{"id":2071,"date":"2024-12-01T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-01T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vaticanfiles.org\/?p=2071"},"modified":"2024-11-20T14:27:33","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T13:27:33","slug":"vf235","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vaticanfiles.org\/fr\/2024\/12\/vf235\/","title":{"rendered":"235. More than the heart of Jesus, the heart of Roman Catholicism. On the latest encyclical of Pope Francis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


Dilexit Nos<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(DN, \u201cHe loved us,\u201d a quotation from Romans 8:37) is the fourth encyclical of Francis’ pontificate signed on 24th<\/sup>\u00a0October. After 2013’s\u00a0Lumen Fidei<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(The Light of Faith<\/em>, although written by Benedict XVI and thus not his brainchild), 2015’s\u00a0Laudato si’<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Praise Be to You<\/em>) on environmental issues, and 2020’s\u00a0All Brothers<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on universal fraternity, DN takes its cue from the Roman Catholic devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus to elaborate a more general reflection on the heart, affections, and compassion in a world full of evils.
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The encyclical consists of 5 chapters, which are made up of 220 paragraphs, and it comes out while the celebration of the 350th anniversary of the first manifestation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque is still underway. Not surprisingly, the text mentions Jesus’ apparitions in Paray-le-Monial (France) between late December 1673 and June 1675. Francis also names some mystics particularly connected to this devotion: Therese of Lisieux (1873-1897) and Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938). The encyclical stitches together biblical reflections, patristic quotations, historical examples, and devotional practices that all converge at times on the human heart, other times on the heart of Christ, and always on the devotion of the \u201csacred heart.\u201d
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Devotion to the Sacred Heart is pervasive in Roman Catholic spirituality. Images of the bleeding heart, dedicated processions, mystical writings, collective imagery, and iconography in churches are all spaces imbued with this relatively modern tradition. Even the prestigious Catholic University of Milan is named after the Sacred Heart. This is to say that DN grafts onto very fertile ground for Roman Catholicism, which the pope evidently wants to enhance further.
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In DN, the whole movement of Roman Catholicism can be seen in the watermark: there is some biblical quotation that is then elaborated in practices that take leave from the Bible as they go to focus on images and devotions that seek to \u201cactualize\u201d the biblical message. Through recourse, further revelations shift attention away from the biblical Christ and onto the Christ imagined by the church and mediated by it.
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In DN, the biblical starting point flows into popular piety. The message of Scripture is blurred to make room for the world of devotions. Moreover, for the pope, popular piety is the\u00a0\u201cimmune system of the church,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0instead of being considered an excrescence to be always kept in check and treated with biblical antidotes.
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St. Margaret Mary Alacoque herself, who initiated the devotion of the Sacred Heart, tells of revelations that led her to corporal mortifications (self-flagellation, sticking needles, ingesting other people’s vomit, etc.), encouragement to devote herself to the cult of Our Lady, and even to the heart of Mary (No. 176). Well, Pope Francis recalls with approval that Pius XII in 1956 stated that \u201cthe worship of the Sacred Heart expresses in an excellent way, as a sublime synthesis, our worship of Jesus Christ\u201d (No. 79) and that it is even \u201ca synthesis of the Gospel\u201d (No. 83). Perhaps it is a synthesis of the Roman Catholic gospel, but certainly not the biblical gospel! Indeed, DN gives voice to the Roman Catholic account of the \u201cSacred Heart,\u201d not Jesus\u2019 heart as the Bible presents it to us.
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This brief introduction to DN is worth concluding with a reference to a work almost contemporaneous with the Catholic apparitions of the Sacred Heart and the beginning of its devotion. The work is entitled\u00a0The Heart of Christ in Heaven toward Sinners on Earth<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and was first published in 1651. It became the most popular work of the Puritan Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680).
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Here, we find an excellent example of what it means to meditate on the heart of Christ biblically without giving room for spurious and misguided devotions. In the book, Goodwin sets out to show from the Scriptures that, in all His heavenly majesty, Christ is not now detached from believers and indifferent but has a very strong affection for them. Goodwin begins with the beautiful assurances given by Christ to His disciples, taking as an example of this love the washing of Christ’s feet (John 13). The heart of his argument, however, lies in the exposition of Hebrews 4:15, in which Goodwin shows that, in all His glorious holiness in heaven, Christ is not unkind toward His people; if anything, His heart beats stronger than ever with tender love for them.
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Instead of the \u201csacred heart\u201d of\u00a0Dilexit Nos<\/em>, so hopelessly steeped in traditions and practices that are contrary to the gospel, we need to know and experience the heart of Jesus as the Bible (sola Scriptura<\/em>!) presents it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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