Heart Conditioning

“If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts.”  Psalm 95 

You have probably heard this psalm response many times at Mass.  It is a commonly used refrain, and is used many times throughout the liturgical year.  If you are like most of us, you hear the words, associate it with a certain melody, and could easily recite it.  However, if you are like most of us (myself included!), you may not realize the meaning. 

“If today…” 

Today.  Not yesterday.  Not last week or last year.  Not tomorrow, or all the years to come.  Today.  This day. 

“…you hear…” 

Are you listening?  Are the words being read just a repetition of syllables in your mind? 

Yes, okay, the reader/lector is up there saying a lot of really nice things.  Yes, I know they are reading Scripture.  Wait.  What are they saying? 

“…His voice…” 

Jesus is the Living Word.  When the Scriptures are read, they are not simply words on a page.  They are life.  When we put the Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle, and Gospel readings together, we should have an even more complete picture of who Jesus is.  There is a mere human reading the words of life, but the Lord of the Scriptures is trying to speak them to us. 

“…harden not…”

At our parish school Mass last week, our priest asked the children what it means to have a hard heart?  He definitely got some interesting answers!  I do think those children understood better than many adults, though.  “Not being able to love,” was one of my favorites.  We should be loving what we are hearing.  Do we? 

A hard heart is a condition that cannot be solved by medical science.  It is a heart that has heard many times, but refuses to let the words penetrate and change the person from the inside out.  They are words.  Sometimes even enjoyable words.  But my heart will not accept what my ears are receiving if my heart is hard. 

“…your heart…” 

The seat of our emotions?  Well, yes and no.  The innermost part of who we are?  Yes.  All that makes “us,” well, “us.” 

The theme of this verse and the readings of the past week have been simply this:  Do what you hear! 

We hear pretty much the entire Bible over the course of the three year cycle.  We hear an amazing overview of the Old Testament, the Epistles, and the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and portions of the Gospel of John.  There is no merit to the accusation that Catholics don’t know Scripture—that is, IF we are listening with soft hearts.  Also, we cannot “do” what we hear, if we are not listening. If we are open to allowing that written, spoken, and living Word to change us, then we will know Scripture, and we will live it. 

Let us hear the words of the book of James:

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who observes his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in his doing.” 

Let us heartily respond to the Word of the Lord:  “Thanks be to God!” and with our whole hearts respond to the charge of the deacon, “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.”