We need the help of God’s love. Let us turn, then, to the heart of Christ, that core of his being, which is a blazing furnace of divine and human love and the most sublime fulfillment to which humanity can aspire. There, in that heart, we truly come to know ourselves and learn how to love. —Pope Francis, “Dilexit Nos,” No. 30
In one of his first general audiences, on May 28, 2025, Pope Leo XIV demonstrated continuity with his predecessor in calling attention to a devotion dear to Pope Francis before him, saying, “Let us turn, then, to the Sacred Heart, model of true humanity, and ask him to make our heart ever more like his.”
The following month, June 11, 2025, Pope Leo penned his own prayer to the Sacred Heart. In that prayer, the pope prayed to “learn from you and from the charity with which you allowed yourself to be touched by all forms of poverty.” He added, “From this encounter, send us out on mission, a mission of compassion for the world in which you are the source from which all consolation flows.”
Here at home we also find a hopeful new focus on the Sacred Heart. In 2025, the U.S. bishops voted to consecrate the United States of America to the Sacred Heart. This act, which will take place in June of this year in Orlando during the spring meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, coincides with the celebration of the 250th anniversary of our beloved nation. Essentially, the U.S. bishops are inviting us to turn to the Sacred Heart and look again at our country and every single person through its lens. The hope is that this intentional effort will produce an abundance of graces for our nation and people, opening eyes and hearts to greater respect for human life and the dignity of every human person.
Prayer before the Sacred Heart of Jesus prepares one to allow their heart to be touched by injustice and respond accordingly with compassion. In other words, much like the preaching of the Gospel, devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has a way of opening eyes as well as hearts to care for the poor and marginalized. Indeed, this concept of opening eyes is at the heart of the Gospel. In a certain sense, we attend Holy Mass not just to hear the good news but to embrace the vision of it in action; however, it is not always easy to see, let alone understand, this vision rooted in love.
The Power of Preaching
During my first year as bishop, near the end of the worldwide pandemic, I invited a retired homiletics professor from the Catholic University of America, Richard DeLillio, O.S.F.S., to do a workshop on preaching for our priests and deacons. Father DeLillio, who has since died, offered a definition of preaching as “ removing the scales from one’s eyes.” This definition applies not just to those who hear the word of God but also to those who preach about it. While preaching is customarily associated with hearing, it is in large part about removing the blind spots that preclude one from seeing as God desires.
Is not this idea of opening eyes at the core of Jesus’ preaching and interaction with others? It is not just the case of the man born blind whom Jesus restores to sight in John 9 where this is true. Many of Jesus’ encounters in the Gospels seek to open eyes while at the same time unlocking hearts to his mission of bringing love and mercy to all in need—most especially the poor. The fruit of that great sermon on the road to Emmaus by Jesus in Luke 24 is that when the two forlorn travelers invited him to stay with them, their eyes were opened and their hearts began to burn. They came to see that this stranger was none other than Jesus himself. The scales of sadness, despair and self-pity were removed by the good news shared with them by the risen Lord. What they heard from the divine preacher enabled them somehow to see in a new and different way.
A Pilgrimage Toward Seeing
The spiritual journey is a pilgrimage toward seeing. Of course, this is not about having to see before believing, as in the case of Thomas the Apostle, although that is ever so tempting. The Christian pilgrim of Jesus still “walks by faith and not by sight. (2 Cor 5:7). Nevertheless, every pilgrim, just like those two disciples on the road to Emmaus, struggles at times to see God in the messiness of life and behold his goodness in others, especially those who may be different.
In his book Visions of the Divine: An Artistic Journey Into the Mystery of the Eucharist, Stephen F. Auth reflects on Paolo Veronese’s “Wedding Feast at Cana” painting and quotes the 20th-century American artist Georgia O’Keeffe: “To see takes time.” The impatience of our present-day culture makes it challenging to see. Indeed, life can be likened to a magnificent piece of art containing many minute and poignant details hidden within that can be easily dismissed, or worse yet, lost.
Among those many significant details are the respect for human life and the dignity of the human person. Regardless of one’s skin color, country of origin, sexual orientation, political affiliation, ideological leaning or immigration status, every human being commands respect because he or she is made in God’s image and likeness. Etymologically, the word “respect” means “to look again.” Sadly, one of the scales that affects one’s ability to see is prejudice, taking a snapshot of someone or something and remaining uncompromisingly fixed in it no matter what.
If only people could step back and look again. Is that not the hope of every homily, that having heard the Gospel proclaimed with certain real-life applications, ears and eyes will be opened and hearts will be changed?
Jesus laments those who fail to hear and see: “Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears and see with their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and be converted and I heal them” (Mt 13:15). But much like absorbing the takeaways from a retreat, seeing takes time, especially when one aims to examine the details and nuances.
Seeking to See as God Sees
There is a huge difference in how human beings see in comparison with God. This divide is revealed in the Lord’s conversation with Samuel. “But the Lord said to Samuel: Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected him. God does not see as a mortal, who sees the appearance. The Lord looks into the heart” (1 Sm 16:7).
Our world lacks peace and justice in many places. This reality is sadly coupled with polarizing rifts in our country, conflicts in some of our families and culture wars splintering the church. Perhaps this is a moment when God is truly calling us to see as he sees. He wants us to look at the heart. This intentional gaze begins by looking into one’s own heart to uncover the “foliage” that according to Pope Francis (“Dilexit Nos,” No. 6) presents a challenge in knowing ourselves. This examination of the heart will allow us to name the hardness that not only holds us back from seeing properly but also inhibits our ability to love one another as Jesus loves us.
Seeing Through the Lens of the Sacred Heart
This personal gaze into one’s heart is incomplete, however, without the glow of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Now, more than ever, it is important for us to rediscover and renew our devotion to the Sacred Heart. The Sacred Heart burns with love and mercy for every human heart. This love and compassion are what we as disciples need to bring to the world.
In these dangerously challenging times, preaching and the opening of eyes takes on new urgency. We need to pray for our bishops, priests and deacons to prayerfully and diligently prepare and deliver their homilies as God’s instruments of grace with and without words so that the scales from one’s eyes can be removed and eyes can be open to see as God desires to see.
Just the same, we need to pray for every person of faith. One cannot underestimate the daily informal preaching that takes place every day by those who are not ordained but find themselves in various pulpits of life. In “The Joy of the Gospel,” Pope Francis points to this element of preaching: “Being a disciple means being constantly ready to bring the love of Jesus to others, and this can happen unexpectedly and in any place: on the street, in a city square, during work, on a journey” (No. 127). Every baptized Catholic has a share in the work of preaching the joy of the Gospel and removing the scales from one’s eyes in order that we might see not with judgment or condemnation but compassion and love.
Personal Experience
During this past year, my prayer has led me to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Throughout my years of priesthood, I have viewed countless images of the Sacred Heart, and perhaps the familiarity of these images engendered a dismissiveness. But something happened. Maybe it is the grace of office, or perhaps it just goes back to the truth that “it takes time to see.”
Looking back, I can connect some dots, but prayerfully reading Pope Francis’ “Dilexit Nos” was a game changer. That led me to write a pastoral letter on the Sacred Heart, “Take Heart! Do Not Lose Heart! Behold the Sacred Heart!” in which I called for a diocesan-wide enthronement of the Sacred Heart in all our 62 parishes. During our diocesan clergy convocation, I was blessed to celebrate an enthronement with our priests. And as I travel throughout the diocese and preach the Gospel, I always find a way to invite the faithful to “turn to the Sacred Heart.” I am convinced that the way forward for all of us is through the door of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The Vision and Preaching of the Bishops
When we reflect on our own national history, we can see why the U.S. bishops are planning to consecrate the nation to the Sacred Heart this June. America, as “one nation, under God,” has always aspired to be a nation of heart. Leaders in our tradition have often espoused the heart as a foundational reality to our national identity. Before our nation was formed, Benjamin Franklin said, “A right heart exceeds all.” Frederick Douglass, an African American social reformer who lived during the 1800s, said, “The life of a nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.” These distinctive qualities emanate from the heart.
In his 1963 book, Strength to Love, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hatred cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
In his 1985 State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan said, “Anything is possible in America if we have the faith, the will, and the heart. History is asking us once again to be a force for good in the world. Let us begin in unity, with justice and love.”
More recently, in a patriotic song, “The Heart of America,” written by Jim Brown, Emily Enderlin and Jeff Fahey and sung by Willie Nelson, we find these words:
The heart of America is still dreaming
dreaming of things to come
And it’s beating like a drum,
Oh, the heart of America.
It’s a hand reaching out
to your brother in a moment of doubt.
The freedom in our lungs
to sing a song that’s never been sung.
And there’s room for everyone.
Perhaps nowhere else is that generous vision of the American heart captured more than in “The New Colossus,” a poem written in 1883 by Emma Lazarus and placed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903. Many of our ancestors were welcomed by these words:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
A Journey of Rediscovery
Just as we seek to rediscover our devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, it is equally important that we as Americans reclaim the American heart and see with new eyes all that it promises. This journey of rediscovery begins by gazing at the Sacred Heart to behold the endless possibilities of love. It also means looking into our own hearts and choosing to be a light rather than a room of darkness. It means building people up rather than tearing them down. It means governing our lives not by hate but by love that has room for everyone—a love that welcomes, respects, embraces and seeks to bring out the best in everyone by working together.
May the consecration of the United States of America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus empower everyone in our country to see one another as God sees. And may this prayerful act feed our individual hearts and give new life to the American heart. In the words of Pope Leo XIV, “Let us turn, then, to the Sacred Heart, model of true humanity, and ask him to make our heart ever more like his.” In other words, may we learn to love one another as Jesus loves us.
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