{"id":154,"date":"2011-01-13T11:56:56","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T16:56:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=154"},"modified":"2011-06-02T21:01:41","modified_gmt":"2011-06-03T02:01:41","slug":"combating-hardness-of-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/?p=154","title":{"rendered":"Combating Hardness of Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta content=\"Word.Document\" name=\"ProgId\" \/><meta content=\"Microsoft Word 11\" name=\"Generator\" \/><meta content=\"Microsoft Word 11\" name=\"Originator\" \/>\n<link rel=\"File-List\" href=\"file:\/\/\/E:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CCarl%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml\" \/>\n<style>    <\/style>\n<h2 align=\"center\">Thursday of the 1<sup>st<\/sup> Week of ordinary Time<\/h2>\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 align=\"center\">Heb 3: 7-14; Mk 1: 40-45<\/h2>\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2 align=\"center\">Dc. Larry Brockman<\/h2>\n<p align=\"center\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Those Old Testament Jews, they had such hardness of heart amongst them, didn&#8217;t they?\u00c2\u00a0 For 40 years the Lord worked miracle after miracle for them- deliverance from a much more powerful people; pillars of fire; God talking out of a cloud; manna for food coming out of the sky; water from rocks; and even staffs turning into snakes.\u00c2\u00a0 And yet, they didn&#8217;t get it.\u00c2\u00a0 Although they experienced all of these works of the Lord&#8217;s and more, they really didn&#8217;t hear the voice of the Lord and follow His precepts.\u00c2\u00a0 They never seemed to remember the lessons taught by the Lord the previous day or week. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Every day was like a new birth for them; it&#8217;s almost like they were saying to themselves:\u00c2\u00a0 &#8220;A miracle yesterday, yes;\u00c2\u00a0 but what miracle will you work for me today so that I will believe&#8221;?\u00c2\u00a0 You see, hearing means more than just awareness when it happens.\u00c2\u00a0 It means actually responding to what you hear.\u00c2\u00a0 And so, we hear the message not once, but twice in today&#8217;s scripture, that:\u00c2\u00a0 &#8220;If today you hear His voice, harden not your hearts&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Is our world, our generation, our parish, our congregation making the same mistake?\u00c2\u00a0 Do we harden our hearts when we hear the Lord&#8217;s voice?\u00c2\u00a0 In its wisdom the Church proclaims the teachings of the Church consistently and persistently- teachings on our responsibilities to grow in our faith, to serve others, and to love our neighbor; teachings on abortion and sexual morality and social justice.\u00c2\u00a0 And do we respond?\u00c2\u00a0 Or do we just hear with a little &#8220;h&#8221;, and then go on with our daily lives as if nothing happened, waiting to be fed with the next miracle before we are shaken out of a sense of complacency or preoccupation?<\/p>\n<p>You know, I really have to admire the leper in the Gospel story.\u00c2\u00a0 Most lepers would have been complacent, downtrodden, and consumed with their own suffering.\u00c2\u00a0 But this leper was not- he listened to the message of Jesus, a message of change and conversion of the heart and of hope.\u00c2\u00a0 And Jesus responded by healing him.\u00c2\u00a0 This leper&#8217;s heart had not been hardened.<\/p>\n<p>As individuals, we cannot single handedly change the world.\u00c2\u00a0 But like this leper, there is something we can do.\u00c2\u00a0 We can change our attitude.\u00c2\u00a0 We can soften our heart when we hear the Lord, and open ourselves up to respond to the message we hear.\u00c2\u00a0 In other words, we can:\u00c2\u00a0 &#8220;Encourage yourselves daily while it is still &#8220;today&#8221;, so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sin&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday of the 1st Week of ordinary Time &nbsp; Heb 3: 7-14; Mk 1: 40-45 &nbsp; Dc. Larry Brockman &nbsp; Those Old Testament Jews, they had such hardness of heart amongst them, didn&#8217;t they?\u00c2\u00a0 For 40 years the Lord worked miracle after miracle for them- deliverance from a much more powerful people; pillars of fire; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[27],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.deaconlarry.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}