In his new encyclical, Dilexit Nos (“He loved us”), Pope Francis calls on Catholics around the world to rediscover the love and compassion found in the heart of Jesus Christ.

The encyclical, released October 24, examines the transformative power of Jesus’ heart as a source of healing for a divided world. The theologically expansive text draws on the Catholic Church’s traditional devotion to the Sacred Heart as a source of inspiration for centuries of saints, popes and theologians.

Here are seven takeaways from Dilexit Nos on the human and divine love of the heart of Jesus Christ:

1. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ

The title of the encyclical, Dilexit Noscomes from the end of chapter 8 of Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans:

“What will separate us from the love of Christ? Anguish, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? …No, in all these things we conquer massively through the one who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:35, 37-39).

2. The power of the heart in a fragmented world

The pope criticizes what he calls the “liquid” nature of contemporary life marked by superficiality and consumerism. He says that “we find ourselves immersed in societies of serial consumers who live day to day, dominated by a frenetic pace and bombarded by technology, lacking the patience necessary to engage in the processes that a life demands internal by its very nature.

“Amid the frenetic pace of today’s world and our obsession with free time, consumption and entertainment, cell phones and social networks, we forget to nourish our lives with the power of the Eucharist” , he adds.

On the other hand, he writes, the heart represents the “profound unifying center” for each person and for society. The encyclical quotes Pope Benedict XVI, who said:

“Each person needs a “center” for his or her own life, a source of truth and goodness to draw upon in the events, situations, and struggles of daily existence. All of us, when we pause in silence, need to feel not only the beating of our own hearts, but even more deeply, the beating of a trustworthy presence, perceptible to the senses of faith and yet much more real : the presence of Christ, the heart of the world” (Angelus, June 1, 2008).

3. The Cross as the ultimate expression of Christ’s love

The encyclical states that “the pierced heart of Christ embodies all of God’s declarations of love found in Scripture.”

Pope Francis writes how great consolation can be found in contemplating the heart of Christ in his suffering and in his abandonment unto death for our salvation.

“Our sufferings are joined to those of Christ on the cross. If we believe that grace can span all distances, this means that Christ, through his sufferings, united himself with the sufferings of his disciples in all times and in all places. In this way, every time we endure suffering, we can also experience the inner consolation of knowing that Christ suffers with us,” he says.

The Pope adds: “By contemplating the heart of Christ, the incarnate synthesis of the Gospel, we can, like Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, “put our confidence of the heart, not in ourselves, but in the infinite mercy of a God. who loves us unconditionally and has already given us everything in the cross of Jesus Christ.’”

4. Love as a missionary impulse

Pope Francis also writes about “the community, social and missionary dimension of all authentic devotion to the heart of Christ,” adding that the heart of Christ not only leads us to the Father, but also “sends us to our brothers and sisters.”

“Jesus calls you and sends you to spread goodness in our world,” he wrote. “Her call is a call to service, a call to do good, perhaps as a doctor, a mother, a teacher or a priest. Wherever you are, you can hear His call and realize that He is sending you to fulfill this mission.

Pope Francis also encourages parishes to focus less on structures and bureaucracies as means of evangelization, warning against “communities and pastors excessively caught up in outside activities, structural reforms that have little to do with the ‘Gospel, obsessive reorganization plans, worldly projects, secular ways.’ reflection and compulsory programs.

The encyclical highlights the missionary examples of saints like Saint Thérèse and Saint Charles de Foucauld. By returning to this Sacred Heart, he writes, Catholics can find renewed energy to meet social and spiritual challenges through love.

Pope writes of how the fire of the Holy Spirit fills the heart of Christ, citing St. John Paul II’s letter on the 100th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s consecration of the human race to the divine heart of Jesus: “The heart of Christ is alive with the action of the Holy Spirit, to whom Jesus attributed the inspiration of his mission.

5. Acts of reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

In the encyclical, Pope Francis discusses the Catholic tradition of performing acts of reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, writing that “reparation involves the desire to compensate” for injuries inflicted on the Lord who is love.

“The reparation we offer is a freely accepted participation in his redeeming love and his unique sacrifice,” he explains. “Acts of love of neighbor, with the renunciation, self-denial, suffering and effort that they imply, can only be such if they are nourished by the love of Christ himself. He allows us to love as he loved, and so he loves and serves others through us. »

“Sisters and brothers, I propose that we develop this means of reparation, which consists, in a word, of offering the heart of Christ a new possibility of spreading in this world the flames of his ardent and gracious love,” the pope said Francis.

6. The saints and the Sacred Heart

In Dilexit NosPope Francis shares the ideas of the saints and frequently cites the magisterium of his papal predecessors. It describes how Saint Charles de Foucauld “consecrated himself to the Sacred Heart, in whom he found limitless love” inspiring his austere life in imitation of Christ, and how Saint Thérèse placed her trust in infinite mercy. of the Sacred Heart.

It also reminds the reader of the spiritual experiences of Saint Marguerite-Marie Alacoque, who experienced a remarkable series of apparitions of Christ between the end of December 1673 and June 1675.

During the first apparition, Jesus said to Alacoque: “My divine heart is so inflamed with love for men, and for you in particular, that, no longer able to contain within itself the flames of its ardent charity, it must spread them through you. and manifest himself to them, in order to enrich them with his precious treasures which I now reveal to you.

Pope Francis notes how Pope Leo XIII called for the consecration of the world to the Sacred Heart in response to the secular challenges of his time and that Pius XI viewed the Sacred Heart as a “summa” of the experience of the Christian faith . He also describes how St. John Paul II presented the growth of this devotion in recent centuries as “a response to the rise of rigid and disembodied forms of spirituality that neglected the richness of the Lord’s mercy” and “as a call opportune to resist attempts to create a world that leaves no room for God.

The encyclical also draws on thinkers like novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky and German philosopher Martin Heidegger to emphasize the broader human relevance of the heart.

7. The wounded Heart of Christ, source of peace and unity

As modern society faces what Francis calls a “wave of secularization” and division, he sees “the heart” as a source of unity.

“It is only by starting from the heart that our communities will succeed in uniting and reconciling different minds and wills, so that the Spirit can guide us into the unity of brothers and sisters. Reconciliation and peace also arise from the heart. The heart of Christ is “ecstasy”, openness, gift and encounter. In this heart, we learn to maintain healthy and happy relationships and to build God’s kingdom of love and justice in this world. Our hearts, united with the heart of Christ, are capable of accomplishing this social miracle,” he writes.

The Pope affirms that “the wounded side of Christ continues to pour out this river which never runs out, which never passes, but which offers itself always and again to all those who want to love like him”.

Pope Francis offers a prayer in the encyclical for the wounded world to find its heart, writing: “In the presence of the heart of Christ, I ask once again the Lord to have mercy on this suffering world in which he has chose to remain as one. of us. May he pour out the treasures of his light and his love, so that our world, which advances despite wars, socio-economic disparities and technological uses which threaten our humanity, can rediscover the most important thing and the most necessary of all: his heart.