On 24 October 2024, Pope Francis released Dilexit Nos, an encyclical (a letter to the whole Church) shedding light on the human and divine love in the heart of Jesus Christ.
In the first chapter, he shares many profound insights into the nature of the human heart. It is important that this comes before we delve into Christ’s heart because, in order to encounter his, we must first learn to recognise and encounter our own. The heart is the place in which this relationship is founded and grows, and we cannot invite the Lord to share in something that we do not ourselves know.
Here are 5 important lessons that we should take away from this opening section.
Lesson 1: When the world asks, “What is the meaning of life?” we must respond with the question, “Do I have a heart?”
When we witness the outbreak of war, tragedy, and injustice, how do we respond? Many people respond first by casting blame, or in particularly difficult situations, by adopting an emotional indifference. It is easier to be heartless than to be heart-broken, right?
But we cannot be salt to the earth if we make ourselves numb to what we are meant to be salting.
When we experience injustice, we have such a desire for justice that we will try to balance the scales even when it becomes destructive to ourselves and others. But God, the Divine Judge, does not ask us whether we have managed to balance the scales. He asks whether we have a heart that is alive and responsive. Yes, this is painful sometimes; we may feel that we have lost something to which we have a right, or that injustices in life will never be answered for. God does not intend to leave everything broken, undone. Rather, when the fullness of time comes, we are told that “he will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away,” (Apocalypse 21:4).
We must risk having a heart, because only then will life’s meaning be fully revealed and we will see the order and harmony that God is preparing. We were made for nothing short of this.
Lesson 2: The heart is much more than just a place of feelings and emotions.
The heart is not just a place of feelings. It is the engine-room that drives us forward and provides the essential ‘why’ behind everything we do. When the heart and mind are misaligned, and when we push ourselves down a path that doesn’t echo our soul’s innermost longings, then life begins to lose meaning and we become lost; we fall below our full human potential.
But to ignore our hearts in this life would be more than just a sadness; it would be a profound disintegration within ourselves. Our ability to make wise decisions would be capped, as we wouldn’t allow ourselves to hear the Holy Spirit’s guiding voice. Our flourishing as individuals would be finite, and we could never become the salt that we are called to be, adding flavour and vibrancy to the world we have been sent to transform.
But we were sent here as priests, prophets, kings! Priests, because we are called to co-operate with Christ in building bridges between humankind and God, sanctifying and restoring the relationship between the Father and his children, which takes root in the heart. Prophets, because we must bear the truth of God, and then we will become lamps for others making the same journey. Kings, because we are so convicted of the truth we bear, that we will help to guide each other, take leadership if necessary, teaching others to establish a throne in their hearts for the one who is King above all.
Lesson 3: We must grow in self-knowledge, so that we can master our hearts for God.
Pope Francis describes the heart as the “ultimate judge, not of what we show or hide from others, but of who we truly are,” (DN 1.6). We, the social media generation, are well-trained in the art of spotting a phony, and we struggle to trust someone who we know is presenting a false image of themselves to the world. Our hearts know the importance of authenticity, of ‘being real’ and not abandoning the beauty of our originality and irreplaceable nature.
There is no place in the Garden of Eden for trickery or lies, and so when the heart, made by the Lord for this Garden, identifies a lie within us, we can feel it protest. The heart is insightful, and this faculty can give rise to great wisdom. But it is easily led astray and use that same faculty to become a cunning crook, seeking satisfaction in poisoned fruit. When the heart is clothed by ill-meaning will and logic in garments of dishonesty, it can quickly become twisted. We are warned by Scripture about the devious side of the heart (Pope Francis gives us the examples of Jeremiah 17:9 and Proverbs 4:23-24). We have all experienced this. One moment we are acting with honour, virtue and compassion, and the next we are gossiping and manipulating those around us.
We are called to more than this, and the power not just to avoid crookedness, but to become great saints, has been placed within us. When we are baptised, the gates of the Garden are thrown open wide and we are called by name to come and take our place there. It is never too late to bring the heart back, to re-awaken the powers of wisdom and goodness planted in it by the Creator. By growing in self-knowledge, we learn how to master our hearts for God.
Lesson 4: In a society that tells us to “be yourself,” we cannot come to know who we are in the first place without truly encountering each other.
We can only ‘become ourselves’ to the extent that we acknowledge others, and in this we encounter God himself, who asks to be welcomed in the stranger (Matthew 23:35). If we are dominated by narcissism then we will lose our desire for relationship, and even lose our ability to be open to God.
Instead, we must welcome others into our hearts as if our hearts were guest houses, to listen to their stories and experiences, to learn from them, share something of our own in return, and to love and serve them. To be self-centred would mean shutting the door, blocking our ears, believing ourselves to already have perfect knowledge of the world, unwilling to learn and grow, and uninterested in offering others hospitality.
In placing ourselves first, we leave the world to place us last and move on without us (Jesus himself warns us that “the first shall be last, and the last first,” in Matthew 20:16). But that is not the ending that our Father planned for our story. He asks to be welcomed, he asks us to make our hearts into guest houses, to truly encounter others, and in doing so, truly encounter him.
The heart was created for encounter and communion, with our earthly neighbour and with the divine guest.
Lesson 5: Pope Francis asks us to learn to question our hearts.
Pope Francis tells us that the antidote to a misguided heart is to ask ourselves some very crucial questions:
- Who am I, really?
- What am I looking for?
- What direction do I want to give my life, my decisions and my actions?
- Why and for what purpose am I in this world?
- How do I want to look back on my life once it ends?
- What meaning do I want to give to all my experiences?
- Who do I want to be for others?
- Who am I for God?
To read the full encyclical, click here.