Harden Not Your Heart

In the Gospel this weekend we read that, when Jesus arrived at Capernaum, he went into the synagogue and began to teach. The synagogue was the centre of the Jewish community, and a place of prayer and study. It was used for religious education and community gathering. There would be one in every town. If you visit Capernaum today, you will be shown the remains of a second century synagogue that was built on the site of the one where Jesus taught that day. Interestingly, St Mark doesn’t tell us what Jesus said to those gathered to hear him. We are told only that Jesus spoke with authority, and that his teaching made a deep impression on them — unlike the scribes’.

A scribe was a literate person who specialised in studying the law of Moses, and his job was to interpret the law of Moses, handing it onward to all. It seems clear Jesus was the prophet whom Moses spoke about, who would succeed him. Jesus was speaking as God’s voice. Jesus was the Word.

That day, as Jesus spoke, there was a man with an unclean spirit who shouted out. The powers of darkness — knowing that the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Light, will overpower them — were there to disrupt and frighten people.

Our response in the Psalm at Mass today is: O that today you would listen to his voice, harden not your heart. We need to have a listening heart, so that Jesus is for us the Word of God and the Word of life. As a priest who is called to be preacher of the Word, I take to heart the words of Fr Guerrero DeBona who says that the priest needs to be ‘practising daily a self-examination in the light of Scripture.’ The priest is called to share the authentic and living Word of God, as experienced and lived in his own life.

My prayer is: Lord give me the grace to have an open heart and to serve you, as a herald of the Gospel, in freedom and love for the sake of others.