“He Loved Us” Pt. 2 – Love from Christ’ Side

Learning to Open Up

Opening up was never easy for me growing up. When writing, a common feedback I’d get from my teachers is wanting to hear more of my voice. In seminary, my homiletics professor encouraged me to share more personal experience.

It’s gotten easier to open up over the years with continued encouragement and practice. I take to heart St. John Henry Newman’s coat of arms, “Cor ad cor loquitur,” or “Heart Speaks to Heart.” When I engage in writing or speaking, I approach it as heart speaking to heart. This keeps my content development and delivery grounded.

Pope Francis in Dilexis Nos (He Loved Us)  speaks about the importance of opening our hearts:

“Yet we cannot attain our fulfilment as human beings unless we open our hearts to others; only through love do we become fully ourselves. The deepest part of us, created for love, will fulfil God’s plan only if we learn to love,” (no. 59). 

Unless we learn how to open our hearts to others, we remain closed off from the opportunity to form relationships. Connected hearts are the threads of an authentic human life. Without them, we cease to be fully alive.

Fighting the False Currents

Devotion to the Sacred Heart was never reserved for private matters. It has been a part of the Church’s history.  Pope Francis notes, “Saint John Paul II 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,” (no. 80). The faithful have wrestled with different heretical movements, one being Jansenism, the teaching that God’s grace was only intended for a predestined elect and denied that free will was necessary in assenting to and utilizing grace.

Such heresies led the faithful to lose confidence in God’s mercy and forgiveness. Receiving the Eucharist on the first Friday each month was a way to combat false beliefs. Pope Francis highlights the significance of this intimate link between the Sacred Heart and the Eucharist. “The spread of this practice proved immensely beneficial, since it led to a clearer realization that in the Eucharist the merciful and ever-present love of the heart of Christ invites us to union with him,” (no. 84).

There are many spiritual currents that still run today, luring many faithful to false beliefs and promises. Pope Francis takes care to highlight the fact that old heresies such as the Jansenist dualism and Gnosticism have re-emerged in new forms. These false currents are not grounded in a personal relationship with Christ. “This leads me to propose to the whole Church renewed reflection on the love of Christ represented in his Sacred Heart. For there we find the whole Gospel, a synthesis of the truths of our faith, all that we adore and seek in faith,” (no. 89). Devotion to the Sacred Heart helps us discern these currents.

A Love from Christ’ Side

A powerful image that I pray with is the image of the Divine Mercy. Seeing the blood and water flow from the side of Jesus and contemplating the words “Jesus I trust in you” wraps me in the mystery of Christ’s love and mercy. Pope Francis notes in the encyclical, “The pierced heart of Christ embodies all God’s declarations of love present in the Scriptures. That love is no mere matter of words; rather, the open side of his Son is a source of life for those whom he loves, the fount that quenches the thirst of his people,” (no. 101).

Devotion to the Sacred Heart points to the heart of Christ Crucified, a heart that pours out love to all. Great saints throughout history have contemplated the side of Christ. Saint Ambrose said to drink from the side of Christ for he is the source of life. Saint Bernard understood Christ’ pierced side as a symbol of outpouring love of his whole heart. For Saint 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. There we find the source of the most precious wisdom of all, which is knowledge of him,” (no. 103).

Advent has begun. Let us journey to Bethlehem by opening our heart to the coming of Christ. By opening our heart, Christ is our North Star on this spiritual journey that keeps us on the right path. Christ’ love from his side reveals to us the depth of his love, a love that sacrifices in expiation for our sins. May we drink from this love so that we will never thirst and lead others to drink from this fount as well.