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HARD-HEARTED?
(It is ironic that the eating of certain foods has the effect of hardening our arteries while some things we do have the effect of hardening our hearts.)

            Last summer I went on a cleaning expedition of my rooms in the Rectory.  I have an office, a living room and a bed room.  Each got one full day of overhaul.  When the summer was finished I had thrown out 19 black trash bags full of items I had accumulated (notice I did not say: hoarded) over my twenty years here at Saint Anthony’s.  In addition to what I threw out I also discovered things I did not realize I had in my possession, one of which items I am presently holding in my hand.  My fifth grade report card from grade school days.  Sister Mary Francine.  I loved that sister.  
My dad was the one in our house who signed the report cards and on the inside there were two kinds of reporting.  On the right side were the numerical grades for the various subjects I was studying.  The marks were in multiples of 5 (75, 80, 85, 90, etc).  On the left side were things called “Traits” and these were given a letter grade.  A, for outstanding; B, for satisfactory; C, improvement needed.  And you could get a check mark, a plus or a minus to tweak the mark a little.
The characteristics included obedience (cheerfully obeys rules).  I don’t know about the cheerful part but I would obey rules if I was dragged kicking and screaming to do so.  Self-Control (Usually thinks before acting; restrains hasty impulses) was my weakest point.  Usually thinks before acting was actually closer to rarely thinks before acting and I would add, rarely thinks before speaking.  Restrains hasty impulses was not quite right.  I loved hasty impulses and tried to act on them as quickly as I could.  Cooperation (respects rights of others, is courteous and considerate).  Well, sometimes, of course.  My dad looked not so much at the subject grade side of the report card as at the letter grade side because those grades gave indication as to what kind of person I was and was becoming.  That was important to him.
            All A’s was a rarity.  Mostly A’s with some B’s was pretty typical and then the sixth grade saw me with two red C’s in Self Control.  They were put in red while all the other letters were in blue ink.  That way no child could change the letter grade as if the thought would ever enter anyone’s mind.  I did not always listen.  I did not always think first.  I did not always care about others.  But my teachers, mostly Religious sisters, helped me to develop those traits.  Now I know how to listen and to listen with the third ear for what isn’t spoken but often communicated.  I know how to think things through even if I don’t always.  I have learned how to think before speaking.  I know how to obey.  And so much revolves around simple things—paying attention and listening.
            This is not a new phenomenon however.  This is ancient.  It has always been.  Moses counsels the Israelites to listen for the Lord’s words to come from the prophet, one sent specifically to speak God’s word.  And Jesus comes teaching with real authority.  He did not teach various possibilities.  He taught the truth.  He taught from who He was.  He taught from the depths of his relationship with his Father.  He taught because He was the Way and the Truth and the Life.  And the psalm refrain for today reminds us: If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.  But we do.  We do sometimes harden our hearts.  We sometimes harden our hearts to God because we don’t want to hear what He has to say.  We harden our hearts sometimes because we are afraid what God might ask of us or what we might have to change that we don’t feel like changing.  We sometimes harden our hearts to what our Church teaches because her teachings are not always in sync with the values our culture holds out to us which are easier virtues.  We sometimes harden our hearts to our spouses, to a brother or sister, to a good friend or to our children or to a co-worker.  Sometimes we harden our hearts to our own therapists or our own priests.  There is plenty of hardening of heart going on.
            Awhile back I was speaking with a woman who had a pretty tough childhood with a very dysfunctional father.  In her adult years she struggled with alcohol but eventually recovered her sobriety and was clean and sober for 7 or 8 years.  But she was speaking about how she still struggled with her father and how she tried to break free from a very negative and very destructive personal dynamic.  My counsel to her was to try to see her relationship situation in the light of her sobriety situation, as a variation on a theme.  She had come to the realization that her drinking was destroying her and sapping the life out of her and that she was powerless to stop or to fix it.  She asked God for help and the help came and now she was in a better place.  She now had to get to a similar point in her relationship with her dad.  She could not change him or fix him or make him stop doing what he did.  But she could turn to God again and ask again for the Lord to free her from the negative spiral of this dysfunctional relationship.  Her eyes brightened as I spoke.  You could see that finally she got it, she realized that there was reason to hope, that she could move forward and would move forward.  She was already on the way.  She listened.  She accepted the truth of what she heard.  She did not harden her heart to it but made it welcome inside of her heart.  She opened herself to His word and the healing began immediately.
            “If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”  When you get a few minutes today I want you to ask yourself this question.  Whom do you listen to?  Consistently?  Whose word do you typically trust or put your trust in?  Who speaks to you of God and God’s ways in a way you can hear and understand?  And when you look at that short list thank God for putting those people in your life.  They care enough about you to tell you the truth.  And if there is no one right now, then I want you to start listening again—until you hear one who speaks His voice.