THE HARDENING OF HUMAN'S HEART

Thursday, third week of Lent/2024
Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke,OP

Theme: The hardening of Human Hearts

The human heart needs constant training to accustom it to listening to the word of God. This training produces an inclination in our consciousness that makes it easier to heed the word of God. When God brought the children of Israel out from slavery in Egypt, he used physical signs and wonders, threats, punishments, the wilderness experience, etc., to train their consciousness to listening to the word of God. God trained them with difficulty because they were already used to thinking and acting independently of God in Egypt. How do we achieve this training of our consciousness to the word of God? The foundation of the training is a true conversion of our hearts to the Lord. We must convince ourselves of the central place of God in our life and the necessity of growing in the knowledge of God. We must drive into our being the conviction that life amounts to nothing if God is not the centre of our existence. Without this conversion, listening and doing the word of God will still be a probable event in our life. Those who went through the desert experience, gradually achieved the circumcision of their hearts and a certain level of obedience to the word of God. This circumcision gradually became ceremonial when they settled in the Promised Land. “These were my orders: Listen to my voice, then I will be your God and you shall be my people. Follow right to the end the way that I mark out for you, and you will prosper. But they did not listen, they did not pay attention.” 

This circumcision of the heart does not come automatically with baptism. We must work in communion with the Holy Spirit to develop a new life, a new heart, and a new way of will or acting. The new life must be rooted and sustained in spirit of prayer, meditation and contemplation of the word of God. The call to daily meditation and contemplation of the word of God is necessary for Christians as it was for the children of Israel. Because the word of God is Spirit and Life, it is able to circumcise our hearts and infuse the needed inclination to obey in our hearts. The interior life of prayer anchors the new life and produces the spiritual inclination. Interaction with the world can make lose this inclination. In the gospel, our Lord cast out the devil of dumbness without difficulty, but was at a loss on how to deal with hardened hearts, disoriented from God and his word. “But some of them said, ‘It is through Beelzebul, the prince of devils, that he casts out devils.’ Others asked him, as a test, for sign from heaven.” We must constantly watch over our hearts in prayer and supplication, confessing our sins and weakness to God, begging him to safeguard us from the corruptive influence of the world and its prince. The season of Lent is a proper season to reawaken our consciousness to the word of God and rekindle the fire of love of God in our hearts. We must introduce our children and encourage our friends to this prayerful training of our hearts to listen to the word of God with due reverence. “O that today you would listen to his voice! Harden not your hearts.”

Let us pray: Grant us, Lord, a deep hunger for your word that gives life, that we may truly live a heavenly life.     


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BECOMING A DEPENDABLE FRIEND

Image
FRIDAY, SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Eccl 6:5-17; Ps 119:12,16,18,27,34-35; Mk 10:1-12 Making and being a Good Friend The usefulness of a faithful friend is the subject discussed in the passage of Sirach we are considering. From the qualities that make a good friend, we understand that faithfulness depends on the perfection we attain in the formative school of wisdom. The first lesson we learn in nature is faithfulness. The quality of faithfulness is so closely aligned with nature that we consider nature and faithfulness synonyms. The faithfulness of nature, and subsequently of wisdom, is hinted at when we read that wisdom stands at her post/gate daily to beckon the passers-by to turn in and partake of her table. Everything that God made participates in this faithfulness of wisdom in the sense that each remains faithful to his will without failing or leading our minds astray. First, Sirach admonishes us on friendliness to people in general: “A kindly turn of speech multiplies a ...
Read more

UNDERSTANDING OUR AFFLICTIONS

Image
ST. JEROME, PRIEST, DOCTOR Job 1:6-22; Ps 17:1-3,6-7; Lk 9:46-50 Salvation of the Just from the affliction of evil We have the beginning of Job in the first reading today. The reading has many hidden lessons we can learn to foster our relationship with God. The first that seems very obvious is the fact of Satan attending to God with the sons of God. By this, we must understand that every rational creature of God is among his sons. They all attend to God, from whom they receive life and sustenance. God sustains all his creatures in being, both material and immaterial creatures. They also ask God for permission to carry out a course of action. Nothing moves in the heavens and on earth without God knowing and permitting it. The attending of rational creatures is what we call prayer. The good and bad angels pray to God for permission to carry out actions or bring about ends that agree with his divine will. God usually hears or permits these prayers based on his divine justice in acco...
Read more

The offsprings of the Old man and the New Man

Image
Monday, fifth week of lent/2024 Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP Offsprings of Old man and New Man To be able to live the new life within the new Covenant in Jesus Christ, the old life must come to an end. The distinctive difference between the old man and the new man is the focus of desires. The old man and all who live by him have their desires focussed on the satisfaction of self. On the other hand, the new man and those living by him desires only to fulfil God's holy will. Thus, the old man and his offspring obey the law of sin and death. Living for self alone breeds sins, and sin causes death. So, the old man and all living by him are dead and harbingers of death to others. They are adept at manipulating the Law of God to perpetuate their interest and selfish desires. An example of this skill is the treatment the two old judges of Israel in Babylon meted out to Susanna, wife of Joachim, employing the Law of Moses as given in the first reading. “Two elderly men had ...
Read more