Pope Francis offers a letter on the devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, from his meditations and appeals in June, the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart, in advance of the anniversary of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque’s December vision of Christ’s heart of burning charity. See his letter, Delixit nos, here.
From the letter:
‘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’ (§2).
But ‘the heart continues to be seen in the popular mind as the affective centre of each human being, so it remains the best means of signifying the divine love of Christ, united forever and inseparably to His wholly human love’ (§61).
‘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’ (§11).
‘The heart makes all authentic bonding possible, since a relationship not shaped by the heart is incapable of overcoming the fragmentation caused by individualism… 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. As a result, we also become incapable of openness to God’ (§17).
Over these ruins wracked by selfishness, division, and hatred, Saint John Paul explained that by entrusting ourselves together to the heart of Christ, “the greatly desired civilization of love, the Kingdom of the heart of Christ, can be built” (§182). ‘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’ (§182).
‘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’ (§205).
Let us begin by working on our own hearts, with Pope Benedict XVI’s suggestion, ‘to recognize in the heart of Christ an intimate and daily presence in our lives: “Every person needs a ‘centre’ for their 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” (§81).
We can work on our hearts in Eucharistic Adoration, where Saint John Henry Newman ‘encountered the living heart of Jesus, capable of setting us free, giving meaning to each moment of our lives, and bestowing true peace’ (§26) and offered this prayer:
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.