Pope Francis’ New Encyclical on the Sacred Heart of Jesus

“He Loved Us”

Pope Francis released a new encyclical Dilexit Nos (“He Loved Us”) on Thursday, calling for a renewed understanding of devotion to the Sacred Heart in the modern era and its many pressing challenges. The fourth encyclical of his pontificate, it follows “Lumen Fidei,” co-written with Pope Benedict XVI, “Laudato si’” and “Fratelli Tutti.”

In the document, the pope argues that the spirituality of the Sacred Heart offers a vital response to what he calls a “liquid society” dominated by technology and consumerism.

Pope Francis writes: “Living as we do in an age of superficiality, rushing frenetically from one thing to another without really knowing why, and ending up as insatiable consumers and slaves to the mechanisms of a market unconcerned about the deeper meaning of our lives, all of us need to rediscover the importance of the heart.”

Subtitled “Letter on the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ,” the document is the first papal encyclical dedicated entirely to the Sacred Heart since Pope Pius XII’s Haurietis Aquas in 1956.

Throughout the document, Francis weaves together traditional elements of Sacred Heart devotion with contemporary concerns, presenting Christ’s heart as the principle unifying reality in a fragmented world.

The document’s release fulfills an announcement made by the pope in June, when he noted that meditating on the Lord’s love can “illuminate the path of ecclesial renewal and say something meaningful to a world that seems to have lost its heart.”

The full text of the encyclical is available on https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/20241024-enciclica-dilexit-nos.pdf