Homily: 7th Week of Ordinary Time - Friday - Hardness of Heart

Israel is often chastised by God’s prophets in the Old Testament for being hard-hearted.  Hardness of heart is the stubborn refusal to yield to God, to accept his truth, and follow his commandments. 

The Greek word for hardness of heart in Mark’s Gospel here is sklerokardia, literally sclerosis of the heart.  Jesus says that Moses allowed a man to issue a bill of divorce because of their hardness of hearts.

Often times in Scripture, hardness of heart comes from believing erroneous things.  Earlier in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus enters a synagogue on the Sabbath where there was a man with a withered hand.  Marks says that Jesus was deeply grieved at the hard-heartedness of the Pharisees.  They wrongly believed that it was not right for Jesus to heal the man.  For the Pharisees their human interpretation of the law was more important than the truth of who Jesus was and what he came to do.

Here in today’s Gospel passage, the Pharisees believed that marriage was a human convention that could be altered or redefined or dissolved.  But Jesus exposes their error and teaches that, marriage is not a mere human institution, but a bond made by God himself. 

Here Jesus condemns not only divorce but this hard-heartedness—the willful blindness to truth.  Hardness of heart is one of the great spiritual diseases.  When a person continues to choose error over and over again, it becomes hard for them to recognize the truth, even when it is right in front of them.  For example, if we skip going to Sunday Mass week after week after week, eventually, our hearts become hardened until we fail to understand it's importance.

Knowing what God commands and choosing the opposite leads to a hardening of the heart. 

Though we are often at fault for our hardness of heart, the solution, the healing comes from God.

Error is defeated by truth, hard hearts are healed by God’s goodness.

One of the great promises of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus which has always struck me is that Jesus promises that those who love his Sacred Heart will have the ability to touch the most hardened of hearts.  God can break through the most hardened of hearts, that the truth of Jesus Christ may be planted there, and he wishes to use us as his instruments.

This day, and always, may we seek to be fully free from the poison of error, that we may be full of God’s love and God’s truth, that we may be ever more effective instruments of the Gospel for the glory of God and salvation of souls.