179] Sermones super Cant., XX, 4: PL 183, 869.
[180] Introduction to the Devout Life, Part III,
xxxv.
[181] Sermon for the XVII Sunday after
Pentecost.
[182] Écrits spirituels, Paris 1947, 67.
[183] After 19 March 1902, all his letters begin
with the words Jesus Caritas separated by a
heart surmounted by the cross.
[184] Letter to l’Abbé Huvelin, 15 July 1904.
[185] Letter to Dom Martin, 25 January 1903.
[186] Cited in RENÉ VOILLAUME , Les fraternités
du Père de Foucauld, Paris, 1946, 173.
[187] Méditations des saints Évangiles sur les
passages relatifs à quinze vertus, Nazareth,
1897-1898, Charité ( Mt 13:3), 60.
[188] Ibid., Charité ( Mt 22:1), 90.
[189] H. HUVELIN, Quelques directeurs d’âmes au
XVII siècle, Paris, 1911, 97.
[190] Conference, “Service of the Sick and Care
of One’s own Health”, 11 November 1657.
[191] Common Rules of the Congregation of the
Mission, 17 May 1658, c. 2, 6.
[192] Letter to the Superior General of the
Society of Jesus, Paray-le-Monial, 5 October
1986: L’Osservatore Romano, 6 October 1986, p.
7.
[193] SAINT JOHN PAUL II, Post-Synodal Apostolic
Exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (2
December 1984), 16: AAS 77 (1985), 215.
[194] Cf. Encyclical Letter Sollicitudo Rei
Socialis (30 December 1987), 36: AAS 80 (1988),
561-562.
[195] Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus (1 May
1991), 41: AAS 83 (1991), 844-845.
[196] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1888.
[197] Catechesis, 8 June 1994, 2: L’Osservatore
Romano, 4 May 1994, p. 5.
[198] Address to the Participants in the
International Colloquium “Réparer L’Irréparable”,
on the 350 th Anniversary of the Apparitions of
Jesus in Paray-le-Monial, 4 May 2024:
L’Osservatore Romano, 4 May 2024, p. 12.
[199] Ibid.
[200] Homily at Morning Mass in Domus Sanctae
Marthae, 6 March 2018: L’Osservatore Romano, 5-6
March 2018, p. 8.
[201] Address to the Participants in the
International Colloquium “Réparer L’Irréparable”,
on the 350 th Anniversary of the Apparitions of
Jesus in Paray-le-Monial, 4 May 2024:
L’Osservatore Romano, 4 May 2024, p. 12.
[202] Homily at the Chrism Mass, 28 March 2024:
L’Osservatore Romano, 28 March 2024, p. 2.
[203] Ibid.
[204] Ibid.
[205] Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ (24 May
2015), 80: AAS 107 (2015), 879.
[206] Catechism of the Catholic Church, No.
1085.
[207] Ibid., No. 268.
[208] Autobiography, n. 53.
[209] Ms A, 84r.
[210] Ibid.
[211] Ibid.
[212] Ms A, 83v.; cf. Letter 226 to Father
Roulland, 9 May 1897.
[213] Act of Oblation to Merciful Love, 9 June
1895, 2r-2v.
[214] Ms B, 3v.
[215] Letter 186 to Léonie, 11 April 1896.
[216] Letter 258 to l’Abbé Bellière, 18 July
1897.
[217] Cf. PIUS XI, Encyclical Letter
Miserentissimus Redemptor, 8 May 1928: AAS 20
(1928), 169.
[218] Ibid.: AAS 20 (1928), 172.
[219] SAINT JOHN PAUL II , Catechesis, 20 June
1979: L’Osservatore Romano, 22 June 1979, p. 1.
[220] Homily at Mass in Domus Sanctae Marthae,
27 June 2014: L’Osservatore Romano, 28 June
2014, p. 8.
[221] Message for the Centenary of the
Consecration of the Human Race to the Divine
Heart of Jesus, Warsaw, 11 June 1999, Solemnity
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. L’Osservatore
Romano, 12 June 1999, p. 5.
[222] Ibid.
[223] Letter to the Archbishop of Lyon on the
occasion of the Pilgrimage of Paray-le-Monial
for the Centenary of the Consecration of the
Human Race to the Divine Heart of Jesus, 4 June
1999: L’Osservatore Romano, 12 June 1999, p. 4.
[224] Conference, “Repetition of Prayer”, 22
August 1655.
[225] Letter Diserti interpretes (25 May 1965),
4: Enchiridion della Vita Consacrata, Bologna-Milano,
2001, n. 3809.
[226] Vita Nuova XIX, 5-6: “I declare that, in
thinking of its worth, love so sweet makes me
feel that, if my courage did not fail me, I
would speak out and make everyone else fall in
love”.
[227] Ms A, 45v.
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