Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 28, 2024 / 18:00 pm
The president of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB) has issued a statement inviting U.S. Catholics to pray with Pope Francis’ latest encyclical on the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The Holy Father’s fourth encyclical, Dilexit Nos (“He Loved Us”), issued on Oct. 24, calls for a renewed understanding of devotion to the Sacred Heart amid the challenges of today.
In his missive to U.S. Catholics, Archbishop Timothy Broglio writes: “The ills of modern society can read like a litany of uncurable diseases: consumerism, secularism, partisanism. Today, Pope Francis offers a simple and powerful cure: the Sacred Heart of Jesus.”
“Within this devotion, we encounter the living heart of Jesus and the power to bring us together as children of God,” Broglio writes.
“I invite you to spend time in prayer with this moving letter from the Holy Father,” the archbishop says, citing a reminder from Pope Francis that “Jesus is now waiting for you to give him the chance to bring light to your life.”
The archbishop concludes by urging the faithful to follow the encouragement of Pope Francis to “speak of Christ, by witness or by word, in such a way that others seek to love him.”
Broglio also observed that the Holy Father’s message in Dilexit Nos should hold special weight among U.S. Catholics, pointing out that it “affirms a message of our own National Eucharistic Revival that in the Eucharist we discover the ‘immense love of the heart of Christ.’”
Begun in 2022 as a “grassroots response of the Church in the United States,” the nationwide movement saw over 60,000 pilgrims from across the country joining together for the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis this past summer.
