Dilexit Nos – Sacred Heart Encyclical | Fr. Bonaventure Chapman & Fr. Joseph-Anthony Kress

March 6, 2025

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: This is Father Joseph-Anthony Kress.

Fr. Bonaventure: And this is Father Bonaventure Chapman. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Welcome to Godsplaining. Please like, comment and subscribe on this issue and share it with those that you would think would enjoy it. And if you feel, so moved to do so, please support us on our Patreon. Links for that will be in the description in the show notes for this episode. Father Bonaventure, we are talking about a fun, little…And it’s very kind of recent. A fun little topic, that is the latest encyclical of the Holy Father that is on the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

Fr. Bonaventure: Yeah, Dilexit Nos. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Exactly. Now, we’ve done a number of episodes talking about different encyclicals and about what is an encyclical, and the very nature of it. But, let’s just kind of reflect on our own kind of personal engagements with encyclicals. 

Sure. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: So I want to hear two things. What is the first encyclical that you remember reading or encountering. Whatever that may be. And then what is your favorite encyclical. Maybe the one you keep going back to. They may be the same one, they may not be. So I’m hoping for two different ones. 

Fr. Bonaventure: Well I’m trying to think, the first one, the first one I knew about I was I didn’t see this one when it came out, but Humanae Vitae that was probably the first one because as a Protestant, you hear rumors about this thing and about like the Catholic Church. And I was always very I, I was always were inclined to the Catholic Church teaching on sexual teaching and such and the kind of holding line you could say. And so I remember in college, I think it was. Yeah, I think it was college. When I read, I read Humanae Vitae and, and was impressed. It’s a short encyclical. 

It’s not very long. It’s not like JPII’s and the current encyclicals, you could say. But that’s the first one I, I think I read, but the first and my favorite one, I mean, Deus Caritas Est is fantastic. I do love Veritas Splendor. That’s a great. It’s a, it’s a book. You know, so it’s really long. Dives in Misericordia is really good to, Dives in Misericordia. But I think. Yeah, what was it… Rerum novarum’s good. Yeah. I think it’s probably Veritas Splendor. I think that’s a great encyclical. Yeah. You? What was your first and your favorite? 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Okay. My first encyclical that I remember like actually reading was probably Deus Caritas Est. I remember I was in high school and there was like rumors that the Holy Father was going to drop that encyclical at like, noon Rome time and I remember getting up in the morning and like downloading it and printing it off at like six a.m. And then started working through it. And it was really cool! Yeah. Not only was that like, that was kind of my first like, oh, there’s this kind of Magisterial teaching that’s kind of new. And everybody’s experiencing it for the like, my experience of the Magisterium was like, all this ancient stuff that had already been done. But like, hey, there’s a new edition to the Mysterium. Let’s all figure that out together. So that was a really cool experience. And then on top of that it was Deus Caritas Est, it was a behemoth. Like it was such a beautiful encyclical to begin with. To be introduced into the world of encyclicals. But that one I think was really, really cool. But I think of my favorite, the one that I could go back to time and time again and just be gobsmacked and just really overwhelmed with it. I think it’s going to be Redemptor Hominis. 

Fr. Bonaventure: Oh nice. Yeah. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: It’s kind of basic but it’s also just, I can never get enough of the foundation things. It’s one of those ones that I just find that I can continually go back to. And get new things and, and it can speak to every, every age that I read it in.

Fr. Bonaventure: I guess I should say Fides et Ratio is spectacular, too. That might be. That might be as a philosopher, I suppose. That’s supposed to be my favorite one. And Veritas Splendor Moral theology. Moral philosophy too. So. Yeah. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah, they’re both in there.  That’s great. Yeah. So, okay, now we talked a little bit about the world of encyclicals and it’s rich patrimony. And that means the one that we just received from the Holy Father, Pope Francis enters into that, it is a new edition to this kind of library of the Magisterial teachings. So give it, like, give us a real kind of postcard version of what this new encyclical is and then we’ll break it down into its structure and what it’s speaking about. 

Fr. Bonaventure: Yep. That’s good. Yeah. And actually, you know, you know, I might I, I really like this encyclical. I really like this encyclical. I mean, so Pope Francis, obviously known for being a little bit controversial in some aspects, especially of magical teachings and things, but here he seems to hearken to a part of him that you see often. He’s, he’s, you know, he’s he’s a world. But he has this devotional tendency early on, his papacy. He was encouraging those to not look down on, on simple devotions, encouraging people to actually take up simple devotions, Rosary again. So he has this kind of popular piety aspect to him as well. And this encyclical is a kind of popular piety, encyclical you say it’s about. It’s about the Sacred Heart. And in deep, sophisticated ways, not only in the devotional aspects, but also in his kind of philosophical, theological aspects, and has actually a good, a good kind of history of the saints, even talks a lot about the individual saints. So it’s a rich encyclical. It’s not too long. So it’s reasonable. It’s not massive, but it’s also not too short. So it’s got a lot going on in there. Basically what he’s got structured or at least as I read, is, he has a discussion first about, about the heart, and then about the Sacred Heart is moving you towards this devotion aspect, sort of things he talks about, say, human anthropology of the heart. And then he talks about the Sacred Heart gets you out of the devotion, and then he talks about his desires for two aspects of this devotion to be taken up. One, kind of personal spiritual experience, he says. And then the second one is a sort of communal mission, missionary, experience or commitment. He says, so you have this kind of – but the big focus, I should say, is to make the heart. Again, an important aspect of our relationship with the Lord and with each other. So the two, the two love command now kind of embodied or incarnated, incarnated, in, in the, in the heart, which is a nice it is nice and especially Dominicans who are not inclined particularly to, to focus on the heart and I, I love, I love the heart. You know, do a lot of work with Pieta some and such. And the heart is kind of massive, has massive importance. There. So, so at this, this might end up being my new favorite encyclical, but I liked it. I really liked it a lot. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah. No, I think those are some fun things to kind of like poke at. And I think you’re absolutely right. You know, one of the, kind of and nothing that the previous Holy Fathers didn’t address pietistic or simple. Yeah, sure. 

Fr. Bonaventure: The rosary, especially. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah. You know, things like that. But I think there’s a certain freshness when you hear the sitting Holy Father write on, you know, pious practices. Yeah. And Pope Francis does a beautiful job of that. And I think you, speak into both his own experience, his own personal devotion. You can see that, like. Yeah, very devoted himself to the Sacred Heart and how that kind of overflows into this writing, but also leading the faithful in that way. And like I said, to me, there was a certain kind of freshness. I, I won’t say takeaway too much, but like, sometimes we get these things and it’s like, oh, this is super important. It’s like, hey, but let’s not forget like these devotions and this prayer should be part of a regular life. You know, like I said, I want to say that this isn’t important because it is, but it kind of has this freshness and kind of levity. In that sense, I really, really enjoyed that. The hilarity of that is the fact that like, you know, you have two Dominicans stereotypically are just, you know, all about brains. That, that, the gap between the head and the heart. The Dominicans are going to lean into the head. Here’s something that is like. Well, but the beauty of the heart. 

Fr. Bonaventure: When I was also surprised to hear that. I heard this before, but I didn’t know it, you know, really see it in writing. But the the Sacred Heart is an important devotion for the Jesuits. You know, this had an historical relationship there with, you know, Margaret Mary Alacoque and all the spiritual directors and such. The Jesuits have a great devotion to this, but I like there is a section. Just take it a little side digression, a section on the Jesuit history. He breaks out because he’s a Jesuit, of course. And so he breaks and talks a little about the Jesuits experience of the Sacred Heart. And I think that’s in a campaign. Or it could be seen as a campaign to reorder and remind people about the Jesuits, what they’re really about. And they have a spiritual, mystical side to them. And this is true for Ignatius. He talks about this kind of desire for the the inflamed heart and all of this. And, and Ignatius is mysticism here, but also Saint Francis Xavier. Saint Francis Xavier has that beautiful image, of him having his having to open up his cassock because his heart is so on fire for souls. And when in his missionary work.

So the Sacred Heart, as as a Jesuit kind of devotion, the way that the Rosary is a kind of Dominican devotion, of course, it’s open to in the scapular as a Carmelite devotion. Of course, they’re open to other the Nativity sects as a Franciscan devotion like you can all but the. I hadn’t thought of the Sacred Heart as being a particular Jesuit devotion, but this was a nice reminder that the orders themselves also have not only the intellectual components, and and the emphases, but also have these devotional kind of spiritual aspects to them. And so that that gave me a greater appreciation for the Jesuits under the aspect of the Sacred Heart, too. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Absolutely. So let’s dive into it. Okay. As you kind of the postcard kind of broke down the structure of the encyclical and some of his major points and things like that. So let’s kind of address those as, as we can. He talks about the heart. That’s what he begins with. What is the heart? Yeah. Like, why is it important to speak of the heart in our society and our experiences? So how. Yeah. 

Fr. Bonaventure: Well, it’s in the heart is tricky to talk about. Of course. It’s. I remember reading a book on. So Diedrich from Hildebrand wrote a short book called The Heart. It’s 119 pages or something. And it’s a reflection on Sacred Heart of Jesus. Of course. It might be worth taking up and reading again. This point now is love that book. Because of the heart. But he says, like the hearts, a third faculty, it’s third power sort of thing, and I never know what to do. It’s a bit like beauty, like the heart and beauty, I think, I think the heart and beauty are so important, and I don’t know what to say about them, really like analytically. But, he does give this is nice actually. Is is Francis gives a kind of sense of the heart, as you see, is a synthesizer and a unifier and both on the level of, of the, of the individual, but also on the level of the community, in the individual, he has the sense that the heart is the unifier is synthesizer of our rationality, our reason, and our instincts are instincts, impulses, you could say our animality. Of course. Aristotle says we’re rational animals. There’s two aspects where we have an animality to us, but we have a it’s informed by our reason, we have with these rational souls, and the heart ends up being this kind of midpoint, this unifier of these two aspects of us are our reason because it is, a directs the reason to love, which is for us, not just a pure desire, but rather a choice of the will choose things, but also the, the, the instinctual part of us that still has this kind of a heart warmed like a heartbeat. You know, when you fall in love, your heart starts, I mean, like all the physicality kind of stuff, the physiological dimensions. So the heart as and it’s the center and, and the even the center of the body. Right. It’s above the digestive track and it’s in the center of the, of, of the chest, below the, below the head. But it’s the, you know, that the brain is an important organ, of course, but the heart is also the, the central organ, that pumps and feeds everything else. So you have not only like a biological unifying feature to it, but also the sort of symbolic or philosophical unity of or the way of describing how we unite as rational animals in this particular way, which I thought gives puts a little more, analytical heft to the notion of a heart as this unifying of the person.

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah, he talks about the kind of unification, but I really appreciate how you kind of highlight the synthesis. Synthesis, synthesizing nature of the heart that like the heart of the person, which I think, you know from personal experience that it takes on that kind of poetic nature. The heart of an issue or the, you know, in my heart or those types of things that it does have that kind of odd relationship to art and beauty. There’s this like when you take a step back, it’s like both the entirety of who I am synthesize into my heart, you know? Can be revelatory in that way. You know? You know, you know, where my heart is, is so important. Where I place my heart. Yeah. A figure of speech that actually synthesizes me as a person. I think so. Seen as both a unifier in this is a synthesizer. Is is a really, for me. Just, helps me see it that way. And and, be comfortable speaking of the heart. Yeah, I think it’s one of those. It’s in that. That’s one of the power. 

Fr. Bonaventure: I suppose it’s the power of the vagueness. And it’s like. It allows. There’s a place for the unity of disparate elements so that we can say something like, well, where is your heart? Where he says, and one point this, this startling question is, is do I have a heart? And it’s worth asking is like, do I have a mind? It’s like, can I think and the sort of thing, or do I have feelings, you know, do I do people frustrate me or do I get sad or something? But the heart is more of a thing I have to develop, you know, my mind is just what I’ve got and my feelings are like what I have to control. But a heart is something like I could not have a heart was like not having a mind. Not having feelings are different, you know. But not having a heart is so the heart is not only a center, but it’s a centering of us. But it’s also like a project of us. Like I have to build up a heart and calling the Pope, asking us to do reflect on whether we do have hearts and how we build up our hearts, which is to say, the unification of our desires our wills and our minds towards us. Other right in love. It seems like that is just a fantastic image. No wonder that like the Sacred Heart and and the heart is so important. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: I mean, what a damning, thing to say to somebody is like, they don’t have a heart, you know?

Fr. Bonaventure: They’re heartless, right? Unemotional is like semi neutral. It’s like, oh, it’d be too bad if they were had. Emotions are like, oh, kind of brainless. It’s like, well what have you.

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah. They lack empathy, they can’t, like…

Fr. Bonaventure: …It’s a moral failing not to have a heart. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: But to say something like, oh he doesn’t have a heart, it’s like oof. Yeah. Okay, okay. From that understanding of what the heart is, God willing, we each have a heart. Yeah. That looks like. How does he shift over? And what does he say about the Sacred Heart and why is that? Why I like this? 

Fr. Bonaventure: I like so this is a nice transition with the Sacred Heart. Because the Sacred Heart is the unifier. He says, the unifier of all reality. At some point, and I think what do you mean by that? Is one in the Sacred Heart you have the unity of not just the, sensible kind of animality and then the rational humanity, but in the Sacred Heart you have the also the Divine union, right? But the hypostatic union of Christ, who is who is fully man and fully God. And so in the heart of Christ you have the union of all of creation in a way the sensible, the human rational, and then the Divine. And that’s, so that’s one the sort of, you could say a metaphysical union or a point.

But also the sense of the whole universe is ordered towards this heart of Christ. And because of his salvific work. Right. The aim of the universe is to be in love and desire some relationship with God through its own modes, rocks and toads, the way that we do. We’re supposed to be united with him in love. God is love, Deus Caritas Est, and so everything responds is supposed to respond in their capacity of love with him. Right? And the Sacred Heart is the heart of Christ who comes to fix and redeem those who have fallen out of love with him. So it’s the unifying aspect, not only in the sense of like the stacking up, the different kinds of layers of being, but also in the sense of bringing back the whole point of the universe so that the so that the Sacred Heart as this pierced heart as this image, that bleeds for the world, is the direction of where the world is supposed to be going back to. So that as unifier of all realities, sounds grandiose and bizarre and poetic, but I it’s nice to have a concrete image of that. And in the sense that Christ is, of course, the, you know, the, the image of, of God and the, the kind of the capstone of creation, you could say the recreation, and that we’re all aiming towards him, that he’s the reconciler of all signs, then his heart is the center of him, therefore the heart is the center of it all. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: I like that it’s it’s fascinating. Do then begin to reflect on this like, yes. Okay. So a unifier of all reality. And that’s in the context of, a human heart, like. Yes, at a distance. This isn’t this weird…

Fr. Bonaventure: Some sort of platonic other thing. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah. That God did take on a human, humanity. Like, he took on this human reality. But it’s precisely in that humanity that all of creation now finds its proper direction, origin and redemption. All of the disorder that we experience in this, it’s actually oriented into a very, you know, human experience, things that we can now understand because we have heart. And so we’ve seen it that way. This unifier is the the heart of Jesus as a, you know, in his humanity. But that union of the divinity and humanity in this person of Jesus is experienced or shared with us in as a gift, but in a, in a heart. 

Fr. Bonaventure: Yeah, that’s the heart of the world and the heart of heart of the universe. Heart of reality. I like that. I like that notion of the actual concrete. So I’m, Hegel introduces this notion of the concrete universal. Right. It’s the great synthesis on on the Aristotelian, the platonic development of the human universal versus the concrete particular. And Hegel is this concrete universal. And Balthasar picks up on this and talks about Christ as the concrete universal. I think even here we have the sense of the Sacred Heart as the concrete universal of God’s love. Right? This sort of this actual heart of him. What do we mean by that? Yeah.

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: You know, we can talk about the the great gift of the incarnation or, you know, of God becoming man in flesh, but like part of that gift and almost maybe precisely the beauty of that gift is that now we have the Sacred Heart. Understand our own reality, our own redemption, but also the synthesis of all of reality. The Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. Once again, not at a distant, not, a figure from the cosmos, but Jesus Christ, his heart for us and that places us in a very unique in particular way which we enter into relationship with.

Fr. Bonaventure:  And also in the sense that, I mean, the Sacred Mind, you could say, like the Divine Mind of Jesus, it’s just not something I’m ever going to really. And I want to have a mind like Christ in a way. But there’s still but there’s something it’s more approachable from the the heart aspect, to have a heart like Jesus, because somehow feeling and and loving in this particular way is more key. It seems more possible than thinking like him. And I should say this, that by feeling like him, that might direct some of the thoughts like him too. So it’s an even it’s easy to approach that way

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Very, very much so. So okay, let’s talk about then we’re talking about what the heart is. I spoke about the heart. Yeah. The importance of the Sacred Heart in that light, and what’s his next step then? Cause we then talk about how this is a unique kind of devotional encyclical. 

Fr. Bonaventure: So it’s encouraging us to he’s encouraging us to do something a good Jesuit. And so I mean one what before anything, a specific one that caught my eye, Who is, this was traditionally, in the early days, were associated with particular devotions or votives things. And so Thursday was the day of the Sacred Heart, right? So he has this point of he said, why I don’t not saying you have to do this, but wouldn’t it be nice if everyone took did a Holy hour, to the Sacred, a Sacred Heart on Thursday. So nice to be nice. And I thought, oh, maybe I could do something. But there’s I like that emphasis of particular days focused on it because we still we still Fridays of course we hold the passion Saturdays. Of course we hold to Mary. But Thursday of the Sacred Heart is just kind of left out. It slipped out. I’m grateful that he’s brought us back to this. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: What is it, the month of June or July is the month of the Sacred Heart? 

Fr. Bonaventure: I have no idea. But I want to find out. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: I think it’s July. July is the Sacred Heart. 

Fr. Bonaventure: Well, that’d be nice. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: June or July, I forget. Shows me where I lack my devotional, maybe I can do better.

Fr. Bonaventure: Well, no it’s, I think it’s why we’re bringing it back, because the Sacred Heart’s so great. So I’m excited about it. Now, two things he mentions, though, of course, is the personal spiritual experience above. So the personal devotion and then, of course, the communal missionary commitment. And you might think, oh my gosh, we’re going to have a little bit of personal stuff, and then we’re going to be basically doing the kind of standard Pope Francis like social and social justice kind of stuff or what have you. But it’s I mean, it’s mostly the personal stuff!

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Right, it’s a glancing blow to the corporate side of things.

Fr. Bonaventure: And of course, you’re going to get in the, there is a corporate dimension to it. But maybe this way we could say the personal stuff is focused on our particular love of Christ. And that intimacy and particularly I this is this is a lover. So instead of him is defending a very, not controversial but an interesting devotion, the consoling of the Sacred Heart. So this is he talks about he goes to this little kind of catechism of the saints and the relationship to the Sacred Heart, and also to this kind of notion of, of consoling the heart of Christ and Saint Teresa of Lisieux plays a huge part of this as a huge part of this. And so in the personal aspect, he has this notion of trying to reclaim this idea of consoling. And I like it in the way that, he puts it because he’s he wants to fight off people who are cold hearted, he thinks, or is so focused on like the thoughts. So he he says the heart has reasons. This is Blaise Pascal kind of thing. Says, look, the consoling thing, you might wonder butts, but there’s just a rationality, reasonableness, to the sense that you want to console a friend. You want to join in, not by like fixing, he says. Like you can’t fix, you not do it. But like when you console someone, you’re coming alongside them. And I like this aspect of if you’re dedicated to or attentive to the actual heart of Christ, and especially if you think about it on the on the cross, right. Think about Christ’s sorrow for the world. Or as revelations in in Sacred Heart devotions. And think, think Saint Gertrude the Great I suppose was also, so when we, we were, we were we went to novitiate at Saint Gertrude. So as my first introduction and Sacred Heart. But that you you want to come alongside the heart and I think he’s I like I’m just tweaking us and saying, you know, I hear in the background, you Dominicans, you know, or worried about how do you start all the all the I’s and cross all the t’s, the devotions, just trust the faithful. This was a practice that is gone. And and it has this anthropological dimension of actually desiring, like him to to sorrow with him over sins or personal sins, sins of of other people in the Church, sins of the world. There’s a sense of consoling, like wanting to do something, desiring, having this movement towards Christ and His heart, which I really like. And that’s the kind of the core you could say have is the spiritual experience, the personal spirit experience. He wants us to to have us reclaim, and make and re rationalize, you could say and make it reasonable again, this notion of consoling or aiming at the heart of Christ that aims at us. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah. I think, you know, the first, the first few times that’s always been presented is consoling the heart of Christ. It’s like, oh, now I have the upper hand on Jesus, right? He’s sad, he’s weepy, and it’s my job to comfort him. And, you know, he’s going to and like him when he begins to speak of that as like, no, no, no, he’s joining the Sacred Heart of Jesus as he weeps for others. And it’s, yeah, inside of the beloved, not necessarily to fix it, but also to kind of join them. And there’s a certain and I think we all have experienced this in our life, like there’s a real, there’s a real kind of sadness and grief when one recognizes that they are alone in their sadness. And so to join the Lord, to come alongside of them to console the Sacred Heart as, as the Sacred Heart weeps for the sins and the betrayals of others, is not to, let’s say, have the upper hand, but is to not abandon the right. Yeah, what a great gift that is to say, no, I’m not going to be like your your answer. I’m not going to be the remedy or the salve to the sadness is there. But it’s the remedy is almost the lack of abandonment. So when we come alongside that Sacred Heart, it’s not that we have the upper hand on the Lord or anything, is it is. I have a certain authority over the Sacred Heart, but it’s that I. I refuse to abandon him as he moves and as he is sorrowful. Right? And there’s a certain kind of I think, appropriateness to that, that we’ve experienced in our own kind of broken humanity. A sadness it is when we are grieving and we feel as if we’re alone in that grief. And we know that the Lord joins us and he never abandons us. But there is kind of a real experience of that which once again speaks to the appropriateness of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ. Not just at a distance of a deity. 

Fr. Bonaventure: Well, that’s right. And that’s the, again, this kind of the personal spiritual experience he talks about is growing closer to Christ in person. There’s kind of this devotion, not just as a mechanical thing you do again, but rather as an intimate relationship, and that it seems like he’s proposing the Sacred Heart as a reminder that this is a privilege devotion to get close to Christ, in the way the Rosary is a privilege devotion to get close to Mary and see Christ through her aspect in the same way. So the Sacred Heart is this devotion that pushes us towards Christ in that intimacy, that friendship which we all desire and which he’s calling us towards. The second thing, he gets on is the social, communal aspect…

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah, he kind of gives a glancing blow to it, we should probably follow suit, too, as well. 

Fr. Bonaventure: Well he talks and you’d think like, oh, this is gonna be a great discussion about social works

Projects or like things we should do in society. But here it’s very much about forgiveness it strikes me. And maybe he’s preparing the way for, the year of hope and such and this and the Jubilee year in this way. But he has sense, instead of consoling. That’s the spirit when you have reparation, reparation, and so reparation, but not in the sense of like fixing things, so much externally, but uniting yourself with, with others in forgiveness, like, see, seeking to be honest with each other about things and having compunction and wanting to fix things, of course, but really having also this openness and transparency. He has this beautiful this is in one, 187 and 188. So this is the kind of social aspect he says, good intentions are not enough. There has to be an inward desire that finds expression in or outward actions. And I like that, that it’s you could say good intentions are enough. You have to do stuff, but it’s not. It’s good intentions are enough. You have to have an inward desire. So you have to have a heart that has been from the consoling aspects, uniting with Christ. In this picture, where you now have a heart to do good and to fix things, and that leads to action, he says. Reparation. If it is to be Christian, to touch the offended person’s heart and not be a simple act of commutative justice presupposes two demanding things, one acknowledging our guilt and two asking forgiveness. This is. And 188 he says we should never think that acknowledging our sins before others is somehow demeaning or offensive to our human dignity. On the contrary, it demands that we stop deceiving ourselves and acknowledge our past for what it is marred by sin, especially those cases when we caused hurt to our brothers and sisters. And so this social, communal aspect of the Sacred Heart devotion is realizing that you have hurt others, that you have been cold or heartless, and that you should ask for forgiveness, which seems so simple and silly. But again, as you get as you get older, you know, you start to realize, oh, I’m not I can not guess. I’m not going to apologize for this person. You know, this is just how the things go. And, you know, we’re done with that kind of stuff. It really do. But this kind of. Yeah. The idea that you never think of acknowledging sins for others is somehow demeaning or offensive to our human dignity, that it’s, it’s okay to say, I’m sorry, I’ve done wrong in this aspect, not just in communal gestures, but interpersonal gestures, because you’ve spent ideally, I think, time with the Heart of Christ, and you’ve realized that your heart, is needing restoration. And he has done that, and therefore it spills over and desires to love those others. So I love that emphasis of spending time consoling or with the consoling heart of Christ, and then going to make reparation by asking forgiveness first and foremost and admitting your failings of heart to others. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Yeah. No, I think that is so, so beautifully said and just, laid out for us in that sense that these two things, both consoling and reparations, are actually very, very intimately connected. And they’re not, kind of sectioned off from each other as like, well, this is a good, good action to do. I’ll just focus on the consoling side that moves us to recreations versus this kind of junk. Maybe I want to just jump to reparations and kind of. It’s awkward. I want to fix it. I want to jump to reparations. Well, actually, that’s that’s a fruit or an overflow of spending time in union with the with the, Sacred Heart of Jesus. In that consolation. I think that’s so beautiful to see them, like, oriented towards each other. And they’re not to be separated. You can’t jump over one. You can’t have one without the other in a certain sense. 

Fr. Bonaventure: Yeah, yeah. And I think the other thing is to say has a communal aspect, but it also has this missional aspect. And I love this. He has this line. And near the end there, he says, this is 211. Christ asks that you never be ashamed to tell others, with all due discretion, respect about your friendship with him. He asks that you, he ask that you dare to tell others how good and beautiful it is that you found him. And I like this that the Sacred Heart, once you develop this relationship. And who doesn’t love the heart? I mean, Valentine’s Day like this, you know, it seems the heart sounds so silly and tried, but at the same point, it’s actually the most deep, most fundamental thing. We all want to have hearts. We all want to love in this particular way, this fully integrative, you know, integral way we talked about. And to be able to say, like, actually, I found the true aspect of my heart in with the Sacred Heart of Christ and heart, you know, cor ad cor loquitur. You know, heart speaks to heart as he quotes Newman, of course, in this, that you naturally want to say to someone else, like, this is a heart, then you, too, can have both yourself, but because you’ve had him first. So I like that mission aspect mission, telling others about the intimate relationship that you have with Christ that they could also have. That’s beautiful. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: That’s fantastic. Beautiful. Kind of understanding. Beautiful quote to kind of wrap up this episode on…

Fr. Bonaventure: I think this is my favorite encyclical!

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Fr. Joseph-Anthony: Oh hey, aye!

Fr. Bonaventure: I have to say. I’m really, I just kind of talked myself…. I was feeling pretty comfortable. But yeah, I think this might be my favorite encyclical now. 

Fr. Joseph-Anthony: That’s awesome. So thank you all for joining us on this episode. And, never be afraid to share, your experiences with the Heart of Jesus with others. And, to do that one way to do that is to like, comment and subscribe to our podcast. You can do so and on any platform of what you are listening or watching this episode, we also encourage you to check out our website Godsplaining.org to check out new merchandise that we have, as well as, in-person events that we do. We love coming together in person with each other to share our experiences with the Heart of Jesus and the sharing with each and every one of you. One of those will be our upcoming, retreat. It’s an All Comers retreat. So any of our listeners are invited to join us on June 20th through the 22nd in Providence, Rhode Island. More information can be found on our website. But the dates of that once again are June 20th through the 22nd in Providence, Rhode Island. So we invite you to check that out and see if you’re able to make it work and join us in Providence for our upcoming retreat. As always, please check the description and show notes for other, links or things that you can help support our podcast. And as always, know of our prayers for you. Please keep praying for us. God bless you.