Florida Catholic | Bishop Wenski's Column

Are we shutting out Jesus by hardening our hearts?

Published: 03.14.08

Perhaps, we could call the disease from which we suffered and for which Jesus suffered and died to save us, “cardiosclerosis” — hardening of the heart.”

In the prophet Isaiah’s account of the Suffering Servant, he says: “By his stripes, we were healed.”

As we contemplate the image of Jesus, beaten, tortured, dying on the cross — an image represented so graphically in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” a couple of years ago — we must ask ourselves: If this was the cure, then what was the disease? And, of course, unless we recognize the disease — and recognize ourselves as diseased — we will not understand the two major catechetical lessons of Holy Week: that, first of all, he died because of us, because of our sins; but more importantly, that he died for us.

At the Last Supper, when Jesus announced his betrayal, all the apostles asked Jesus, “Is it I, Lord?” And, the Passion will remain extraneous to us unless we acknowledge that this suffering and death of Jesus was our own work. We have to make the question raised by the apostles our own — but, in doing so, we have to answer it ourselves: I am Judas who betrays, I am Peter who denies, the crowd that shouts, “Barabbas, not him.” Every time I have preferred my satisfaction, my convenience, my will, my honor to Christ’s, I answer the question: “Yes, it is I.”

But, if Jesus dies because of us, he also dies for us. “By his stripes, we are healed.” What was in essence that disease that required so drastic a cure? We all know the disease called arteriosclerosis — hardening of the arteries. Perhaps, we could call the disease from which we suffered and for which Jesus suffered and died to save us, “cardiosclerosis” — hardening of the heart. Scriptures do not use this word, of course, but we find its equivalents in Scripture: Ezekiel talks of “hearts of stone,” Jeremiah speaks of the “uncircumcised heart,” and Moses in the Book of Deuteronomy just calls it “stubbornness of heart.”

“Cardiosclerosis,” we could say, is a genetic disease. We inherit it from our first parents, Adam and Eve. They said “No” to God and his will. That original sin represented a turning away from God, a shutting out of God from the heart by building stone walls of self-will. And while that “cardiosclerosis” can be said to be in our genes, as it were, it is aggravated by our own “lifestyle” choices — the times which we have ratified that “No” with our own sins. And indeed this is what hardness of heart represents in Scripture: the refusal to submit to God, to love him with one’s whole heart, to obey his law.

In the Scriptures, the heart is the seat of the interior life, the heart represents man’s most profound “I,” his very self — his intelligence and will. The heart is the center of the religious life, the point where God speaks to us and we decide our response to God. When Jesus died on Calvary, the Gospels tell us how the veil of the Temple was rent. And, this Passiontide, this Holy Week, is about tearing open our hearts, breaking the stones that encircle the heart that keep us from saying “Yes” to God.

Jesus dies for us. He is truly man — his obedience makes up for the disobedience of our first parents: The Garden of Gethsemane redeems, as it were, the Garden of Eden. The human fear and treachery of Adam and Eve meet the human trust, love and obedience of Jesus of Nazareth whom God calls his beloved one.

From the Old Testament times, the People of God repeated the psalmist’s prayer: “Create in me, O God, a new heart.” And, of course, this is why Jesus died — to give us that new heart. That heart can only be ours through our sharing in his Passion, though our own dying and rising with him from sin to the new life of grace that is the fruit of Baptism.

This week, we are called to be with Jesus on Calvary — and, as we contemplate his Passion, his death, may that earthquake that shook the earth around Jerusalem and caused the veil of the Temple to be torn also tear at our hearts, breaking its stones, overcoming the “cardiosclerosis” of our human condition. Then, the cross of Christ will no longer appear to us as “folly and scandal” but, on the contrary, as “strength of God and wisdom of God.” The cross becomes not an instrument of torture, but a reason for our certainty, the supreme proof of the love of God for us. With a new heart formed within the pierced heart of Christ himself we can say with St. Paul: “Far be from me to glory except in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Remember to attend the Festival of Faith — May 8-10, Orange County Convention Center, South Concourse, International Drive, off I-4, Orlando — celebrating the Diocese of Orlando’s 40th anniversary and the “Year of Evangelization.” For more information, visit the Web site: www.festivaloffaith.org.

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Are we shutting out Jesus by hardening our hearts?

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