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This week I am returning from a retreat in which I was happy to check out of the constant news cycle from the Vatican during the latest installment of “meeting about meeting.” I spent two days editing articles about the joy of the faith: the history of music, Romanitas, Halloween, and more. I wasn’t yet ready to plunge back into the latest thing from the Vatican. But then I saw the headline about a new encyclical, and I was happy to find something positive in the subject matter. As it turns out, it is subject very dear to me and to many faithful: the heart of Jesus Christ.
The new encyclical is called Dilexit Nos meaning “He has loved us,” taken from the Blessed Apostle (Rom. viii. 37). The document is the size of a small book, clocking in at 31,369 words. This morning I have only read the first few sections, but this provides a great deal of positive content to consider, before we go further, which will bring us to the main point I wish to make starting out.
The first section is entitled “the Importance of the heart” and opens with this:
The symbol of the heart has often been used to express the love of Jesus Christ. Some have questioned whether this symbol is still meaningful today. Yet living as we do in an age of superficiality, rushing frenetically from one thing to another without really knowing why, and ending up as insatiable consumers and slaves to the mechanisms of a market unconcerned about the deeper meaning of our lives, all of us need to rediscover the importance of the heart.
Here the Holy Father makes a footnote saying “Many of the reflections in this first chapter were inspired by the unpublished writings of the late Father Diego Fares, S.J. May the Lord grant him eternal rest.” I am not familiar with this Jesuit, but it must be said that much of these opening paragraphs accord well with what Trad godfather Dietrich von Hildebrand says in his important text The Heart: an Analysis of Human and Divine Affectivity. I read this text a few years ago and it had a profound impact on my thinking and my spiritual and personal life.
First, Hildebrand would wholeheartedly agree that we live in a society of superficiality where souls end up as slaves to the “mechanisms of a market unconcerned about the deeper meaning of our lives.” Hildebrand was a thinker always concerned with going to the depths, avoiding any kind of “reductionism.” And the central depth of the human person is the heart. The Holy Father agrees with Hildebrand in speaking of the heart as the central identity of the person, quoting from various Scripture passages and saying that the Bible “speaks to us of the heart as a core that lies hidden beneath all outward appearances, even beneath the superficial thoughts that can lead us astray.”
The heart is the core of our person. It is, says Pope Francis, “the naked truth about ourselves.” And this is the traditional picture of the person given in Christian revelation. Thus there is no devotion to the “intellect” of Jesus or the “will” of Jesus, but there is a devotion to His Sacred Heart, and for good reason. Far too often, even among Trads, there is far too much discussion of “intellect” and “will” and very little said about “the heart.” Fortunately, the Sacred Heart devotion makes up for this. But Hildebrand would agree with the Holy Father when he says that there has been a devaluing of the heart:
The issues raised by today’s liquid society are much discussed, but this depreciation of the deep core of our humanity – the heart – has a much longer history. We find it already present in Hellenic and pre-Christian rationalism, in post-Christian idealism and in materialism in its various guises. The heart has been ignored in anthropology, and the great philosophical tradition finds it a foreign notion, preferring other concepts such as reason, will or freedom. The very meaning of the term is imprecise and hard to situate within our human experience.
Hildebrand notes how the heart is indeed the place of the lower “passions” which must be ruled by reason. At the same time, it is also the place of great spiritual contemplation: joy and peace, fruits of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Father considers the heart as a fundamental path toward knowledge of self and others: “This interior reality of each person is frequently concealed behind a great deal of “foliage”, which makes it difficult for us not only to understand ourselves, but even more to know others[.]” These words are not controversial, but a little later this these opening sections, Pope Francis quotes the infamous Karl Rahner: “The word ‘heart’ …is one of those primordial words that ‘describe realities belonging to man precisely in so far as he is one whole (as a corporeo-spiritual person).’” After this comes a quote from Byung-Chul Han, a South Korean philosopher living in Germany, interpreting Heidegger to say that:
Thought must be provoked before it begins to work with concepts or while it works with them. Without deep emotion, thought cannot begin. The first mental image would thus be goose bumps. What first stirs one to think and question is deep emotion. Philosophy always takes place in a basic mood (Stimmung).
I’m not any kind of expert about Heidegger, but I have a cautious distrust of him, due to his reputation, and this is doubled for Rahner. It is unfortunate that the Holy Father felt the need to quote these two instead of more authoritative voices. Nevertheless, what is said does not seem to be untrue. This quote from Han seems to be in accord with what the ancients described as the beginning of philosophy: wonder. A man is moved in his heart by the reality of the world and thus sets his mind to ponder it. In the same way, a man sees the beauty of a woman and he is moved in his heart and seeks to win her heart.
All of this is another word for what Hildebrand calls the fundamental virtue: reverence. This must be the ground that governs our hearts, starting with reverence for being itself, or rather, Being Himself, from which springs from our hearts reverence for all He has created, especially Man.
Hardening our Hearts toward our Fathers in the Church
This brings me to an important point that was said to me a few years back by a wise man. We don’t have the space or time to go through the whole encyclical right now, so I just want to leave you with this right now: we cannot harden our hearts towards our fathers in the Church. Here at OnePeterFive, we are no strangers to critiquing the bishops and the pope. I don’t do this lightly and no pious soul takes pleasure in this.
But this is the warning: that we do not harden our hearts against our ecclesiastical fathers. We must always honour them, because this is the commandment from God. We must always love them and reverence them, no matter what they do. Therefore I wanted to introduce this encyclical to our readers with this brief reflection to consider the importance of the heart. In the Trad movement we must guard our hearts against this hardening, which is not a Christian attitude. It is a spiritual discipline to read the words of the Holy Father and try to find some good in them, to avoid this hardening, and that is why I’m publishing this short introduction. This seems to be an appropriate way to start talking about this encyclical.
Therefore on this feast of St. Raphael, let us ask the Sacred Heart of Jesus to always govern our wayward hearts. Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.
T. S. Flanders
Editor
St. Raphael