Chapter Five of Dilexit Nos
This is the sixth in a series of reflections by Nathaniel Marx on the final encyclical letter of Pope Francis, Dilexit Nos.
The Summary of the Law
“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’” (DN 166). Thus, without knowing that his successor would also choose the same name, Pope Francis took inspiration from Pope Leo for the final chapter of his final encyclical letter.
Francis conveys a clear message by quoting his predecessor’s encyclical on the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Christ’s human and divine love calls us to fraternal love. While deeply personal, devotion to the Sacred Heart is not private or individual. The same must be said of all authentic teaching about Christian love.
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 neighbor 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).
(DN 167)
Given the imperative of fraternal love that the Scriptures make “patently clear,” it is not surprising that Francis found it necessary to intervene just a month before his death in “the major crisis that is taking place in the United States with the initiation of a program of mass deportation.”1 His message to the bishops of the United States cites his earlier encyclical on human fraternity, Fratelli Tutti, but it also echoes Dilexit Nos in the corrective it offers to distorted notions of an ordo amoris:
Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. In other words: the human person is not a mere individual, relatively expansive, with some philanthropic feelings! The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in his identity and vocation.2
Caring for vulnerable migrants is “not a minor issue,” Francis says, because “authentic rule of law” is founded on obedience to the commandment that sums up the whole of God’s law (cf. Gal 5:14).3
Love in the Ruins
Chapter five of Dilexit Nos suggests that fraternal love is too often treated as a “minor issue” in both politics and spirituality. On the one hand, it is easy for people who enjoy relative safety and comfort to ignore or belittle the “structures of sin” that benefit them at the expense of others. “Frequently, this is part of a dominant mind-set that considers normal or reasonable what is merely selfishness and indifference” (DN 183).
On the other hand, many pious Christians denigrate efforts to repair “alienated social structures.” Small gestures of charity seem to make no difference, and mass movements of solidarity are accused of manipulating Christian compassion to advance a secularist agenda. Francis counters both critiques by turning to John Paul II to define “what it means to make reparation to the heart of Christ” today.
He 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 neighbor,” and indeed this is “the true reparation asked by the heart of the Savior.” (DN 182)4
By further emphasizing “the social significance of reparation to the heart of Christ” (DN 182), Francis shows how this traditional pious exercise can be a model for authentic worship.
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. (DN 205)
When reparation to the heart of Christ is expressed through fraternal love, the mystical and missionary dimensions of worship are mutually enriching.
Heart Repair
The mystical “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” (DN 172). In chapter four, Francis mentioned the experience of many saints. Now, he adds the words of Origen, Ambrose, Bernard, Francis de Sales, Charles de Foucauld, and again Thérèse of Lisieux.
These holy women and men were most overwhelmed by God’s love when they perceived the possibility of loving others as Christ loves. Thérèse, in particular, desired to become a “martyr” of God’s love. “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” (DN 198). For Thérèse, the motive for making reparation to the heart of Jesus was not “the need to satisfy divine justice” but the desire to be an instrument in “allowing the Lord’s infinite love to spread freely” (DN 196).
Francis recommends imitating Thérèse’s way of making reparation. “Acts of fraternal love” require “sacrifices and sufferings,” but they “heal the wounds of the Church and of the world.” This oblation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is simultaneously “a freely accepted participation in his redeeming love and his one sacrifice” (DN 200–201).
Dilexit Nos describes participation in the redeeming love of Christ as a great mystery. “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.” This limitation “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,” for “God’s power is revealed in the weakness of our human freedom” (DN 193).
Being weak, human freedom is more often misused, wounding hearts instead of healing them. The greatest saints perceive their own faults and recognize that fraternal love begins with “asking forgiveness from our brothers and sisters.” Besides demonstrating “great nobility amid our human weakness,” asking forgiveness effects “a sort of reversal, where the natural tendency to be indulgent with ourselves and inflexible with others is overturned.” Here is another mystery of God’s love, which works more powerfully through one who admits sin and weakness. “A heart capable of compunction will grow in fraternity and solidarity” (DN 189–190).
A Mission of Love
Francis concludes chapter five of Dilexit Nos by “recalling the missionary dimension of our love for the heart of Christ” (DN 205). Multiple religious congregations have dedicated themselves to spreading devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. If this only meant disseminating an external pious practice, it would have little value.
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. (DN 208)
Contemplation of the Sacred Heart, then, brings Francis back to the great theme of Evangelii Gaudium and of his papacy. Joyful encounter with Christ is always the motive and goal of mission. Here in Dilexit Nos, the pope wants to emphasize that our personal encounter with Jesus is always already communal. Mission is not “sharing Christ as something only between Jesus and me,” for we always experience Jesus’s call “in fellowship with our communities and with the whole church” (DN 212). We encounter Jesus in our hearts when we respond to his request to meet him “in every one of our brothers and sisters, and especially in the poor, the despised and the abandoned members of society” (DN 213).
Many modern popes have written about the Sacred Heart of Jesus. This one sees the devotion as a way to spread the joy of the gospel. Before being called home to Christ, he exhorted us again to hear Christ calling to us.
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… 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). (DN 215)
- Pope Francis, Letter to the Bishops of the United States of America, February 10, 2025, no. 4. ↩︎
- Pope Francis, Letter to the Bishops of the United States of America, February 10, 2025, no. 6. ↩︎
- Pope Francis, Letter to the Bishops of the United States of America, February 10, 2025, no. 5. ↩︎
- Quoting John Paul II, Letter to the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Paray-le-Monial, October 5, 1986. ↩︎
Please leave a reply.