The Heart of Pope Francis and the Sacred Heart

Why did Pope Francis write an encyclical on the Sacred Heart? How does it advance the discourse beyond the contributions of Miserentissimus Redemptor by Piux XI[1] and, especially, Haurietis Aquas (HA) by Pius XII?[2] Does it add substantively to the rich corpus on Sacred Heart devotion beyond offering his own florilegium of citations from known and less known saints, papal predecessors, and thinkers like Karl Rahner, Martin Heidegger, or Charles de Foucauld?

Early commentators have been divided. One found that “with the possible exception of criticizing images of the Sacred Heart detached from the body, nothing seems particularly new.” Others highlight the Pope’s “scathing criticism of modern societies” with their “excessive focus on rationality, technology, ‘unhealthy individualism,’ market dynamics, cellphones and social media” (New York Times), or the Pope’s calling “the faithful to embody Christ’s heart of love and service in their daily lives, emphasizing the transformative power of the Holy Spirit” (National Catholic Register),[3] or even his references to food (Catholic News Agency). When the pope proposes “to the whole Church renewed reflection on the love of Christ represented in his Sacred Heart” (§89),[4] does “renewed” simply mean “repeated,” or is there something truly innovative?

This essay contends that Pope Francis does indeed introduce significant novelties, particularly by framing Sacred Heart devotion within principles that emerge as keys for his pontificate: interconnectedness, harmony, and integrality.[5]

Francis re-presents Sacred Heart devotion in the face of specific contemporary challenges such as artificial intelligence (DN §§14, 20), social media, or a frenetic lifestyle (§84), symptoms of deeper problems, principally fragmentation and individualism (§§10, 17). The pope is convinced that renewal of the Church and society at large cannot be resolved simply by structural reforms or social activism (§§88–89) but flow change from within the human person: by overcoming interior fragmentation and broken relations to restore harmony and integrality on a larger scale. In Dilexit Nos, Francis presents Christ’s Sacred Heart as the source of this integrality, through a three-step process: updating the notion of the heart, proposing a relational anthropology, and outlining an integral vision of love.

A New Concept of the Heart

In the first chapter of the encyclical, Francis shows how in antiquity it was common “to consider the human being not simply a sum of different faculties but a microcosm of soul and body with a unifying center that provides a backdrop of meaning and direction to all that a person experiences” (§3). This center was called the heart, where every person “creates one’s own synthesis,” “has the source and root of one’s powers, convictions, passions, and choices” (§9), shapes one’s “spiritual identity” and enters “in communion with other persons” (§14).[6] Notice that the heart is here presented both as a person’s center and as the “interior principle that provides unity and harmony in one’s being and acting” (§9).

Francis contrasts this with the fact that “the heart has held hardly any place in anthropology, and for the great philosophical tradition it turned out to be a foreign notion. . . . This might be because it was not easy to situate it among the ‘clear and distinct’ ideas”—an allusion to Descartes—“or because of the difficulty implied in knowing oneself” (§10). The Pope ponders further reasons:

Perhaps because encountering the other has not been registered as a way of encountering oneself, inasmuch as one’s way of thinking leads again to an unhealthy individualism. Many felt safe constructing their systems of thought in the more readily controllable domain of intellect and will. Without finding a place for the heart, as distinct from the human powers and passions viewed in isolation from one another, neither was the idea of a personal center developed, in which the only reality that can unify all the others is ultimately love (ibid.).

The preeminently analytical approach of modern thought and science and the subsequent compartmentalization of knowledge and, hence, of the human being and life lead to these deficiencies.[7] On multiple occasions Pope Francis has emphasized the need to overcome fragmented views of reality and of human life, and here he identifies the root of the problem: “falta corazón [the heart is missing]” (§8; cf. 22).[8] “Heart,” in his view, is “the innermost core of our personality” which “allows us to understand ourselves in our integrity [or wholeness] and not merely under one isolated aspect” (§15). Precisely because of its traditional absence in philosophical anthropology, in stark contrast to its ubiquity in Sacred Scripture and spiritual theology (not to mention poetry, art, etc.), “heart” should now become “an important word for philosophy and theology in their efforts to reach an integrating synthesis” and cannot be described exhaustively by any science (ibid.).[9]

Surprisingly, the extensive structural account of the human person developed by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa theologiae does not include the heart, which goes a long way to explaining its absence in much of Catholic anthropology. Dietrich von Hildebrand famously advocated for introducing the concept into philosophy but defines it more narrowly as the “tender affective center” of the human soul.[10] While Pope Francis acknowledges a “popular sense” of the heart as the affective center (§61), his biblically grounded view describes the heart not as another faculty but rather as the integral-integrative center, not only of the soul but of the whole person, where we are fully ourselves (cf. §21) and from where we relate to others and love (§§14, 53; see also CCC §2563). To develop this view philosophically in a systematic way will be a task for future scholarship.[11]

However, the late Holy Father is not primarily interested in enriching academic discourse. A lack of appreciation for the heart also leads to “devalue what it means to speak from the heart, to act with the heart, to mature and heal the heart.” Moreover, “we miss the answers that the mind alone cannot give; we miss out on the encounter with others; we miss out on poetry”—recall here Francis’ letter about the importance of literature for formation; “we also miss out on history and our own stories, since our real personal adventure is built with the heart. At the end of our lives, that alone will matter” (§11, cf. 18–19)—an idea explored further by Francis’ letter about the study of history. Exploring the heart as the place where all human faculties and their habits (virtues and vices, e.g., §§5–6) and operations (such as thinking, remembering, feeling, choosing, and acting) converge, emerge from, are integrated (§§13, 15, 24), and where we also get connected with the hearts of others “which help one to be a ‘you’” (§12, cf. 17–18) makes it also the place of full (or integral) human experience (§§20–21) and prepares the proper understanding of the most important concept in the encyclical indicated by its first word: love (§§10, 16, 21, 23).[12] Yet to understand love, we first need to realize the importance of relatedness for the human person.

A Relational Anthropology

Dilexit Nos is by far not the first text in which Pope Francis speaks about relations and interrelatedness. In his encyclical Laudato Si’, he had already extensively developed the key principle that “everything is related/connected” (§§16, 70, 91, 92, 117, 120, 137, 142, 240).

In the context of the human being, this means to acknowledge the relevance of relationality for who we are as persons. This idea was first proposed by Joseph Ratzinger in his Introduction to Christianity (pp. 181–190) and expanded recently in Communio: International Catholic Review. With the unchangeable essence of our individualized nature as basis, we become who we are by relating to other beings and, more specifically, to other persons (cf. §18). Pope Francis builds on Ratzinger’s intuition and applies it to the various levels of human life and society. While Laudato Si’ focused primarily on the importance of the horizontal dimension of our exterior relations to other human beings, society, and to the natural and cultural environment,[13] Dilexit Nos explores the vertical dimension of interior relations within the human person. It focuses on the heart, which lies at their core and is also the place for the personal relationship with God (§25). Despite its “ontological dignity,” our heart is “frail and wounded” and needs healing and “help from divine love”; only if the heart is “healthy,” only when one is in harmony with God and interiorly unified can the exterior relations be healthy and harmonious as well (§30).

This anthropology allows us to acknowledge the bodily and emotional dimension of the person as fully human. At times, these were considered as “sub-human” (§63), in part due to the Aristotelian-Thomistic vision of the person, with its division into vegetative, sensitive, and rational powers. The first two levels of powers are analogous but not identical with those of plants or animals. In the human person, they are indivisibly interconnected and intertwined with rational powers. The point has been made that describing a person as a “rational animal” may therefore be misleading.[14] We are looking at the integral reality of interrelated powers and operations within the person which relate to the outside through giving and receiving. All these relations are coordinated and integrated by the heart.

In the face of the brokenness of all our interior and exterior relations due to sin (CCC §400), devotion to the Sacred Heart allows us to learn from Christ’s heart how our relations can recover their original harmony (CCC §374–378), adding a new dimension to John Henry Newman’s famous expression Cor ad cor loquitur (DN §26). The encyclical’s second chapter spells this out especially regarding our relationships with God and with others (§§32–46).

However, if this learning consisted in a mere mental understanding and choosing according to Christ’s heart and words, we might stay on the level of a “self-sufficient moralism,” because “the heart alone is capable of setting the other powers and passions and our whole person in an attitude of loving reverence and obedience before the Lord” (§27, cf. 30). Moreover, a Sacred Heart piety that consists of external acts such as venerating images or reciting litanies and is not personally and intimately connected with Christ’s heart, risks to remain individualistic. This would lead to a contradiction, for “the heart of Christ is ‘ecstasy,’ reaching out, gift, and encounter.” In him “we become capable of relating ourselves in a healthy and happy way, of building in this world the Kingdom of love and justice” (§28);[15] “in the burning furnace of divine and human love” we “learn how to love” (§30).

These considerations allow us to appreciate the full weight of the Pope’s affirmation at the conclusion of his first chapter, that “the Sacred Heart is the unifying principle of all reality,”—it brings together and harmonizes everything, our interior and exterior relations—and it is “the center for history,” rendering it “history of salvation” (§31). And this does not occur by mere remembering Christ’s past life but through real contact with him (§154, based on Aquinas cited in footnote 157).

For the remainder of the encyclical, the Pope discusses three aspects of relations (§91, 163): the personal relationship with God (§§102–162), the relationship with others through charity (§§164–204), and an intersection between both by bringing others to God, called “missionary commitment” (§§91, 205–216). All these are perfected through the prism of an integral love that comes from a heart transformed and inflamed by Christ’s heart.

Relations of Integral Love

Associating heart and love is a commonplace across cultures (§53) and has been the foundation for the Sacred Heart devotion from its beginnings (§§48, 54, 99).[16] If the (spiritual) heart is, so to speak, the “organ” with which we love, or better (as it is in fact not a separate organ, see §55) the seat of love, then knowing our heart reveals much about our love, and knowing Christ’s heart in turn reveals us about his and the Father’s love. This is the path the Pope suggests by first explaining what the heart is so as to grasp better what love properly understood is.

Conceiving the heart as integrating the whole person’s operations leads to a notion of love that is integral as well. It includes affection, passion, or emotion, in addition to other elements. Francis writes:

Everything is unified in the heart, which can be the seat of love with the totality of its spiritual, psychic as well as physical components. For sure, if love reigns there, a person acquires one’s identity in a full and luminous way, for every human being has been created above all for love, made in the most intimate fibers of one’s being to love and to be loved (§21, cf. 166).

Being rooted and active in a person’s innermost center, true love is the most properly human and integral act: the whole person is engaged (§§15, 21, 55), and love takes on a “total” character (§§131, 151, 177, 201). Without attempting a systematic exposition, Francis points to certain characteristics and manifestations of a love that is integral: tender closeness and companionship, openness and compassion (§§34–38, 100, 203), seeing and appreciating the whole person one encounters and giving them one’s full attention (§§39–42), wishing them well (§174), having and showing affection towards others (§§44–45) and especially giving oneself (§§164, 171, 195, 201, 206) in a way that is without limits (§§90, 130), is marked by humility (§§202-203), charity (§§119–120), and suffering (§§46, 124, 151–162), and leads to the transformation of others (§§132, 134, 138, 144).

Opposed to love are individualism, narcissism, self-referentiality, or isolation (§17), hate, indifference, and selfishness (§59), social alienation (§183), and materialistic consumerism (§218), all of which represent distorted or broken relationships. Sacred Heart devotion now has the potential to lead us to the fullness of our existence and relations as soon as it teaches us to give ourselves to God and others in love: “we cannot attain our full humanity unless we go out of ourselves, and we will not become fully ourselves unless we love” (§59). The power of Christ’s heart (and its visual representation) consists in its ability to kindle in us integral love, which involves the whole person: body and soul, including the emotions (§§60–62). This is possible because in Christ’s heart we can experience a triple love: both bodily and spiritual human love as well as divine love, all harmoniously united (DN §§65–66; HA §§40, 54–61).

This is expressed not only through Christ’s pierced heart on the cross, but rather through his whole life (§51, already spelled out in HA §§62–78). This love continues to be directed towards each one of us today (DN §§51, 153, 156; cf. HA §§79–87). The open heart of Christ shows that he has loved us first, but also that he receives our love for him, that the relationship of love between each one of us and him is truly mutual (§69). Thus, his heart constitutes a “sublime synthesis” for all our faith experiences and acts of worship (cf. §§79, 83; HA §86) and is also present in the Eucharist (DN §§26, 57, 84–85; HA §§69–71, 122).

For us to learn integral love from the Sacred Heart, Pope Francis sees the need to purge this (and any) devotion from spiritualistic, legalistic, formalistic, and merely sentimental tendencies. It cannot be “abstract or stylized” because the image of the Sacred Heart “speaks to us about human flesh, about earth” and therefore about a God who “wished to become history and share our early journey” (§58). Francis identifies secular forms of “disembodied spirituality” as well as gnostic trends and external-structural activism even within the Church (§§87–88), characterized by the absence of a “personal relationship with a God of love” (§87, emphasis added) as successors of the Jansenist heresy. Those caught up in this trap do not even realize it nor yearn for a cure, and so, the Pope proposes the remedy of an exposure to the loving heart of Christ in a new way (§89).

True devotion of the Sacred Heart of Christ takes place first by loving Christ and receiving his love personally and integrally (§50). It perceives, from the vantage point of his heart, the beauty and love that radiate through his whole body and personality. Christ has “a gaze that calls to encounter, dialogue, trust; he has strong hands capable of sustaining us; he has a mouth that directs his word towards us in a unique and most personal way” (§§54–55). The concrete practices of Sacred Heart devotion should be an answer to Christ’s personal love, a response “which arises spontaneously” in the heart of the believer instead of “a heavy search for sacrifices or in the mere fulfillment of a burdensome duty” (§166).

Secondly, a preferred way of returning Christ’s love consists in loving and serving our brothers and sisters. This is an aspect that previous documents on this devotion only mentioned cursorily (e.g., HA §§107, 116–123). Pope Francis challenges us: “Would it perhaps please the Heart that so loved us if we stayed in an intimate religious experience without fraternal and social consequences?” (§205). At the same time, he warns against going about social justice from a mere horizontal understanding. In his words:

Love for our brothers and sisters cannot be produced, it is not simply the result of our natural efforts; it requires the transformation of our selfish hearts. Hence arises spontaneously the famous petition: “Jesus, make our hearts more like yours.” Saint Paul, for the same reason, did not invite: “make an effort to do good works,” but “have among you the same sentiments of Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5) (§168; cf. 205).

Instead of being motivated by political or ideological considerations or by the desire to feel good by doing good, Christ has changed the world by bringing this new principle into human history “according to which a human being is the more ‘worthy’ of respect and love, the more he or she is weak, miserable, and suffering, even to the point of losing one’s human ‘figure’” (§170), as highlighted in the recent document by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Dignitas infinita. The necessary connection between social service and integral love that comes from the heart has always been practiced by the saints, but the Pope now points it out explicitly (§§172–180). In this context also falls an expanded understanding of “reparation” (§§181–204), a key concept in traditional Sacred Heart devotion. Reparation often meant offering sacrifices to console the wounded heart of Christ (through pious practices such as prayers, fasting, evoking sentiments of love when contemplating his passion, etc.). These have their value, but the most fitting reparation consists 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. The sacrifices and sufferings required by these acts of love of neighbor unite us to the passion of Christ. (§§200–201)

Christian reparation is the actual repairing of our broken world, but it “needs the life, the fire, and the light that radiate from the heart of Christ.” The loving Heart of Jesus itself “teaches us to love” by converting our heart. This leads us to fight against structural evils in society, as well as to try and heal the interior wounds of people’s hearts by simple actions, such as that of asking for pardon (§§183–190). In this way, interpersonal relations can be restored through the bond of fraternal charity (§189). St. Thérèse of Lisieux features as a prominent witness for this approach (§§195–199).

Thirdly, this broken world cannot be truly healed without bringing people to a “blessed encounter with that love of Christ that embraces and saves” (§208). Pope Francis calls this the “missionary dimension of our love for the heart of Christ” (§205). It “requires missionaries who are in love, who let themselves still be captivated by Christ and who necessarily share this love that has changed their lives.” Their main concern is “that the others can perceive the goodness and beauty of the Beloved” (§209). Making it easy for the other to love Christ has nothing to do with proselytism but is a simple sharing of one’s love, without being ashamed of Christ’s love. It shows in the way we love each other (§§210–212). The Pope challenges our parishes, families, and other communities to attract the world by exuding such a compelling love. In this, we do not need to be afraid because Jesus himself travels this path with us, and the devotion to his heart can make all of this real. “Only his love will make a new humanity possible” (§219) and “harmonize all our differences” (§220).

For Pope Francis, therefore, “integral” is the new touchstone: “The Christian message is attractive when it can be lived and manifested in its integrality” (§205). Such integral living presupposes that not just our thinking or feeling but our whole personality is centered in and aligned according to the heart, a heart that is transformed by the heart of Christ. Such a heart is then capable of integral or true love. Love is no longer reduced to sentimental, sexual, emotional or spiritualistic forms. Christ teaches us that it is personal, focused on the good of the other, unconditional, ready to suffer, and real in serving by giving to the other person the best one can give. In the Biblical sense of the word, such total self-giving means giving one’s heart. And that we can do because God has loved us first, whole-heartedly.

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