More quotes from Pope Francis’ latest encyclical Dilexit Nos (‘He loved us’) in which he explores how the heart of Jesus serves as a source of healing and transformation for a fragmented world.

Christ’s presence in us

The encyclical includes this quote from a June 2008 Angelus address by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI: “Every person needs a ‘centre’ for his or her own life, a source of truth and goodness to draw upon in the events, situations, and struggles of daily existence. All of us, when we pause in silence, need to feel not only the beating of our own heart, but deeper still, the beating of a trustworthy presence, perceptible with faith’s senses and yet much more real: the presence of Christ, the heart of the world.”

Christ suffers with us

“Our sufferings are joined to the suffering of Christ on the cross. If we believe that grace can bridge every distance, this means that Christ by his sufferings united himself to the sufferings of his disciples in every time and place. In this way, whenever we endure suffering, we can also experience the interior consolation of knowing that Christ suffers with us.”

Christ loves through us

“Acts of love of neighbour, with the renunciation, self-denial, suffering, and effort that they entail, can only be such when they are nourished by Christ’s own love. He enables us to love as he loved, and in this way he loves and serves others through us.”

The pope’s prayer

In the encyclical, Pope Francis offers a prayer that the world rediscovers its heart: “In the presence of the heart of Christ, I once more ask the Lord to have mercy on this suffering world in which he chose to dwell as one of us. May he pour out the treasures of his light and love, so that our world, which presses forward despite wars, socio-economic disparities, and uses of technology that threaten our humanity, may regain the most important and necessary thing of all: its heart.”

(Compiled by Fr Joe Borg)