In his latest encyclical, Dilexit Nos (“He Loved Us”), Pope Francis calls all the faithful not merely to pray to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but to allow themselves to be deeply and wonderfully drawn into it. I find that this encyclical, while written for all the faithful, has some particularly helpful insights for priests.

As a pivotal statement for the evangelizing nature of priestly ministry, Pope Francis reminds us, “To be able to speak of Christ, by witness or by word, in such a way that others seek to love him, is the greatest desire of every missionary of souls” (No. 210). In short, our lives as priests are always to be lived in a way in which we draw others into the love of Christ. Yet that requires our own interior immersion into the Sacred Heart. It requires us to spend time in quiet solitude allowing the voice of Christ to speak of his love for us and for the people we serve. It requires a stillness in our lives that lets the Holy Spirit bring our hearts into an ineffable experience of being so loved by Christ that our hearts earnestly desire to bring others to experience the same. After all, what is the priesthood of Christ without the love of Christ? What is the good of all of our preaching, teaching and evangelizing if there is no heart in it, specifically the Sacred Heart?

A Need for Fraternity With Other Priests

In the latter section of Dilexit Nos, Pope Francis takes the reader through a series of reflections from great saints and mystics in the history of spirituality. After describing how St. Charles de Foucauld allowed himself to be “conformed to the sentiments of the heart of Christ,” the pope calls him a “universal brother.” By that the pope shows that any true missionary disciple will seek “to shelter the whole of suffering humanity in his fraternal heart” (No. 179). Every priest is called to develop the heart of a universal brother, a heart that allows him to embrace all that is broken and in need of healing in the lives of the people he ministers to and ministers with. A priest’s “fraternal heart” allows him to discover and feel his deep connection to all those who are in need, all those who seek out what the Church can offer their lives.

In addition, a priest’s fraternal heart ought to keep him grounded in a sense of need for fraternity with his brother priests. The first action arising from the heart of Christ was to call together a community of disciples, not individual followers. The final action arising from the heart of Christ on the cross was to unite to those who were united to him — his mother and his beloved disciples. Therefore, to be true to the Sacred Heart that has called us to priesthood, we need to develop priestly hearts that desire to minister together with other priests, to unite our lives together, and to be for one another a source of inspiration, courage and challenge. A healthy priestly heart desires to make priestly fraternity a lived reality.

FATHER SCOTT DETISCH is a priest of the Diocese of Erie, Pennsylvania. He is pastor of St. John the Evangelist Church in Girard. He also serves as an adjunct professor of systematic and sacramental theology at St. Mary Seminary in Wickliffe, Ohio.