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.
The obstinate rejection of the ways of God leads to this spiritual disease, in which the human person closes itself off from the love, truth, goodness, and beauty of God.
Remember, early on in Mark’s Gospel when Jesus enters a synagogue on the Sabbath where there was a man with a withered hand. 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, Jesus exposes the terrible hard-heartedness which had afflicted the Pharisees’ understanding of marriage. The Pharisees had lost touch with God’s original plan, blinded to the truth, goodness, and beauty of holy matrimony. The Pharisees, like many of our contemporaries 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.
The study of our faith and the practice of our faith exposes us to the healing graces of Christ, which heals our hard-heartedness not only in doctrinal matters, but the hard-heartedness which keeps us from spreading the love and mercy of God.
One of the great promises of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus which has always struck me is that Jesus promise St. Margaret Mary that those who love the Sacred Heart practice devotion to the Sacred Heart will have the ability to touch the most hardened of hearts. God can melt hardened-hearts, he can restore those blinded to the truth, he can bring unbelievers to belief, he can bring comfort to the most despairing, the effects of sin on the human mind and heart can be healed.
Through the love of Christ and the truth taught by Christ and his holy Bride, the Church, may all hardened hearts be healed and filled with his grace and mercy for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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That all married couples may reflect the beauty of God’s love and share it with others, and that families would always draw strength for virtuous living from the teachings of our Lord as transmitted by the Church, we pray to the Lord.
That families would become schools of love as all learn to treat each person, especially the most vulnerable, with compassion, gentleness and respect, we pray to the Lord.
That those who are experiencing brokenness in family life through divorce, separation or death would find strength in the example of Christ who overcame all the brokenness of our world through his passion, we pray to the Lord.
For all those who have rejected the Gospel, for Christians who have fallen away from the Church, for all those who have fallen into mortal sin, for their conversion and the conversion of all hearts to deeper fidelity to the Gospel, we pray to the Lord.
For the needs of the sick and suffering, for those in nursing homes, hospital, or hospice care, for victims of natural disaster, victims of war, violence, and Christian persecution, for those imprisoned and those struggling with addiction and mental illness, for those who grieve the lost of a loved one, and for those who will die today.
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