Harden Not Your Hearts - Weekday Homily Video

Today’s gospel antiphon, “If today, you hear his voice, harden not your hearts” is one of those instructions that can really cause you to reflect … not just on how difficult it is to understand what a Boston-trained priest is saying, but more importantly, on the state of your heart.

There’s a commercial for a home heart monitoring system that has a pitchman standing in a public place asking people walking by, “how’s your heart?” Most people say, fine. To which he says, “are you sure? how do you know?”

He then invites people to place their fingers on the heart monitoring device that sends a mini-EKG to their phones. They can see the rate and the rhythm of their hearts accurately reflected.

Today, Jesus invites us to stop and listen for God’s voice and at the same time reflect on the openness of our hearts to God. As I thought and prayed about what causes our hearts to become hardened, I thought back to a conversation where someone said, “You know, over time, as we go through life, we all build up scar tissue on our hearts.”

They didn’t mean the scar tissue that shows up with medical imaging, but the kind that we notice when someone tells us something we don’t want to hear, or perhaps when God’s Word causes us to get angry or shut down because we don’t think we can handle it, even when we know that God, or that person, is trying to help us and is right.

Hard Hearts

Jesus knows our human condition. He knows that our hearts can become hardened because of disappointment and betrayal. He knows that over time if we don’t let Him help us heal these hurts, we can begin to harden our hearts to Him.

In the gospel, Jesus is well of aware of His need to get through to a people whose hearts have become hardened by sin. He sends a stern message of the need to repent. He reminds them that they have been blessed to witness the greatest number of His mighty deeds.

And yet, they have not repented! He even tries to shame them by pointing out the people of the cities that they looked down upon—if they had seen the same works of Jesus, they would have repented.

Fearful Hearts

The other condition of our emotional hearts is fear. In fact, that is another reason why we put up walls, why we hesitate to let God or another in. King Ahaz and each of us have experienced fear that has caused us to tremble. But God sends us all a message of encouragement. He calls to each of us and our loved ones, “Take care you remain tranquil and do not fear; let not your courage fail …”

There are two important messages for us today:

1. The first is to have a firmness of faith in God’s care and mercy for us.
2. The second is to let down the walls we may have put up around our hearts, to let the Lord heal and strengthen us so that if we need, we can seek His forgiveness in Confession and heal the scar tissue that gets in the way of loving Him and one another.

Let’s keep this verse always with us: “If today, you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

• Today’s Readings

• Father David's inspirational homily was recorded live during Mass at the Father Peyton Center this morning. You can view the Mass (and Rosary) on the Family Rosary YouTube page. 

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