‘He Loved Us’: Pope Francis' new encyclical on the Sacred Heart of Jesus

By Alessandro Di Bussolo

“‘He loved us’, Saint Paul says of Christ (cf. Rom 8:37), in order to make us realize that nothing can ever “separate us” from that love (Rom 8:39)”: Thus begins Pope Francis’ fourth Encyclical, which takes its title from the opening words, Dilexit nos.

The Encyclical is dedicated to the human and divine love of the Heart of Jesus Christ: “His open heart has gone before us and waits for us, unconditionally, asking only to offer us His love and friendship,” the Pope writes in the introductory paragraph. “For ‘He loved us first’ (cf. 1 Jn 4:10). Because of Jesus, ‘we have come to know and believe in the love that God has for us’ (1 Jn 4:16).” Read the full text here.

The love of Christ represented in His Sacred Heart

In our societies, the Pope writes, “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” (87), while Christianity often forgets “the tender consolations of faith, the joy of serving others, the fervour of personal commitment to mission” (88).

In response, Pope Francis proposes a new reflection on the love of Christ represented in His Holy Heart. He calls for a renewal of “authentic devotion” (163) to the Sacred Heart, recalling that in the Heart of Christ “we find the whole Gospel” (89). It is in His Heart that “we truly come at last to know ourselves and we learn to love” (30).

The world seems to have lost its heart

Pope Francis explains that by encountering the love of Christ, “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,” noting the relationship between Dilexit nos and his social Encyclicals Laudato si' and Fratelli tutti (217).

And “in the presence of the Heart of Christ," he asks the Lord “to have mercy on this suffering world” and pour upon it “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: the heart” (31).

When announcing the preparation of the document at the end of the General Audience on June 5, the Pope clarified that it would do us great good to meditate on various aspects of the Lord’s love, which can illuminate the path of ecclesial renewal, and say something meaningful to a world that seems to have lost its heart.”

This encyclical comes as celebrations are underway for the 350th anniversary of the first manifestation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1673; the anniversary celebrations will conclude on 27 June 2025.

The importance of returning to the heart

Opening with a brief introduction and divided into five chapters, the Encyclical on the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus incorporates, as announced in June, “the precious reflections of previous Magisterial texts and a long history that goes back to the Sacred Scriptures, in order to re-propose today, to the whole Church, this devotion imbued with spiritual beauty.”

The first chapter, “The Importance of the Heart,” explains why it is necessary to “return to the heart” in a world where we are tempted to become “insatiable consumers and slaves to the mechanisms of the market” (2). It analyzes what we mean by “heart”: the Bible speaks of it as a core “that lies hidden beneath all outward appearances” (4), a place where what is shown on the outside or hidden doesn’t matter; there, we are truly ourselves (6). The heart leads to questions that matter: what meaning do I want for my life, my choices, or my actions? Who am I before God (8)?

The Pope points out that the current “depreciation” of the heart originated in Hellenic and pre-Christian rationalism, in post-Christian idealism, and in materialism in its various guises” where great philosophical thought prioritized concepts like “reason, will, or freedom.”

“The failure to make room for the heart… has resulted in a stunting of the idea of a personal centre, in which love, in the end, is the one reality that can unify all the others” (10), the Pope writes.

For Pope Francis, it is important to recognize that “I am my heart, for my heart is what sets me apart, shapes my spiritual identity and puts me in communion with other people” (14).

‘The world can change beginning from the heart’

It is the heart that unites the fragments and “makes all authentic bonding possible, since a relationship not shaped by the heart is incapable of overcoming the fragmentation caused by individualism” (17).

The spirituality of saints like Ignatius of Loyola (accepting the Lord’s friendship is a matter of the heart) and Saint John Henry Newman (the Lord saves us by speaking to our heart from His Sacred Heart) teaches us, writes Pope Francis, that “before the Heart of Jesus, living and present, our mind, enlightened by the Spirit, grows in the understanding of His words” (27). This has social consequences, as “the world can change beginning with the heart” (28).

‘Actions and words of love’

The second chapter is dedicated to the actions and words of love of Christ. The acts by which He treats us as friends and shows that God “is closeness, compassion, and tender love” are evident in His encounters with the Samaritan woman, Nicodemus, the prostitute, the adulterous woman, and the blind man on the road (35).

His gaze, which “plumbs the depths of your heart” (39), shows “how attentive Jesus was to individuals and above all to their problems and needs” (40), in such a way “as to admire the good things He recognizes in us”—as He recognized the good in the centurion—even if others ignore them (41).

His most eloquent word of love is “being nailed to the Cross,” after having wept for His friend Lazarus and suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane, aware of His violent death “at the hands of those whom He had loved so greatly” (45, 46).

The mystery of a heart that loved so much

In the third chapter, “This is the heart that has loved so greatly,” the Pope recalls how the Church reflects and has reflected on “the holy mystery of the Lord’s Sacred Heart.” He refers to Pius XII’s Encyclical Haurietis aquas, on the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (1956). He clarifies that “devotion to the Heart of Christ is not the veneration of a single organ apart from the Person of Jesus,” because we adore “the whole Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, represented by an image that accentuates His heart” (48).

The image of the heart of flesh helps us contemplate that the love of the Heart of Jesus Christ not only understands divine charity but also extends to human affection (61). His Heart, Pope Francis continues, quoting Pope Benedict XVI, contains a “threefold love”: the sensitive love of His physical heart and His twofold spiritual love, both human and divine, in which we find “the infinite in the finite” (67).

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a synthesis of the Gospel

The Pope clarifies that the visions of some saints, particularly devoted to the Heart of Christ, “are rich sources of encouragement and can prove greatly beneficial,” but “are not something the faithful are obliged to believe as if they were the Word of God.”

At the same time, he reminds us, along with Pope Pius XII, that this devotion “cannot be said ‘to owe its origin to private revelations.’” Rather, “devotion to Christ’s heart is essential for our Christian life to the extent that it expresses our openness in faith and adoration to the mystery of the Lord’s divine and human love” and “in this sense, we can once more affirm that the Sacred Heart is a synthesis of the Gospel” (83).

The Pope calls for renewing devotion to the Heart of Christ, especially to counter “new manifestations of a disembodied spirituality” that are multiplying in society (87). It is essential, he says, to return to “the incarnate synthesis of the Gospel” (90) in the face of “communities and pastors excessively caught up in external activities, structural reforms that have little to do with the Gospel, obsessive reorganization plans, worldly projects, secular ways of thinking and mandatory programmes” (88).

The experience of ‘a love that gives itself as drink’

In the last two chapters, Pope Francis highlights two aspects that devotion to the Sacred Heart should unite to “to nourish us and bring us closer to the Gospel”: personal spiritual experience, and community and missionary commitment.

In the fourth chapter, “A love that gives itself as drink,” he revisits the Scriptures, and with the early Christians, recognizes Christ and His pierced side in “the one whom they have pierced,” a prophecy from the book of Zechariah in which God refers to Himself as an open fountain for the people, to quench their thirst for God’s love, “to cleanse them from sin and impurity” (95).

Various Church Fathers have mentioned “the wounded side of Jesus as the source of the water of the Holy Spirit”—especially St. Augustine, who “opened the way to devotion to the Sacred Heart as the locus of our personal encounter with the Lord” (103).

Gradually, this wounded side, recalls the Pope, “began to be associated with His Heart” (109) and he lists several holy women who “in recounting their experiences of encounter with Christ, have spoken of resting in the heart of the Lord as the source of life and interior peace (110).”

Among the modern devotees, the encyclical first mentions St. Francis de Sales, who presents his spiritual proposal with “a single heart pierced by two arrows,” (118).

Apparitions to St Margaret Mary Alacoque

Under the influence of this spirituality, St Margaret Mary Alacoque recounted the apparitions of Jesus at Paray-le-Monial, between the end of December 1673 and June 1675. The core of the message conveyed to us can be summed up in the words heard by St Margaret: “This is the heart that so loved human beings that it has spared nothing, even to emptying and consuming itself in order to show them its love” (121).

Therese of Lisieux, Ignatius of Loyola and Faustina Kowalska

Dilexit nos goes on to speak of St Therese of Lisieux, who described Jesus as the One “whose heart beats in unison with my own” (134); and of her letters to Sister Marie, which help avoid focusing the devotion to the Sacred Heart on suffering, “since some had presented reparation primarily in terms of accumulating sacrifices and good works.” Instead, “Therese, for her part, presents confidence as the greatest and best offering, pleasing to the heart of Christ” (138).

Pope Francis also dedicates several passages of the encyclical to the place of the Sacred Heart in the history of the Society of Jesus, emphasizing that in his Spiritual Exercises, St Ignatius of Loyola suggests to those following the method “to enter into the Heart of Christ” in a heart-to-heart dialogue.

In September 1871, he notes, Father Pieter Jan Beckx consecrated the Society to the Sacred Heart of Jesus; and Father Pedro Arrupe did so again in 1972 (146).

The experiences of St Faustina Kowalska, Pope Francis recalled, re-proposed the devotion “by greatly emphasizing the glorious life of the risen Lord and his divine mercy”; and motivated by these reflections, St John Paul II also “intimately linked his reflections on divine mercy with devotion to the Heart of Christ” (149).

Speaking of the “devotion of consolation,” the Encyclical explains that seeing the signs of the Passion preserved by the heart of the Risen One, “it is natural, then, that the faithful should wish to respond not only to this immense outpouring of love, but also to the suffering that the Lord chose to endure for the sake of that love” (151).

Pope Francis also asks “that no one make light of the fervent devotion of the holy faithful people of God, which in its popular piety seeks to console Christ” (160). God, he says, “offers us consolation ‘so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction, with the consolation by which we ourselves are consoled by God’” (162).

Devotion to the Heart of Christ sends us to the brethren

The fifth and final chapter of the Encyclical, “Love for Love,” develops the communitarian, social, and missionary dimension of any authentic devotion to the Heart of Christ, which, as it “leads us to the Father,” also “sends us forth to our brothers and sisters” (163). Indeed, love for one’s brothers and sisters is the greatest gesture we can offer Him “to return love for love” (166).

Looking at the history of spirituality, the Pope recalls that St. Charles de Foucauld's missionary commitment made him a “universal brother”: “Allowing himself to be shaped by the heart of Christ, he sought to shelter the whole of suffering humanity in his fraternal heart” (179).

Pope Francis then speaks of “reparation”: as St. John Paul II explained, “by entrusting ourselves together to the heart of Christ, ‘over the ruins accumulated by hatred and violence, the greatly desired civilization of love, the Kingdom of the heart of Christ, can be built’” (182).

The mission to make the world fall in love

The Encyclical recalls again with St. John Paul II that “Consecration to the heart of Christ is thus ‘to be seen in relation to the Church’s missionary activity, since it responds to the desire of Jesus’ heart to spread throughout the world, through the members of His Body, His complete commitment to the Kingdom.’ As a result, ‘through the witness of Christians, ‘love will be poured into human hearts, to build up the body of Christ, which is the Church, and to build a society of justice, peace and fraternity” (206).

To avoid the great risk, underlined by Saint Paul VI, “amid all the things we say and do, we fail to bring about a joyful encounter with the love of Christ who embraces us and saves us” (208), we need “missionaries who are themselves in love and who, enthralled by Christ, feel bound to share this love that has changed their lives” (209).

The Prayer of Pope Francis

The text concludes with this prayer of Pope Francis:

“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” (220).