When Pope Francis released Dilexit Nos in October 2024, plenty of Catholics were surprised to see a full encyclical on the Sacred Heart. It can feel like an older devotion, one more at home in a grandparent's prayer book than in a twenty-first century papal letter.

Dilexit Nos stands in a long line of papal teaching. Popes have returned to the Sacred Heart again and again for well over a century. Here's a walk through that line, what each document added, and what it all means for your prayer today.

Each generation faces its own version of the same problem: people forget that God loves them personally. The Sacred Heart answers that problem directly. It shows a God who loves with a human heart, who is wounded by indifference, and who keeps loving anyway.

That's why the popes have turned to this devotion during times of upheaval. They saw it as medicine for their age.

On May 25, 1899, Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Annum Sacrum, announcing that he would consecrate the entire human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He carried out that consecration on June 11, 1899.

Leo XIII considered it one of the great acts of his pontificate. He wanted to place the whole world, believers and unbelievers alike, under the kingship of Christ's love as a new century began. The same year, he approved the Litany of the Sacred Heart for public use, which we cover in our guide to the Feast of the Sacred Heart.

A century later, on June 11, 1999, Pope St. John Paul II wrote a letter marking the centenary of that consecration. He wrote that the people of the year 2000 need Christ's Heart "to build the civilization of love."

On May 8, 1928, Pope Pius XI released Miserentissimus Redemptor, an encyclical on reparation to the Sacred Heart.

Reparation means making a return of love to Christ for the sins and coldness that wound Him. Pius XI pointed back to Christ's words to St. Margaret Mary, recalling how He showed her His Heart and lamented that His boundless love received mostly neglect in return. In response, the pope raised the rank of the feast and asked that an Act of Reparation be prayed in churches every year on the Solemnity.

If you've ever kept the nine First Fridays, you've practiced exactly the kind of reparation Pius XI was writing about.

On May 15, 1956, Pope Pius XII published Haurietis Aquas, marking 100 years since Blessed Pius IX extended the feast of the Sacred Heart to the whole Church. Its title comes from Isaiah 12:3: "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation."

Haurietis Aquas is the most thorough theological treatment of the devotion. Pius XII rooted it firmly in Scripture and the Church Fathers, answering critics who saw it as sentimental. His key teaching is that Christ's Heart is a sign of three loves: His divine love, the love of His human will, and His human, felt love. We explore how that shows up in the image itself in the meaning of the Sacred Heart image.

He also honored the saints who shaped the devotion, naming St. John Eudes for the first liturgical office of the Sacred Heart and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque as holding the most distinguished place among those who spread it. Her story is in St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and the history of the Sacred Heart.

Pope St. John Paul II spoke about the Sacred Heart throughout his pontificate. Beyond his 1999 centenary letter, he canonized St. Claude de la Colombière, St. Margaret Mary's Jesuit confessor, on May 31, 1992.

Since 2002, the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart has also been the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests, a fitting link between the Heart of Christ and the priests who bring His sacraments to us.

Pope Francis released Dilexit Nos, Latin for "He loved us," on October 24, 2024. It was his fourth encyclical, and Vatican News connected it to the 350th anniversary of the first apparitions at Paray-le-Monial.

Pope Francis wrote for "a world that seems to have lost its heart." He described a culture worn down by conflict, consumerism, and technology that can crowd out what makes us human, and he pointed to the Heart of Christ as the place where we recover what matters most.

A few themes stand out:

• The heart as our center. Pope Francis spends real time on what the heart means in Scripture and in human experience, the place where we come together as whole persons.
• Christ's love is personal. The encyclical returns again and again to the simple truth in its title: He loved us.
• Reparation still matters. Pope Francis affirms reparation and describes it as a response of love to the One who has been wounded.
• The saints show the way. He draws on St. Margaret Mary, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Charles de Foucauld, and others who found in Christ's Heart a love without limits.
• Love that goes outward. Devotion to the Sacred Heart, he writes, should make us more loving and more missionary toward others.

You can read the full encyclical free on the Vatican's website.

You don't need to read every encyclical to live what they teach. The popes are all pointing in the same direction: Jesus loves you personally, His love deserves a response, and that response should spill over into love for others.

Here's a simple way to put it into practice this month:

1. Make a morning offering. Each morning, offer your day to the Sacred Heart in your own words.
2. Make one act of reparation. Keep a First Friday, or pray the Act of Reparation on a Friday.
3. Read a page. Pick one section of Dilexit Nos or Haurietis Aquas and read it slowly, one paragraph a day.
4. Pray with both Hearts. The popes who wrote on the Sacred Heart also loved the Immaculate Heart. See how they fit together in the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart.
5. Keep the devotion in your hands. Pray a decade with a rosary that bears the Sacred Heart, like our Saving Victim Rosary, named for the Eucharistic hymn O Salutaris Hostia, or our Sacred Heart Rosary.

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