From His Wounded Side

Please note that while this article can be read on its own, its deepest meaning is found when it is read in conjunction with two previous articles, “What Is Need in the World” and “A Heart for Love,”  These articles are my reflection from reading Pope Francis’ recent encyclical, Dilexit Nos (October 24, 2024). There are significant portions that I do not comment on.  If you read Dilexit Nos for yourself, you might find those portions important for your own reflection.

“God is love” (1 John 4:8).  Jesus shows us that the love of his Sacred Heart has no limit when He freely hands over his life as a sacrifice as He is crucified for our sins.  When He dies, his side is pierced by a lance, “and immediately blood and water flowed out” (see John 19:33-34).

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=isaiah%2049%3A15&version=NABREIt is Jesus’ pierced side that Pope Francis says “is the source of the love that God had shown for his people in countless ways” (Dilexit Nos, 99).  It is because He loves us that God says, “I will never forget you” (Isaiah 49:15).  The Crucifixion is proof of God’s limitless love for us.

From the blood and water than flowed from Jesus’ side comes the courage of the martyrs as they receive living water (see Dilexit Nos, 102).  This living water, the same living water that Jesus spoke of to the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:10) is the Holy Spirit (see Dilexit Nos, 102).  Inspired by God’s love in sending Jesus and Jesus’ own love for us on the Cross, we receive the gift of courage from the Holy Spirit.  What do we do with this courage?

The scene of the blood and water flowing from Jesus’ side should lead us to contemplate its meaning.  “As Saint Jerome explains, a person capable of contemplation “does not delight in the beauty of that stream of water, but drinks of the living water flowing from the side of the Lord” (Dilexit Nos, 103).

Such contemplation should lead us to see, as Pope Francis draws from St. Bonaventure, that “the heart of Christ as the source of the sacraments and of grace, and urges that our contemplation of that heart become a relationship between friends, a personal encounter of love” (Dilexit Nos, 106).

Pope Francis then draws from St. Francis de Sales, “In his writings, the saintly Doctor of the Church opposes a rigorous morality and a legalistic piety by presenting the heart of Jesus as a summons to complete trust in the mysterious working of his grace…I am certain that we will remain no longer in ourselves… but dwell forever in the Lord’s wounded side” (Dilexit Nos, 114).  In this, we encounter the Lord and find Christ’s love that St. Francis de Sales saw “as essential to the spiritual life” (Dilexit Nos, 116). 

From here, Pope Francis turns to the practice of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the visions of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (Dilexit Nos, 119ff).  Pope Francis writes, “We need not feel obliged to accept or appropriate every detail of her spiritual experience” (Dilexit Nos, 121).  Jesus did not give us the Sacred Heart Devotion for the sake of the devotion.  Pope Francis continues, “More important than any individual detail is the core of the message handed on to us, which can be summed up in the words heard by Saint Margaret Mary, “This is the heart that so loved human beings that it has spared nothing, even to emptying and consuming itself in order to show them its love”.” (Dilexit Nos, 121, emphasis added).  We practice the devotion in order to encounter God’s love.

Pope Francis then speaks of what Jesus endured for us on the Cross brought Jesus, ingratitude.  It brought him ingratitude from the very people He gave his life to save.  They show ingratitude in rejecting Jesus or in not responding with love to his sacrifice.  Do you show gratitude for what Jesus has done for us (see Dilexit Nos, 124)?

Pope Francis writes, “The wounds of the passion have not disappeared, but are now transfigured” (Dilexit Nos, 124).  The wounds do not disappear for they are part of who He is.  We know the wounds remain from Jesus’ words to Thomas in John 20:27, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.”  The wounds remain as his love endures forever.

Pope Francis then turns to the writings of Blessed Claude de La Colombière, “Two things have moved me in a striking way. First, the attitude of Christ towards those who sought to arrest him… his heart remains firmly directed to God… that same heart towards Judas who betrayed him, the apostles who cravenly abandoned him, the priests and the others responsible for the persecution he suffered; none of these things was able to arouse in him the slightest sentiment of hatred or indignation.” (Dilexit Nos, 128).  Jesus lives his own words, “love your enemies.”

St. Therese of the Child Jesus spoke of Jesus “as the one “whose heart beats in unison with my own.”” (Dilexit Nos, 134).  Does your heart beat in unison with the Heart of Jesus (Dilexit Nos, 148)?

We should not take this question lightly for, as Pope Francis writes, “Meditation on Christ’s self-offering on the cross involves, for Christian piety, something much more than mere remembrance” (Dilexit Nos, 154).  It stands at the heart of faith.

It is our encounter with the Sacred Heart of Jesus in our meditation and prayer that leads us to “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 and his plan for our lives. This experience proves purifying, for love needs the purification of tears” (Dilexit Nos, 158, emphasis added).

This purification brings us to sincere “compunction.”  “Compunction is “not a feeling of guilt that makes us discouraged or obsessed with our unworthiness, but a beneficial ‘piercing’ that purifies and heals the heart…our hearts can be opened to the working of the Holy Spirit…To shed tears of compunction means seriously to repent of grieving God by our sins; recognizing that we always remain in God’s debt…Compunction, then, is not our work but a grace and, as such, it must be sought in prayer.” (Dilexit Nos, 159, emphasis added).

While his Passion brought him “ingratitude and indifference” and “coldness and contempt” (Dilexit Nos, 162) from many, if we repent as described in the paragraph above, Jesus’ thirst is quenched when we return to him.  Jesus described his thirst (see John 19:28) to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, “I thirst, but with a thirst so ardent to be loved by men in the Most Blessed Sacrament, that this thirst consumes me; and I have not encountered anyone who makes an effort, according to my desire, to quench my thirst, giving back a return for my love”. Jesus asks for love” (Dilexit Nos, 166).

Jesus promises to quench our thirst, “whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14).  Are you willing to quench his thirst by loving him in return?  Do you realize that, if we wish to properly respond to Christ’s love, we must love our brothers and sisters (see Dilexit Nos, 167, 1 John 4:20), fulfilling the second greatest commandment?

Do you love Jesus more than “the sweet enticements of the sensual life” (Dilexit Nos, 177)?  Remember, “Good intentions are not enough.  There has to be an inward desire that finds expression in our outward actions” (Dilexit Nos, 187, cf. Dilexit Nos, 205).  Even an atheist can do a good deed.  Do we allow the love of Christ in his Sacred Heart to set our hearts on fire for action?

I end my reflection on Dilexit Nos with these words of Pope Francis, “As we contemplate the Sacred Heart, mission becomes a matter of love. For the greatest danger in mission is that, amid all the things we say and do, we fail to bring about a joyful encounter with the love of Christ who embraces us and saves us” (Dilexit Nos, 208, emphasis added).

Peace,

Fr. Jeff