‘Dilexit Nos’: wisdom from 20 saints on the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Top, left to right: St. Catherine of Siena, St. John Paul II, Sacred Heart of Jesus, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, St. Francis de Sales. Bottom, left to right: St. John Henry Newman, St. Gertrude of Helfta, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and St. Thomas Aquinas. / Credit: Brooklyn Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; Gov.pl, CC BY 3.0 PL, via Wikimedia Commons; Leiloeira São Domingos, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; Corrado Giaquinto, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; Giovanni Battista Lucini, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; Herbert Rose Barraud, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; Public domain via Wikimedia Commons; Céline Martin, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons; Carlo Crivelli, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Vatican City, Nov 1, 2024 / 04:00 am (CNA).

Pope Francis’ new encyclical on the Sacred Heart of Jesus is packed with testimonies from the saints of prayer and devotion to the heart of Christ throughout the centuries.

Dilexit Nos, meaning “He Loved Us,” describes how devotion to the heart of Christ “reappears in the spiritual journey of many saints” and how in each one the devotion takes on new hues. The most frequently quoted saints in the encyclical are St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, St. Francis de Sales, St. Vincent de Paul, and St. John Paul II, but more than two dozen saints are quoted in all.

The encyclical explains how the Church Fathers’ descriptions of the wounded side of Christ as the wellspring of the life of grace later began to be associated with his heart, especially in monastic life.

It adds that “devotion to the heart of Christ slowly passed beyond the walls of the monasteries to enrich the spirituality of saintly teachers, preachers, and founders of religious congregations, who then spread it to the farthest reaches of the earth.”

Here are 20 saints devoted to the Sacred Heart as described by the pope’s new encyclical:

St. Francis de Sales (1567–1622)

St. Francis de Sales was deeply moved by Jesus’ words “Learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Mt 11:29). He writes in the “Introduction to the Devout Life” that the ordinary trials of life — such as “the tiresome peculiarities of a husband or wife” or a headache or toothache — when accepted lovingly, “are most pleasing to God’s goodness.” In his letters, Francis wrote about Christ’s open heart, seeing it as an invitation to dwell within and trust completely in God’s grace, describing it as “a heart on which all our names are written.”

“Surely it is a source of profound consolation to know that we are loved so deeply by Our Lord, who constantly carries us in his heart,” he said in a Lenten homily on Feb. 20, 1622.

St. John Henry Newman (1801–1890)

St. John Henry Newman chose “Cor ad cor loquitur” (“Heart speaks to heart”) as his motto, a phrase drawn from a letter by St. Francis de Sales. He experienced Christ’s Sacred Heart most powerfully in the Eucharist, where he sensed Jesus’ heart “beat[ing] for us still” and prayed: “O make my heart beat with thy heart. Purify it of all that is earthly, all that is proud and sensual, all that is hard and cruel, of all perversity, of all disorder, of all deadness. So fill it with thee, that neither the events of the day nor the circumstances of the time may have power to ruffle it, but that in thy love and thy fear it may have peace.”

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647–1690)

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque is perhaps the saint most associated with the Sacred Heart of Jesus because of a series of apparitions of Christ in Paray-le-Monial, France. In the first message Alacoque received, she described how the Lord “asked for my heart, which I asked him to take, which he did and then placed myself in his own adorable heart, from which he made me see mine like a little atom consumed in the fiery furnace of his own.” In subsequent messages, “he revealed to me the ineffable wonders of his pure love and to what extremes it had led him to love mankind” and how “ his pure love, with which he loves men to the utmost” is met with “only ingratitude and indifference.”

Alacoque wrote in one of her letters: “It is necessary that the divine heart of Jesus in some way replace our own; that he alone live and work in us and for us; that his will … work absolutely and without any resistance on our part; and finally that its affections, thoughts, and desires take the place of our own, especially his love, so that he is loved in himself and for our sakes. And so, this lovable heart being our all in all, we can say with St. Paul that we no longer live our own lives, but it is he who lives within us.”

St. Claude de La Colombière (1641–1682)

St. Claude de La Colombière was a French Jesuit priest and confessor of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. He helped develop devotion to the Sacred Heart, combining the experiences of St. Margaret Mary with the contemplative approach of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Claude meditated on the attitude of Christ toward those who sought to arrest and put him to death: “His heart is full of bitter sorrow; every violent passion is unleashed against him and all nature is in turmoil, yet amid all this confusion, all these temptations, his heart remains firmly directed to God.”

St. Gertrude of Helfta (1256–1302)

St. Gertrude of Helfta, a Cistercian mystic, writes of a time in prayer in which she leaned her head on the heart of Christ and heard his heart beating. She reflected that the “sweet sound of those heartbeats has been reserved for modern times, so that hearing them, our aging and lukewarm world may be renewed in the love of God.”

St. Mechtilde of Hackeborn (1241–1298)

St. Mechtilde, another Cistercian mystic, shared St. Gertrude’s intimate devotion to the heart of Jesus. The encyclical lists her as among “a number of holy women, [who] in recounting their experiences of encounter with Christ, have spoken of resting in the heart of the Lord as the source of life and interior peace.”

St. Vincent de Paul (1581–1660)

St. Vincent de Paul emphasized that “God asks primarily for our heart,” teaching that the poor can have more merit by giving with “greater love” than those with wealth who can give more. He urged his confreres to “find in the heart of Our Lord a word of consolation for the poor sick person.” The constitutions of his congregation underline that “by gentleness we inherit the earth. If we act on this, we will win people over so that they will turn to the Lord. That will not happen if we treat people harshly or sharply.” For him, embodying the “heart of the Son of God” meant going everywhere in mission and bringing the warmth of Christ’s love to the suffering and poor.

St. Catherine of Siena (1347–1380)

St. Catherine of Siena wrote that the Lord’s sufferings are impossible for us to comprehend, but the open heart of Christ enables us to have a lively personal encounter with his boundless love. Catherine’s “Dialogue on Divine Providence” records a conversation she had with God in which he said to her: “I wished to reveal to you the secret of my heart, allowing you to see it open, so that you can understand that I have loved you so much more than I could have proved to you by the suffering that I once endured.”

St. John Paul II (1920–2005)

St. John Paul II described Christ’s heart as “the Holy Spirit’s masterpiece” and saw it as foundational for building a “civilization of love.” In a general audience in the first year of his papacy, John Paul II spoke about “the mystery of the heart of Christ” and shared that “it has spoken to me ever since my youth.” Throughout his pontificate, he taught that “the Savior’s heart invites us to return to the Father’s love, which is the source of every authentic love.”

“The men and women of the third millennium need the heart of Christ in order to know God and to know themselves; they need it to build the civilization of love,” John Paul II said in 1994.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153)

St. Bernard preached on the importance of loving Jesus with “the full and deep affection of all your heart.” He described Christ’s pierced side as a revelation of the outpouring of the Lord’s love from his compassionate heart. In the year 1072, he preached: “Those who crucified him pierced his hands and feet … A lance passed through his soul even to the region of his heart. No longer is he unable to take pity on my weakness. The wounds inflicted on his body have disclosed to us the secrets of his heart; they enable us to contemplate the great mystery of his compassion.”

St. Bonaventure (1221–1274)

St. Bonaventure presents the heart of Christ as the source of the sacraments and of grace. In his treatise “Lignum Vitae,” Bonaventure wrote that in the blood and water flowing from the wounded side of Christ, the price of our salvation flows “from the hidden wellspring of his heart, enabling the Church’s sacraments to confer the life of grace and thus to be, for those who live in Christ, like a cup filled from the living fount springing up to life eternal.”

St. John Eudes (1601–1680)

St. John Eudes wrote the propers for the Mass of the Sacred Heart and was an ardent proponent of the devotion. Dilexit Nos describes how St. John Eudes convinced the bishop of the Rennes Diocese in France to approve the celebration of the feast of the “Adorable Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” the first time that such a feast was officially authorized in the Church. The following year, five more bishops in France authorized the celebration of the feast in their dioceses.

St. Charles de Foucauld (1858–1916)

St. Charles de Foucauld made it his mission to console the Sacred Heart of Jesus, adopting an image of the cross planted in the heart of Christ as his emblem. He consecrated himself to Christ’s heart, believing that he must “embrace all men and women” like the heart of Jesus. He made a promise in 1906 to “let the heart of Jesus live in me, so that it is no longer I who live, but the heart of Jesus that lives in me, as he lived in Nazareth.”

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that the phrase “heart of Christ” can refer to sacred Scripture, “which makes known his heart.” The encyclical quotes St. Thomas Aquinas’ theological exposition of the Gospel of St. John in which he wrote that whenever someone “hastens to share various gifts of grace received from God, living water flows from his heart.”

St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897)

St. Thérèse of Lisieux felt an intimate bond with Jesus’ heart. At age 15, she could speak of Jesus as the one “whose heart beats in unison with my own.” One of her sisters took as her religious name “Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart,” and the monastery that Thérèse entered was dedicated to the Sacred Heart. She wrote in a letter to a priest: “Ever since I have been given the grace to understand also the love of the heart of Jesus, I admit that it has expelled all fear from my heart. The remembrance of my faults humbles me, draws me never to depend on my strength, which is only weakness, but this remembrance speaks to me of mercy and love even more.”

St. John of the Cross (1542–1591)

St. John of the Cross viewed the image of Christ’s pierced side as an invitation to full union with the Lord. In his poetry, he portrayed Christ as a wounded stag, comforted by the soul that turns to him. John sought to explain that in mystical experience, the infinite love of the risen Christ “condescends” to enable us, through the open heart of Christ, to experience an encounter of truly reciprocal love. 

St. Ambrose (340–397)

The encyclical repeatedly quotes St. Ambrose, who offered a reflection on Jesus as the source of “living water.” He wrote: “Drink of Christ, for he is the rock that pours forth a flood of water. Drink of Christ, for he is the source of life. Drink of Christ, for he is the river whose streams gladden the city of God. Drink of Christ, for he is our peace. Drink of Christ, for from his side flows living water.”

St. Augustine (354–430)

St. Augustine “opened the way to devotion to the Sacred Heart as the locus of our personal encounter with the Lord,” according to Dilexit Nos. “For Augustine, Christ’s wounded side is not only the source of grace and the sacraments but also the symbol of our intimate union with Christ, the setting of an encounter of love.” In his “Tractates on the Gospel of John,” Augustine reflects on how when John, the beloved disciple, reclined on Jesus’ bosom at the Last Supper, he drew near to the secret place of wisdom.

St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556)

In his “Spiritual Exercises,” St. Ignatius encourages retreatants to contemplate the wounded side of the crucified Lord to enter into the heart of Christ. Ignatius founded the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits, which has promoted devotion to Jesus’ divine heart for more than a century. The society was consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1871.

St. Daniel Comboni (1831–1881)

St. Daniel Comboni saw the heart of Jesus as the source of strength for his missionary work in Africa. He founded the Sons of the Sacred Heart Jesus, which today are known as the Comboni Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as well as the Comboni Missionary Sisters. The saintly missionary once said: “This divine heart, which let itself be pierced by an enemy’s lance in order to pour forth through that sacred wound the sacraments by which the Church was formed, has never ceased to love.”