Dear Parishioners,

Our parish nurse, Pat Pusateri, who faithfully serves all of us at St. Joan of Arc in a variety of ways that promote good health (physical and spiritual), reminded our staff that February is named National Heart Month. I was not aware of this designation previously and suspect that the identification of February with the heart is partially due to Valentine’s Day, the celebration of which most often features the symbol of a heart. (The other identifying symbol of Valentine’s Day is the plump cherub brandishing bow and arrow as instruments used to foster romance and love. I much prefer the image of the heart!) No doubt our national medical professionals are hoping to remind us of the essential role that our hearts play in keeping us alive. This anatomical organ is centrally located on our torsos, allowing it to perform its most essential task, namely to purify our blood and re-send it throughout our bodies. The heart’s steady, rhythmic beating (the first sound that a child in the womb hears) is the sound that indicates life. When this unique bodily chant is silenced, we presume the person is dead.

Several months ago, on October 24, 2024, Pope Francis published an encyclical letter Dilexit Nos (from the Latin phrase “He loved us”). These are the first words of the letter, which has as its self-proclaimed focus, “The human and divine love of the heart of Jesus Christ.” This encyclical is not only the pope’s personal reflection of an age-old devotion that is especially significant to Jesuit spirituality, but is, I believe, an attempt on the pope’s part to reinvigorate the symbol of the heart and show its religious relevance for people in our own time.

Since the period of classical Greece, the heart (in Greek kardia, from which is derived the word “cardio”) denoted the inmost part of humans, animals, and plants. It was the center of both soul and body. Not only did thoughts and feelings proceed from the heart, but so did decisions and acts of the will. Human beings were understood to be more than a sum of different skills and emotions but a unity of body and soul governed by the activity of the heart.

The heart became a symbol that was readily translated into religious and poetic language, especially in the Judeo-Christian tradition. In the Old Testament, Psalm 51, the author writes: “Create a clean heart in me, O God, and put a steadfast spirit within me” (Ps 51:10). In Luke’s gospel (ch. 18), Jesus tells a parable about the necessity of praying always and not losing heart. The author of the letter to the Hebrews writes: “Consider how he endured such opposition from sinners in order that you may not grow weary and lose heart” (Heb. 12:3). Perhaps the richest symbolism of the heart in the New Testament is at the crucifixion when the soldier’s lance pierces Jesus’ side (understood to be his heart) from which flowed blood and water. On a pure physiological level, the outpouring of blood and water was very likely because the lance would have pierced the sac surrounding the heart containing the fluids of blood and water. This final moment that concluded the violent execution of an innocent man became a theological expression of the sacramental life of the church – water symbolizing baptism and blood symbolizing the Eucharist.

But as Pope Francis reminds us in his letter:

Devotion to the heart of Christ is not the veneration of a single organ apart from the person of Jesus. What we contemplate and adore is the whole Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man represented by an image that accentuates his heart. The heart of flesh is seen as the privileged sign of the inmost being of the incarnate Son and his love, both divine and human. (Paragraph No. 48 in the Encyclical.)

I would encourage our parishioners to visit the Vatican website and read this Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos, which I will continue to reflect upon in the weeks ahead.

Blessings,

Fr. Gabriel, OSB

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