Pope Francis' the fourth Encyclical Letter - "Dilexit Nos" - "He Loved Us."

Pope Francis' the fourth Encyclical Letter - "Dilexit Nos" -  "He Loved Us."

Pope Francis’ the fourth Encyclical Letter - “Dilexit Nos” – “He Loved Us.”

Let me start with looking at the readings for this Sunday. The reading talks: Love God and Love One another. In the first reading from the book of Deuteronomy, Moses’ introduction of the Law and presenting the law and asking them to follow the law. This passage contains the greatest law, since the Lord alone is the God, the Israelites must love him with an undivided heart. The call to love an undivided heart does not mean emotions, but to the disposition of the heart.

The first reading prepares us to listen to the Gospel reading from Mark 12:28-34. In this Gospel passage Jesus summarizes the entire Old Covenant in two commandments. The greatest is “Shema” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5 which is considered as a summary or creed of the Jewish faith). Jesus goes further to answer the question and says that the second commandment, the love of neighbor (Leviticus 19:18).

I thought it a good opportunity to reflect on Pope Francis’ new Encyclical Letter, “Dilexit Nos” – “He Loved Us.” His fourth Encyclical, “He Loved Us” brings forth the human and divine love of the heart of Jesus Christ. The Pope is calling for an authentic renewal of a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He reminds us of the tenderness of faith, joy of suffering and mission. Pope writes in the introductory paragraph that “His open heart has gone before us and waits for us, unconditionally, asking only to offer us his love and friendship. 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).

In the first chapter – The Importance of Heart – explain why it is necessary to return to the heart. The Pope says it is still meaningful as the symbol of heart to express the love of Jesus Christ. In this consumeristic world, he says, “All of us need to rediscover the importance of the heart.” The predominant phrase in this chapter is “I am my heart” in paragraph 14.

In the second chapter – Actions and Words of Love – Pope says, the heart of the Gospel is the heart of Jesus “As the symbol of the deepest and most personal source of his love for us”(32). He says, “Christ showed the depth of his love for us not by lengthy explanations but by concrete actions”(33). This is very much evident in Jesus' encounters with individuals like – Samaritan woman, Nicodemas, adulterous woman, blind man, and many more. Jesus forgave sinners, praised the good things in them. The Pope says, “The cross is Jesus’ most eloquent word of love” (46).

In the third chapter – This is the Heart that has Loved so Greatly – Pope begins with a quote from PIUS XII, Encyclical Letter Haurietis Aquas (15 May 1956), “Devotion to the heart of Christ is not the veneration of a single organ apart from the Person of Jesus. What we contemplate and adore is the whole Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, represented by an image that accentuates his heart. That heart of flesh is seen as the privileged sign of the inmost being of the incarnate Son and his love, both divine and human. More than any other part of his body, the heart of Jesus is “the natural sign and symbol of his boundless love” (48). Pope Francis says, “Pius XII observed that the Gospel, in referring to the love of Christ’s heart, speaks “not only of divine charity but also human affection”(61). Pope continues,Entering into the heart of Christ, we feel loved by a human heart filled with affections and emotions like our own. Jesus’ human will freely choose to love us, and that spiritual love is flooded with grace and charity. When we plunge into the depths of his heart, we find ourselves overwhelmed by the immense glory of his infinite love as the eternal Son, which we can no longer separate from his human love. It is precisely in his human love, and not apart from it, that we encounter his divine love: we discover “the infinite in the finite” (67). “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. In this sense, we can once more affirm that the Sacred Heart is a synthesis of the Gospel” (83). The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus must nourish us, and bring us closer to the Gospel. Personal spiritual experience and community and missionary commitment. The devotion to the Sacred Heart helps us to put love at the center of everything.

In the fourth chapter – A Love That Gives Itself As Drink – Pope takes us through the Old Testament and New Testament scripture passages to emphasise the need of life giving water. The Pope writes, “In the Gospel of John, we contemplate that fulfilment. From Jesus’ wounded side, the water of the Spirit poured forth: “One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water flowed out” (Jn 19:34). The evangelist then recalls the prophecy that had spoken of a fountain opened in Jerusalem and the pierced one (Jn 19:37; cf. Zech 12:10). The open fountain is the wounded side of Christ” (96).

The Pope also takes us through the life of different saints and devotion to the Sacred Heart. He quotes Saint Margaret Mary and says, “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 it's love” (121).

In the final chapter – Love For Love – Develop the communitarian, social and the missionary dimension of an authentic true devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Pope says Jesus desires to be loved by us in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Jesus leads us to the Father and sends us out to our brothers and sisters. Poe writes, “Love for our brothers and sisters is not simply the fruit of our own efforts; it demands the transformation of our selfish hearts. This realization gave rise to the oft-repeated prayer: “Jesus, make our hearts more like your own”. Saint Paul, for his part, urged his hearers to pray not for the strength to do good works, but “to have the same mind among you that was in Christ Jesus” (Phil2:5) (168).

For Further reading: Dilexit nos (24 October 2024) | Francis (vatican.va)