The Pope publishes his fourth encyclical to speak to “a world that seems to have lost its heart”. It’s called Dilexit Nos (He loved us) and will be published Thursday 24 October.
Francis therefore returns to offer a document to the Church and the world: this time love is at the center of attention in a dramatic context in which conflicts, inequalities and wounds to the dignity of man and the earth seem to prevail. The Pope, who in these days is in the midst of the work of the Synod and who is preparing for the Jubilee of 2025, also gives, with this new Encyclical, the signal that his pontificate still has strong messages to give. Dilexit nos it will therefore be the fourth Encyclical of Pope Francis afterwards Lumen Fidei (2013), written together with Benedict XVI, Praised yes (2015) e All Brothers (2020).
It was Bergoglio himself who announced the text on the Sacred Heart in the general audience on 5 June this year: «We are going through this month – he said, referring precisely to the month of June – dedicated to the Sacred Heart. December 27 last year marked the 350th anniversary of the first manifestation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Santa Margherita Maria Alacoque. On that occasion, a period of celebrations began which will end on June 27th next year. For this reason I am happy to prepare the document that collects the precious reflections of previous magisterial texts and of a long history that dates back to the Holy Scriptures, to propose again today, to the whole Church, this cult full of spiritual beauty. CI believe that it will do us much good to meditate on various aspects of the Lord’s love that can illuminate the path of ecclesial renewal; but also that they say something significant to a world that seems to have lost its heart», underlined the Pontiff.
The Encyclical will be presented to the press on Thursday 24 October by Monsignor Bruno Forte, theologian, archbishop of Chieti-Vasto, e sister Antonella Fraccaro, general manager of the Disciples of the Gospel.
Devotion to the Sacred Heart was born in 1673 when sister Margherita Maria Alacoque, born in Burgundy in 1647, «she began to receive visits from Jesus who asked her to have particular devotion to His Sacred Heart. Jesus appears to the Visitandine nun for 17 years and promises her that whoever received communion for nine consecutive months on the first Friday of the month would be given the gift of final penance, that is, to die receiving the sacraments and in the absence of sin. Jesus – recalls the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints – also asks her to appeal to the King of France Louis XIV to consecrate the country to the Sacred Heart, but the Saint receives no response from the sovereign”. Margherita Maria died on 17 October 1690; thanks to her, a sanctuary dedicated to the Sacre Coeur was built between 1875 and 1914 in the Montmartre district of Paris, consecrated in 1919. Beatified by Pius IX in 1864, she was canonized by Benedict XV in 1920.
There Feast of the Sacred Hearthowever, was born at the gates of the Enlightenment. As he wrote above Catholic Civilization, father Enrico Cattaneoprofessor emeritus of Patristics, «the spirituality of the Heart of Christ was a barrier against the widespread rationalistic mentality, which fueled the atheistic and anticlerical culture». A heated debate, even within the Church itself, arose around this devotion until, in 1856, Pius IX decided that the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus should be extended to the entire Church. In the 19th century the cult therefore spread like wildfire with consecrations, the birth of male and female congregations, university institutions, oratories and chapels.
