He loved us

Jesus loved us. He loved us ‘to the end.’ Here, the phrase ‘to the end’ is not simply meaning he loved us until his last breath. It means that he loved us to the absolute maximum of his capacity to love. Julian of Norwich, in her ‘Revelations of Divine Love’ speaks about the boundless love of Jesus and its connection to his sufferings, “Even his suffering on the cross could not fully satisfy his marvelous love; and Jesus very affectionately said these words, ‘If I could suffer more, I would suffer even more.’” His sufferings were a sign of his self-emptying love.

This sharing is about the affectionate relationship we can have with Jesus, and how deeply He loves each of us. We will consider the tradition of devotion to his wounds and His pierced side and Sacred Heart as a sign of the love of Christ for humanity. We will see how these spiritual practices developed, how they sometimes strayed from their essential meaning, and the journey back to their true meaning. Our main focus will be the devotion to the Sacred Heart, and insights from Pope Francis’ recent encyclical, ‘Dilexit Nos.’

Moving away from earlier emphases on the triumphant Christ, from the 12th century onward, a more affective piety developed, intensely focusing on Christ’s humanity and suffering. The making of crucifixes, Man of Sorrows images (depicting the wounded Christ), and instruments of the Passion provided tangible focal points for devotion. These images were designed to evoke empathy, pity, and affectionate love in the viewer, leading to a deeper identification with Christ’s sacrifice. Consequently, many mystics deeply contemplated his wounds, especially the pierced side, seeing them as profound symbols of his love, and also expressed great affection for the Heart of Jesus. For these mystics, the wounds were revealing the intimate, affectionate, self-sacrificial love of God, a love that ‘poured out’ everything for humanity.

Cistercian mystic St Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153) taught that one could enter into the “secret of Christ’s heart” through the wound in his side. He would speak to Jesus saying: “Where have your love, your mercy, your compassion shone out more luminously than in your wounds, sweet, gentle Lord of mercy?” For German mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg (c. 1207-c. 1282) the wounds were direct doors to divine intimacy. She describes drinking from the wounds, especially the side wound, as a source of divine grace and spiritual nourishment. A German Benedictine nun St Gertrude (1256-c. 1302) describes intimate communion with Christ, often resting her head in the wound of his side, experiencing it as a refuge and a source of overwhelming love and comfort. Spirituality of St Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) a Dominican tertiary and Doctor of the Church, was centered on the Blood of Christ, which flowed from his wounds, especially the side. She frequently speaks of “bathing in the Blood,” “drowning in the Blood,” and “clothed in the Blood,” seeing it as the ultimate sign of divine love.

The ‘Heart of Jesus’ became the embodiment of his interior life, his compassion, mercy, and boundless charity, and a yearning for reciprocal affection from our heart. His wounds were an invitation to intimacy and transformation through divine love, revealing that Christ’s suffering was not merely something to be pitied, but was an active outpouring of love. To truly imitate Christ through compassion means to ‘suffer with’ Him. This is not just a passive feeling but an active spiritual journey that helps us develop deep empathy for His Passion, leading us to a sincere conversion of heart, profound gratitude, and a genuine commitment to alleviate the suffering we see in others, just as Christ did.

In our lives, every struggle and suffering we face is seen by Jesus. When we lovingly unite these personal hardships with Christ’s own Passion, they become redemptive. This is what it means to ‘offer them up’: to entrust our pain to Him, allowing God to transform our struggles into means of grace, not only for ourselves but also for others, through our participation in Christ’s loving sacrifice. This ‘offering up’ receives its value from the true imitation of Christ, resembling His self-emptying, patient, loving, and life-giving sacrifice. It is crucial to remember that it is not the pain or misery itself that is valued, but rather the imitation of Christ’s attitude in the moments of our sufferings - His unwavering love and self-giving even in suffering.

The late medieval period preceding the Reformation saw a flourishing, and at times, an awkward growth of popular devotions. Though in the pre-Reformation era, we saw as rich in vibrant and sincere faith, we could also see many practices that could easily slide into superstitions. The 17th century in Europe was a period marked by significant religious, political, and social changes. Before 1517, spiritual and temporal authority of the Roman Catholic Church was virtually unchallenged. After the Protestant Reformation the religious landscape of Western Europe had significant changes. As the Protestant Reformers de-emphasized practices that seemed to suggest human merit or mediation as necessary for salvation, many traditional devotions, particularly those involving saints, relics, and even the Mass, were rejected or severely curtailed in Protestant territories. Churches were stripped of images, pilgrimages ceased, and the focus shifted to preaching the Word of God.

The Counter-Reformation movement of the Catholic Church desired to renew and strengthen its spiritual life and doctrines. While it certainly aimed to halt the spread of Protestantism, it was also a genuine internal renewal. the Council of Trent (1545-1563) addressed the very abuses that had fuelled the Reformation. While it upheld the legitimacy of devotions, it also sought to purify them. The Council mandated proper catechesis, promoted reverent use of sacred art, and encouraged a more disciplined, theologically sound practice of piety, seeking to restore integrity and spiritual depth to devotional life. There was a flourishing of mystical experiences and the emergence of new religious orders and spiritualities.

Devotions were re-framed not as mechanical acts for merit, but as expressions of love, gratitude, and a desire for deeper union with God. The rosary, the Stations of the Cross, and various novenas gained renewed spiritual significance, becoming pathways to contemplation and an affective relationship with Christ, Mary, and the saints. This era saw a renewed emphasis on the emotional and aesthetic dimensions of faith, fostering a vibrant popular piety that aimed to engage the whole person in spiritual growth.

While the Counter-Reformation promoted devotions to grow in intimacy with Jesus, Jansenism, a 17th-century Catholic movement, contrasted sharply with the era’s growing emphasis on Christ’s love and affectionate devotion. It stressed human depravity, believing that original sin had so deeply corrupted humanity that individuals were utterly incapable of doing good or desiring God. Jansenists promoted an extraordinarily strict moral code and a highly demanding approach to the sacraments, especially Holy Communion. They believed that one must be in a state of near-perfect contrition and profound purity to receive the Eucharist, making it a very rare possibility for many. Instead of nurturing loving communion with God, Jansenism cultivated a fearful, distant piety, directly opposing the vibrant, hopeful, and affectionate nature of Christian faith that was blossoming in that time.

Against this backdrop, the apparitions to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque took place between 1673 and 1675. She reported that in these visions, Jesus revealed his Sacred Heart as a symbol of his immense love for humanity. The Sacred Heart is a representation of his love – burning with love, wounded, and surrounded by thorns symbolizing the pain caused by sin and ingratitude.

Pope Francis’ fourth and final encyclical, ‘Dilexit Nos - Encyclical Letter on the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ’ was published on October 24, 2024, on the 350th anniversary of the first apparition of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret. Pope Francis uses it to call for a rediscovery of ‘the heart’ as a way towards unity, peace, and reconciliation in a world often marked by individualism, social inequalities, and technological challenges.

According to classical Greek understanding, the word kardía denotes the inmost part of human beings, animals and plants. It indicates the human soul and spirit. Thoughts and feelings proceed from the heart and are closely bound one to another. The heart is the place of desire and the place where important decisions take shape. The heart serves to unite the rational and instinctive aspects of a person. According to the Bible, the heart has no place for deceit and disguise. It is the place of sincerity, indicating our true intentions, what we really think, believe and desire. It is the part of us that is authentic, real, entirely ‘who we are.’

The heart of Christ, as the symbol of the deepest and most personal source of his love for us, is the core of the preaching of the Gospel. His heart shows his sincere love for us, his message, and his actions. It reveals his desires, and stance he had taken. His love saw the entire humanity as ‘his own.’ The heart shows the entirety of Christ revealing that God is closeness, compassion and tender love. Whenever Jesus healed someone, he preferred to do it in close proximity touching us. When we are hurt by lies, injuries and disappointments, he encourages saying, take heart my son/daughter. Jesus looks attentively into our lives and sees all that we are, the sadness, failures, disappointments, rejection and everything. Seeing this love, looking up to Jesus, what do we seek? Salvation, success, victory, prosperity, protection or security? What we must discover is that ‘he loved us.’

The heart of Jesus is “the natural sign and symbol of his boundless love.” Devotion to the heart of Christ is not the veneration of a single organ apart from the Person of Jesus. As we venerate that image, our worship is directed solely to the living Christ, in his divinity and his plenary humanity, so that we may be embraced by his human and divine love. With this heart, the incarnate Son of God is alive, loves us and receives our love in return.

It is not the power of the image of the sacred heart that we approach. The venerable image portraying Christ holding out his loving heart also shows him looking directly at us, inviting us to encounter, dialogue and trust; it shows his hands capable of supporting us and his lips that speak personally to each of us.

The Gospel reveals not only divine charity but also human affection of Christ. The heart of Jesus throbbed with love and every other tender affection. The image of the sacred heart speaks to us in fact of a threefold love. First, we contemplate his infinite divine love. Then we see the spiritual dimension of his humanity, in which the heart is the symbol of that most ardent love which, infused into his soul, enriches his human will. It is a symbol also of his sensible love.

All the hopes and aspirations of his heart were directed towards the Father. This heart also knew that he had always been loved by the Father. The fire of the Holy Spirit fills the heart of Christ. The pierced heart is the declaration of God’s infinite love. His pierced side is also the source of new life, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Being in his heart, we are also brought to the same communion Jesus has with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Entering into the heart of Christ, our hearts are filled with affections and emotions that are flooded with grace and charity. We know the consolation and comfort of the heart of Christ, and both the hearts find the joy of mutual giving and receiving. We realise that we are received, understood, and known completely in his love. That love welcomes us, nourishes us, completes us and leads to an experience of fulfilment.

This devotion invites us for a personal encounter with love and friendship. Heart speaks to the heart. So, it is from the heart we understand the compassion, mercy, tenderness and affection of Christ. It is in our heart we receive this love and respond. We contemplate the sacred heart to find the tenderness of faith in a world characterised by harshness and indifference. In this contemplation, Christ's passion is not only recollected but becomes present to us by grace. This contemplation is an act of love. His heart, oppressed with rejection, humiliation, weariness and anguish, might find consolation by true repentance and genuine love. We recognize our own sins, which Jesus took upon his bruised shoulders. Whenever we offer some suffering of our own in imitation of his passion, that suffering is illuminated and transfigured in the paschal light of his love.

There is a natural desire to console Christ, when we feel sorrow for his sufferings. This desire to console him grows with the honest acknowledgment of our bad habits, compulsions, attachments, weak faith, vain goals and, together with our actual sins, the failure of our hearts to respond to the Lord’s love. This experience purifies us, leaving us more desirous of God and less obsessed with ourselves. It is not a feeling of guilt that makes us discouraged or obsessed with our unworthiness. This does not mean weeping in self-pity, as we are so often tempted to do. In contemplating the heart of Christ and his self-surrender even to death, we ourselves find great consolation. The grief that we feel in our hearts gives way to complete trust and, in the end, what endures is gratitude, tenderness, peace; what endures is Christ’s love reigning in our lives. In seeking to console him, we will find ourselves consoled.

Our hearts are now opened to the working of the Holy Spirit. Helped by the Holy Spirit, our best response to the love of Christ’s heart is to love our brothers and sisters. Jesus loved, not just the privileged and the worthy, he recognized the dignity of every person, especially those who were considered ‘unworthy.’ They 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’ as Christ was disfigured. We don’t have to necessarily search for them, the needy and the poor are with us and around us.

We have seen the aspects of consoling and being consoled by Christ. There is another aspect of reparation. The true reparation asked by Jesus is to unite filial love for God and love of neighbour in order to build the Kingdom of the heart of Christ, the greatly desired civilization of love over the ruins accumulated by hatred and violence. So, reparation is not a pious practice of taking up pains and sufferings or adding a quantity of prayers, it is a total conversion of heart leading to concrete actions for restoring beauty and goodness and healing the wounded world. The heart of Christ desires that we cooperate with him in restoring goodness and beauty to our world. Our conversion of heart, if it is honest, imposes the obligation to challenge the evil structures.

Reparations in the perspective of the Gospel have a vital social dimension. So, our acts of love, service and reconciliation, in order to be truly reparative, need to be inspired, motivated and empowered by Christ. Christian reparation cannot be understood simply doing many pious activities, however indispensable and at times admirable they may be. Reparations must possess a tireless creativity. They need the life, the fire and the light that radiate from the heart of Christ. Repairing the harm done to this world also calls for a desire to mend wounded hearts where the deepest harm was done, and the hurt is most painful. At times, complete reparation may seem impossible, such as when goods or loved ones are definitely lost, or when we cannot remedy certain situations. The true spirit of reparation is the hope that every wound can be healed, however deep it may be. We often find comfort in our pious devotional practices, no matter how rigorous they might seem. Bu, reparation, if it is to be Christian, demands acknowledging our guilt and asking forgiveness in order to touch the offended person’s heart.

In Catholic tradition, reparation is fundamentally about a heartfelt conversion that inspires acts of love and justice. However, this concept was sometimes seriously misunderstood throughout history, distorting into an emphasis on self-inflicted pain and harsh conditions as the primary way to make amends to God. Reparations, at times, are seen as causing God’s mercy. This distortion stemmed from practices like asceticism, which, while originally aimed at spiritual growth and uniting with Christ’s suffering, deviated into harmful extremes. For example, the Flagellant movements of the 13th and 14th centuries involved public self-scourging, turning an internal act of repentance into a raw, external display, almost as if to produce God’s pity. Later, the severe moral rigor of Jansenism in the 17th and 18th centuries reinforced the misguided belief that intense self-denial was necessary to gain grace, driven by fear rather than love.

True Christian suffering, when rightly understood, unites us with Christ’s love for the world, leading to acts of justice and compassion for others, and seeking to heal the brokenness in the world, rather than adding inflicted pain for personal satisfaction or a transactional exchange with God. Instead of fostering love and selfless service, these misconceptions reduced a beautiful spiritual practice to a harmful, self-focused torment that ultimately misses the core of Christian faith and its call to loving relationship with God and neighbour. Even when individuals genuinely believe they are performing acts of extreme self-inflicted penance out of love for God or for reparation, such practices are not after the heart of Christ. God desires our wholehearted love, not our misery. Those who suffer for the sanctification of the world, can develop a spiritual pride, because the whole rest of the world is sinful. The individual, perhaps unconsciously, begins to perceive themselves as having a superior spiritual status due to their extreme acts. This stems from a misunderstanding that greater suffering equates to greater holiness. This happens when their actions imply a God who is somehow pleased by human pain and suffering, rather than by the loving and free conversion of the heart.

True Christian reparation is concrete acts of justice and compassion for a wounded world by spreading the waves of his infinite tenderness in this world. Love includes sacrifice and challenges. The sacrifices and sufferings required by these acts of love of neighbours unite us to the passion of Christ. Often, our sacrifices have to do with our own wounded ego. The humility of the heart of Christ points us towards the path of abasement. God chose to come to us in condescension and littleness. Acts of love of neighbour, with the renunciation, self-denial, suffering and effort that they entail, can be similar to those of Christ when they are nourished by Christ’s own love.

We need to remember that the visions or mystical revelations related by certain saints who passionately spoke of the sufferings, wounds or the heart are not something that the faithful are obliged to believe as if they were the word of God. We need not feel obliged to accept or appropriate every detail of their spiritual experience, in which, as often happens, God’s intervention combines with human elements related to the individual’s own desires, concerns and interior images. These experiences must always be interpreted in the light of the Gospel and the spiritual tradition of the Church, even as we acknowledge the good they accomplish in many of our brothers and sisters. These devotions must express our openness in faith and adoration to the mystery of the Lord’s divine and human love. It must be genuine, free of all superficial religiosity and piety. Otherwise, certain rigorous forms of devotional practices developed based on such revelations result in a Christianity stripped of the tender consolations of faith, the joy of serving others, the fervour of personal commitment to mission, the beauty of knowing Christ and the profound gratitude born of the friendship he offers and the ultimate meaning he gives to our lives. They claim secret knowledge and true faith, and a kind of spiritual elitism.

As devotions help our daily practice of faith, they also can deviate from faith and become superstitious. Catechism of the Catholic Church 2111 says “To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.” We all have religious practices that are special to us. But if we start to believe they work automatically, like a magic spell, without our heart truly being in it - without our faith or love for God - then they become superstitious. That is where we are giving power to something other than God, treating a prayer, a relic, a medal, or even quantified adorations, as if these possess divine power. Sometimes, we even unknowingly add our own little twists to devotions, mixing in practices that might stimulate and comfort guilt, sadness, or a need for protection, and then suggesting these personal additions are the real solution and cause divine power.

Catholic practice of the veneration of relics is a legitimate form of devotion (CCC 1674). It honours the saint as a model of holiness and acknowledges that God works through His saints, both in life and after death. The novenas, litanies, and relics remind of the virtues lived by the saint and invite us to follow those virtues. Instead, if our belief is that merely touching a relic automatically grants a blessing, protection from harm, or remission of sin, without any accompanying faith, repentance, or intention to grow closer to God, that is not right. People can go on ‘collecting’ relics for their supposed magical power and have a monopoly over the supposed power even for fighting wars. In extremity of devotions even there can be tendencies to create fake relics.

Pilgrimages have always been a meaningful religious practice across the world. In ancient times the pilgrims were not even sure whether they would return. There is a physical effort, penance, and a spiritual journey, often leading to deeper conversion, prayer, and an experience of the sacred. But merely completing a pilgrimage cannot secure salvation, free of sins, or guarantee specific blessings.

An indulgence, in Catholic teaching, is the remission of temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven. It is a gift from the Church, offered on specific occasions, that the faithful can receive through prayer and good works, drawing its power from the vast merits of Christ and the spiritual treasury of the communion of saints. It's absolutely not a guarantee that you can go out and engage in all sorts of wrongdoing and then simply 'buy' your way out or be magically freed.

The abuse of selling indulgences in the late medieval period exemplifies superstitious practice. Many were led to believe that they could pay to get themselves (or their loved ones) out of purgatory, rather than understanding it as a spiritual act requiring genuine repentance and charity. Offering Masses for the deceased is a pious and charitable act, rooted in the belief that the prayers of the living can assist the souls in purgatory. We do it out of our gratitude towards whom we know, and out of charity for all the deceased. If it is the number of Masses offered, or the size of the monetary offering for them, that ensures a faster exit from purgatory, we are deviating our faith from relying on God.

Now, while genuine practices like asceticism and penance have always been part of Catholic tradition, some went to the extremes. There was a trend where people would even spiritualize self-inflicted pain or torture, and that is where it really deviated from the true focus on Christ’s love. Authentic penance is about working towards justice and a radical conversion of heart - it is about inner transformation as persons and communities, not just outward suffering. When pain becomes the goal for ‘self-purification’ or ‘pleasing God,’ it can actually feed spiritual pride or an unhealthy focus on oneself instead of God. It is almost like the pain itself becomes intoxicating, and that is when a distorted spirituality steps in to justify these unhealthy practices. Perhaps it was because the plague and poverty raised many questions on God and human existence. Attributing all suffering directly to divine retribution can lead to despair, fear, and a distorted image of an avenging God.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the supreme embodiment of Christ’s boundless love, inviting us into a deeper experience of intimacy and affection. It is also a moment for expressing our tender love and affection. This devotion inspires us to heal a wounded world through genuine charity and works of justice. Entering into the heart of Christ, we are consoled, we are brought to the communion with God and others especially the ‘unworthy’ of this world.