« MISERENTISSIMUS REDEMPTOR ». — Opening words of the encyclical of Pius XI (9 May 1928) on the duty of reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (AAS, 20 [1928], pp. 165–78).
The Pope affirms that devotion to the Sacred Heart has two principal forms: consecration (the total offering of one’s being and possessions to God) and reparation (expiation for the offenses committed against uncreated Love). Of the former, Pius XI recalls having treated in the encyclical Quas Primas (1925), by which he established the feast of Christ the King as a complement to the consecration of the human race to the Sacred Heart, made by Leo XIII in 1900 (cf. the encyclical Annum Sacrum of 1899). Regarding the duty of the latter, the Pontiff, with a wealth of doctrine, indicates its profound grounds in the laws of justice and love, and concludes that the entire human race must make reparation for sin and for the offenses committed against God, in union with the one Mediator (solidarity with Christ): a) because this was requested by Jesus himself in the revelations to s. Margherita Maria; b) because our acts of atonement have repercussions upon what took place in the agony of the Head and upon the Passion prolonged through the centuries in the Mystical Body; c) because of the present conditions of society, which seems to have conspired against the rights of God. The distinguished document concludes by exhorting all the faithful to cultivate the spirit of reparation, already spread by various congregations and religious families.
The devout and learned encyclical, which marks a glorious stage in the centuries-old movement of devotion to the Sacred Heart, contains statements and insights of particular interest for dogmatic theology: the intimate significance or mutual relationship of consecration and reparation, the supernatural solidarity of human beings in Christ, the Church as the mystical prolongation of the Redeemer, the two moments of Redemption (objective and subjective), the regale sacerdotium of all the faithful and their participation in the sacrifice of the Mass, and the spirit of penance proper to the baptized. Pius XI offered extensive and profound developments of this last subject in the subsequent encyclical Caritate Christi compulsi, issued on 3 May 1932 (AAS, 24 [1932], pp. 177–94).
