Reflections about Pope Francis’ fourth Encyclical: Heartlessness – Evil of our Times

This last encyclical “Dilexit nos” (He has loved us) – On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ – (October 24, 2024) which just got published, is surprising. Being much shorter and more concise than the previous encyclicals, Pope Francis along five chapters develops his core ideas about the significance of God’s love and the devotion of man to this love of “Jesus’ Sacred Heart.” Looked at from the standpoint of our times which are characterized by global anarchy, brutal wars and the social collapse of societies- this encyclical which has been written almost like a meditation, a spiritual exercise by this Jesuit Pope, is addressed to millions of faithful and to those without faith, to the catholic church and its priests as well as missionaries, religious orders, pastoral workers, educators et al. It’s above all a call to fundamentally inspect ourselves and reflect about the pope’s demand, that we need to construct a “civilization of love” based on the idea of the “incarnation” of Christ, which is the center of the Gospel.

The German Heiner Wilmer, bishop of Hildesheim, who belongs to the “Sacred Heart of – Jesus” congregation (former superior general) and chairs the German Commission of “Justitia et Pax”, in an interview with “Dom Radio” (Cologne) pointed to this encyclical as a fundamental document which holds like a fundament all previous encyclicals together. He pointed out that during the history of the church, the “devotion” to the “Sacred Heart of Jesus” always “emerged in periods of great turmoil, as for example times of brutal wars and tortured bodies, where the social gap became bigger, going in line with unjust economic structures.”  In a period where the church insists too much on “dogmatic structures” and forgets the concrete life and human beings, this encyclical, according to Wilmer, underlines that we must pay attention to a “God who has a heart for this world.” Of course, a lot of Kitsch and Romanticism has accompanied this devotion quite often, Wilmer remarks. Yet the “devotion” to the Sacred Heart of Jesus” has a place in the modern world. In order to think clearly, we need to be moved by a “a great inner emotion.”  He refers to the fact that the encyclical various times refers to the life of famous Saints and Mystics like the French Saint Margaret Maria Alacoque (1647-1690), the famous Saint Theresia of Lisieux (1873-1897) and the Polish nun Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938).

The Question of God’s love

The encyclical centers upon the question of God’s love and states that because of Jesus “we have come to know and believe in the love that God has for us.” The pope develops his ideas about the significance of the “heart” as a symbol often used to express the love of Jesus Christ. The bible tells us that “the Word of God is living and active…it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb 4:12) … In this way, it speaks to us of the heart as a core that lies hidden beneath all outward appearances, even beneath the superficial thoughts that can lead us astray.” He refers as an example to the disciples of Emmaus, on their mysterious journey in the company of the risen Christ who “experienced a moment of anguish, confusion, despair and disappointment. Yet beyond and in spite of this, something was happening deep within them: ‘were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road?’” (Lk, 24:32)

As the pope explains, there is a longer history to the notion of “heart”. It is present in Hellenic and pre- Christian rationalism, in post- Christian idealism and materialism in its various guises. The heart had been ignored in the anthropology and the great philosophical tradition finds it a foreign notion, preferring other concepts such as reason, will or freedom. So, what was left out was the idea that “Heart” as a personal center in which love is the end, is the one reality that can unify all the others, the pope says. The heart is the locus of sincerity where deceit and disguise have no place. It indicates our true intentions, what we really think, believe and desire, the “secrets” that we tell no one: in a word, the naked truth about ourselves. It is the part of us that is neither appearance or illusion, but is instead authentic, real, entirely ‘who we are.’”

The first paragraphs of the document make clear why it is so important to pay attention to the “heart”: “In this ‘liquid’ world of ours, we need to start speaking once more about the heart and thinking about this place where every person, of every class and condition creates a synthesis, where they encounter the radical source of their strengths, convictions, passions and decisions. Yet, we find ourselves immersed in societies of serial consumers who live from day to day, dominated by the hectic pace and bombarded by technology, lacking in the patience needed to engage in the processes that an ‘interior life’ by its very nature requires. In contemporary society, people ‘risk losing their center, the center of their very selves’(…)  Indeed, the men and women of our time often find themselves confused and torn apart, almost bereft of an inner principle that can create unity and harmony in their lives and actions… No room is left for the heart.” (Paragraph 9)

The problem of heartlessness

We furthermore lose track of history, of poetry and of valuable encounters, the pope states, if we ignore the significance of the “heart”: “It must be said then, that we have a heart, a heart that coexists with other hearts that make it a “thou”.  And he refers to an example taken from Dostojevskis “Demons” novel: “Since we cannot develop this theme at length, we will take a character from one of Dostoyevsky’s novels, Nikolai Stavrogin (taken form the famous novel ‘The Demons.’)… Romano Guardini (Roman Catholic priest and philosopher, 1885-1968) argues that Stavrogin is the very embodiment of evil, because his chief trait is his heartlessness; ‘Stavrogin has no heart, hence his mind is cold and empty and his body sunken in bestial sloth and sensuality. He has no heart, hence he can draw close to no one and no one can ever truly draw close to him. For only the heart creates intimacy, true closeness between two persons. Only the heart is able to welcome and offer hospitality. Intimacy is the proper activity and the domain of the heart. Stavrogin is always infinitely distant, even from himself, because a man can enter into himself only with the heart, not with the mind. Hence, if the heart is not alive, man remains a stranger to himself.” (12).

This example illustrates that a society based on narcissism and self- centeredness will increasingly become “heartless.” This will in turn lead to a “loss of desire”, since as other persons disappear from the horizon, we find ourselves trapped within wall of our own making, no longer capable of healthy relationships. As result, we also become incapable of openness to God.” St Mary “saw things with her heart”, he writes at one point and he continues to emphasize that “In this age of artificial intelligence, we cannot forget that poetry and love are necessary to save our humanity. No algorithm will ever be able to capture, for example, the nostalgia that all of us feel, whatever our age and wherever we live, when we re call how we first used a fork to seal the edges of the pies that we helped our mothers or grandmother to make at home… Similar to a smile we elicited in telling a joke…. all this lives in the precious memories of our childhood deep in our heart.”

“We were made to love and to be loved”

“For this reason, when we witness the outbreak of new wars, with the complicity, tolerance or indifference of other countries, or petty power struggles over partisan interests, we may be tempted to conclude that our world is losing its heart.” He reminds of the elderly women who ‘weep’ seeing what has got lost, and not to feel that this is something intolerable, is a sign of a world that has grown heartless.” (22)

Our true identity and fulfillment of human beings is “found in love.” In loving we sense that we come to know the purpose and goal of our existence in the world. Every thing comes together in a state of coherence and harmony.”

In different chapters the pope illustrates this fundamental question which was among others reflected in writings of famous Church fathers, such as Saint Bonaventura, who told us that at the end of our lives we should not pray for light but for “raging fire” teaching us that “faith is in the intellect in such a way as to provoke affection. In this sense, for example, the knowledge that Christ died for us does not remain knowledge, but necessarily becomes affection, love.” (18). Similarly, the Vatican II Council urged us to “return to the heart.”

The significance of the Gospel

The encyclical shed light on “Christ (who) is the heart of the world, and the paschal mystery of his death and resurrection is the center of history, which, because of him is a history of salvation” (31) … “the heart of Christ as the symbol of the deepest and most personal source of his love for us, is the very core of the initial preaching of the Gospel. It stands at the origin of our faith, as the wellspring that refreshes and enlivens our Christian beliefs.” (32).  Christ, the encyclical underlines, showed his love by his actions. Hence the importance of the “Gospel” as the place where our faith can encounter this truth: the word of God. He refers to the various encounters, described in the Gospel such as the encounter which Jesus had with the Samaritan woman at the well, his meeting with Nicodemus, his meeting with a prostitute who washed his feet. With a woman in adultery to whom he said “neither do I condemn you” i.e. “Christ shows that God is closeness, compassion and tender love!”

Pope Francis makes also reference to popes such as Leo XIII who encouraged us  to consecrate ourselves to the ‘Sacred Heart’.  Similarly, Pope John Paul II who presented the growth of this devotion in recent centuries as a “response to the rise of rigorist and disembodied forms of spirituality that neglected the richness of the Lord’s mercy”, and he underlined then: “Devotion to the Sacred Heart as it developed in Europe two centuries ago, under the impulse of the mystical experience of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, that was a response to the ‘Jansenist rigor’ which ended up disregarding God’s infinite mercy…. The men and women of the third Millenium need the heart of Jesus in order to know God and to know themselves; they need it to build the civilization of love”. (72) Benedict XVI asked us to recognize in the heart of Christ an intimate and daily presence in our lives: “Every 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 heart, but deeper still, the beating of a trustworthy presence, perceivable with faith’s senses and yet much more real; the presence of Christ, the heart of the world.” (73)

“In the words of Benedict XVI, “from the infinite horizon of his love, God wished to enter into the limits of human history and the human condition. He took on a body and a heart. Thus, we can contemplate and encounter the infinite in the finite, the invisible and ineffable mystery in the human heart of Jesus the Nazarene.” (…)  In Paragraph 65 he writes: “The image of the Lord’s heart speaks to us in fact of a threefold love. First, we contemplate his infinite divine love, then our thoughts turn to the spiritual dimension of his humanity, in which the heart is ‘the symbol of that most ardent love which, infuses into his soul, enriches his human will.’ Finally, ‘it is a symbol also of his sensible love.’”

The Pope remarks critically that “in place of Jansenism we find ourselves today before a powerful wave of ‘secularization’ that seeks to build a world free of God… He speaks about a recrudence of that Gnosticism which proved so great a spiritual threat in early centuries of Christianity because it refused to acknowledge the reality of the “salvation of the flesh.”

The world of evangelization

“The enduring relevance of devotion to the heart of Christ is especially evident in the world of evangelization and education carried out by the numerous male and female religious congegrations whose origins were marked by this profoundly Christological devotion.  Our starting point is the Gospel, with all that it demands from us of love, forgiveness and justice, and of solidarity with those who are poor and rejected by the world”. (155)

By associating with the lowest ranks of society (ct.Mt 25:31-46) “Jesus brought the great novelty of recognizing the dignity of every person, especially those who were considered ‘unworthy’. This new principle in human history – which emphasizes that individuals are even more ‘worthy’ of our respect and love when they are weak, scorned or suffering, even to the point of losing the human ‘figure’ has changed the face of the world. It has given life to institutions that take care of those who find themselves in disadvantaged conditions, such as abandoned infants, orphans, the elderly who are left without assistance, the mentally ill, people with incurable diseases or severe deformities, and those living on the streets.” (168).

At several points the pope refers to the social encyclicals of Pope John Paul II who is famous for his social encyclicals and who explained that “in union with Christ, amid the ruins we have left in this world by our sins, we are called to build a new civilization of love. That is what it means to make ‘reparation’ as the heart of Christ would have us to do. Amid the devastation wrought by evil, the heart of Christ desires that we cooperate with him in restoring goodness and beauty to our world.” Pope John Paul II called the repetition of these sins “structure of sin” that has an effect on the development of peoples” (194).

The Pope concludes his encyclical with an ardent appeal: “In a world where everything is bought and sold, people’s sense of their worth appears increasingly to depend on what they can accumulate with the power of money. We are constantly being pushed to keep buying, consuming and distracting ourselves, held captive to a demeaning system that prevents us from looking beyond our immediate and petty needs.  The love of Christ has no place in this perverse mechanism, yet only that love can set us free from a mad heart that no longer has room for a gratuitous love. Christ’s love can give a heart to our world and revive love wherever we think that the ability to love has been definitely lost.”