{"id":16255,"date":"2018-10-07T17:30:14","date_gmt":"2018-10-07T21:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/?p=16255"},"modified":"2018-10-07T17:31:31","modified_gmt":"2018-10-07T21:31:31","slug":"remedying-hardness-of-heart-with-purity-of-heart-27th-sunday-b-october-7-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/remedying-hardness-of-heart-with-purity-of-heart-27th-sunday-b-october-7-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Remedying Hardness of Heart with Purity of Heart, 27th Sunday (B), October 7, 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fr. Roger J. Landry<br \/>\nChurch of the Holy Family, Manhattan<br \/>\n27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B<br \/>\nOctober 7, 2018<br \/>\nGen 2:18-24, Ps 128, Heb 2:9-11, Mk 10:2-16<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i>To listen to an audio recording of today&#8217;s homily,\u00a0please click below: <\/i><\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-16255-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/10.7.18-Homily-1.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/10.7.18-Homily-1.mp3\">https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/10.7.18-Homily-1.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><i>The\u00a0following text guided the homily:\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<p><strong>The greatest of the gift of marriage in God&#8217;s plan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We see in today\u2019s first reading one of God\u2019s greatest and most beautiful gifts to us. After God had created the heavens and the earth and all in it, after he had pronounced that \u201cit was good\u2026 it was good \u2026 it was good \u2026\u00a0it was good \u2026\u00a0it was good\u00a0\u2026 it was good\u201d and with the creation of the human person, \u201cit was very good,\u201d he finally thundered, \u201cIt is not good for man to be alone.\u201d He said this, however, only after man had come to the same conclusion. Adam was on perfect terms with God, he had named all of creation, but something was missing, and he knew it. God was too far above him, the animals were too far below him. In order to experience the joy of living, he needed a fitting partner. That\u2019s why God said what Adam himself had implicitly learned: it is not good for man to be alone. To remove his loneliness, God could have easily cloned him an identical twin, but he didn\u2019t. He could have just created another man, but he didn\u2019t. The suitable partner God knew he needed was a wife. And after Eve was created, we see Adam rejoice for the first time. He clung to her and, as we read, they became one flesh. This is the beauty of marriage from the beginning in God\u2019s plan. Through their marriage, Adam and Eve grew ever more into the image of God, who is love, because marriage is a primordial sacrament of love, when a man and woman make a nuptial gift of themselves to the other and receive the other\u2019s gift not merely of a ring but a person, of a commitment of life and love. It was only through their human love that Adam and Eve learned how to love God, to receive his gift of love and give of themselves back to him in love. And it was this love that made them rejoice. From the very beginning, marriage is God\u2019s gift to men and women to help them truly to become, through being united by him in one flesh to each other, who he created them to be, the image and likeness of God who is love and created us with love and for love.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is Divorce Lawful?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the proper context to understand today\u2019s Gospel, when the Pharisees came up to Jesus and asked him about divorce. \u201cIs it lawful for man to divorce his wife?\u201d This remains a very contemporary question. When I was coming back here from Mass this morning with the Missionaries of Charity, I was stopped at construction before getting on the FDR and there was a sign, &#8220;Divorcio Barato&#8221; with a telephone number, advertising presumably the lawyers to call if you want to have a &#8220;Cheap Divorce.&#8221; Is divorce, whether cheap or costly, lawful? The Pharisees said that Moses had given them such permission. Today, many would say that their various legislatures, governments, courts and public opinion have given permission. But what the Pharisees were asking, and what people of good conscience must ask Jesus today, is: \u201cRegardless of what others say, is divorce lawful in the eyes of God?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jesus\u2019 answer in today\u2019s Gospel brings us all back to the image of marriage we have in today\u2019s Gospel, which describes God\u2019s plans for marriage: \u201cIn the beginning, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. They are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined, man must not divide.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hardness versus Purity of Heart<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Jesus\u2019 answer does more than simply respond to the specific question about divorce. He gives a framework to understand so many other questions with respect to marriage that people still have today. Before we turn to parsing his response, however, let\u2019s first look at our motivations in listening to his answer. Jesus said that Moses had tolerated divorce \u201cbecause of the hardness of your hearts.\u201d The people\u2019s hearts were hardened to God\u2019s message and Moses just didn\u2019t want to fight with them all the time. It was never that divorce was wanted by God. Marriage is the greatest image of God in creation, as we read in the first chapter of the Bible: \u201cGod created man in his own image; male and female he created them; in the image of God he created them\u201d (Gen 1:27-28). The love between a man and a woman open to children is meant to reflect the eternal, loving communion of persons who is the Blessed Trinity. Marriage is also supposed to be the greatest image of how God relates to us. St. Paul writes in his Letter to the Christians in Ephesus that Genesis\u2019 words, repeated by Jesus, about leaving father and mother and clinging to one\u2019s wife refer first and most of all to the fruitful, faithful and indissoluble bond between Christ and the Church (Eph 5:21-33). So divorce was never wanted by God, but it was tolerated by Moses in the Mosaic Law because the Jews\u2019 hearts were hardened to God\u2019s will.<\/p>\n<p>What God wants from us, rather, is not \u201chardness of heart\u201d but \u201cpurity of heart.\u201d Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount that those who are pure of heart \u201csee God,\u201d they see him in others, and in situations and seek to do and love his will. With this gift of purity of heart, seeing God in each other, we become capable of reverencing each other out of reverence for Christ (Eph 5:21). We begin to become capable of bearing Crosses and contradictions. Our world still suffers today from not just from physiological hardening of the arteries but spiritual hardening of the heart. And so, as we listen to what Jesus says, we beg him for this gift of purity of heart. In Psalm 95, we read, \u201cIf today you hear God\u2019s voice, harden not your hearts!\u201d We ask Jesus, that if our hearts are stony, to soften them, take them away and give us pure hearts, holy hearts, docile hearts, so that we may embrace his truth, love it, and with his grace live it.<\/p>\n<p>Looking specifically at Jesus\u2019 teachings, we note:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Jesus first talks clearly about the indissolubility of marriage: \u201cWhat God has joined man must not divide.\u201d \u2014 If God has in fact joined a man and a woman in one flesh, not even all the judges in the world can separate them. A civil divorce can relieve them of certain civil responsibilities toward each other, but a civil divorce can never make someone who is bound to another by God free to marry someone else. Only God can separate them and he does that when one or the other dies.<\/li>\n<li>He talks about what happens when someone whom God has joined to another attempts to marry a third person. \u201cWhoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.\u201d This is a teaching that Jesus\u2019 first apostles said, in St. Matthew\u2019s Gospel, made the commitment of marriage \u201cnot expedient.\u201d Adultery is one of the worst sins a person can commit. In the Old Testament, adulterers were stoned to death because of the enormous destruction adulterers do to marriages, to the families that flow from marriages, and to the society that flows from families. In the New Testament, adultery has always been taught \u2014\u00a0with murder, blasphemy and apostasy \u2014 as among the worst mortal of sins that kill God\u2019s life in the soul. With regard to the Church\u2019s teachings, we acknowledge that, on some occasions, marriages not only break down but, unfortunately, civil divorce may be the only way to protect the children and make sure the other provides for them. When someone\u2019s marriage has broken down due primarily to the sins of the other and the person has needed to seek a civil divorce, that person is still normally a Catholic in good standing and is able to receive Holy Communion. The problem comes in when someone in that circumstance begins to think and behave that, after a civil divorce, he or she is free to marry another. If God has joined him or her to a spouse in marriage, however, the person is still, despite the divorce, sacramentally one flesh with that spouse. To seek to marry another, to seek, frankly, even to date another, would be tantamount to adultery, just like if someone were dating a person while married it would be adultery. These words of Jesus are very challenging today in a culture in which divorce is so common, in which we all have loved ones, friends and family, whose marriages have sadly broken down and who have not just divorced but entered into civil marriage with others. There may even be people here this morning who are in such situations. It\u2019s important for us not to water down Jesus\u2019 words to make them more palatable to the mentality of our age or to our preferences or individual circumstances, as many, including some in the Church, attempt. It\u2019s important for us to say rather with faith that Jesus has the words of eternal life and that we seek to live off of every word that comes from God\u2019s mouth.<\/li>\n<li>That brings us to an important distinction. My first two points were premised on the phrase, \u201cIf God has in fact joined a man and a woman in one flesh.\u201d Not everyone who pronounces marriage vows is actually joined by God in one flesh. God joins only those who are free to marry and who will what he wills for marriage. The Church, in her process of the declaration of nullity popularly called annulments, investigates whether a marriage was truly valid, whether God truly united two people. If a Catholic, for example, marries before a justice of the peace, God doesn\u2019t join them and the marriage, in God\u2019s eyes, doesn\u2019t exist. If two Catholics marry before a priest, but one is psychologically incapable of consent, or forced into marriage by parents, or thinks she can continue a relationship with someone else on the side, or thinks he can beat his wife up for whatever reason, God does not join them in one flesh. On many occasions, those who have gone through the painful experience of divorce, and even, on occasion, civilly married someone else, may in fact never have been truly married by God in the first place. That can be looked at through the process of seeking a declaration of nullity. If there\u2019s someone here this morning who is in the situation of a second marriage while the first spouse is still living, I would encourage you to come to speak to me or any priest to begin a process to see whether that first marriage was valid. If it were not valid, if God had not really joined you in one flesh to another, then it may be possible that you would be free to be married in the Church to your civil spouse and return to Holy Communion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Seeking purity of heart with response to God\u2019s holy and challenging word, we can also make a few other applications of Jesus\u2019 teachings today to areas in which we often find a hardness of heart toward God\u2019s word:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Four applications<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The first is to all sex outside of marriage. In God\u2019s plan, we are to become one flesh in the act of making love only with that person to whom God has joined us in one flesh through marriage. If God has not joined us together in one flesh with another, we are essentially guilty of violating our own and the other\u2019s future one flesh union in marriage. If you find yourself in a circumstance like this, please do not harden your heart to the Lord\u2019s words!<\/li>\n<li>The second is to the real definition and reality of marriage. I don\u2019t mean to be polemical, or worse hurt anyone, but it\u2019s important for us to recognize that Jesus says clearly in today\u2019s Gospel that a man shall leave not his two mommies or two daddies but his father and mother and cling not to whomever he is sexually attracted but to his wife. To pretend, as our country now does after the <em>Obergefell\u00a0<\/em>Supreme Court decision, that marriage can be the union of any two people who say they love each other, to say that marriage can be a husband-less or wife-less institution, is a great contradiction to what God has established and will do enormous harm not just in terms of what people, especially newer generations, understand about marriage, but also to those \u2014 our brothers and sisters, friends, family members, and neighbors \u2014who act on erroneous notions. If we have other ideas of marriage than what Jesus describes here today, may God give us purity of heart!<\/li>\n<li>The third refers to children. By God\u2019s design, the one flesh union between a man and a woman is to culminate not in the mere act of making love, but in the fruit to which that act leads: a son or a daughter. A child is the one flesh union of father and mother, sharing essentially half of the \u201cflesh\u201d of each, as God provides the soul. What an incredible reality it is that husband and wife can literally \u201cmake love\u201d in cooperating with the Creator to procreate a son or daughter, who is both the fruit of their love and a means by which that love can continue to grow. But this gift is dramatically underappreciated today. At the same time that many people have tried to separate sex from God\u2019s uniting a man and a woman in one flesh, many \u2014 both those who have been united in marriage and those who haven\u2019t \u2014 seek to prevent this fruit of their one-flesh union through the use of contraception. Contraception works against that union God seeks, not just in children, but also within the couple, because it leads to a husband\u2019s rejecting the maternal meaning of his wife\u2019s femininity, or a wife\u2019s rejecting of the paternal meaning of her husband\u2019s masculinity, in the very act made by God for it to be expressed. So not only does contraception prevent the fruit of one-flesh union in a child, it also works against the union between husband and wife because it leads them to reject the other\u2019s God-given potential in the act that God gave them to help unite them. May God gives us the purity of heart to accept this and the grace of the Holy Spirit to help persuade others to accept it and live by it.<\/li>\n<li>Perhaps the greatest sin against this one flesh union that Jesus describes today is abortion. A child is the union of the flesh of father and mother with a soul directly infused by God. The child will always be an expression of the love of parents and literally the union of their flesh. Therefore, can anyone think of anything more horrible than to seek to end the life of that union of love? To make a choice to end the life of such a baby is to kill not just an innocent boy or girl, but it\u2019s to kill a part of the mom and the dad. It\u2019s, in some sense, to kill love. Today Jesus shows us another way. He says in the Gospel, \u201clet the children come to me.\u201d He took them in his arms, embraced them, laid his hands on them and blessed them. That\u2019s the way Jesus always wants us to treat children, no matter how young or how small. On this Respect Life Sunday, may none of us harden our hearts to this message! The Lord of life came to redeem us so that we may have life to the full, so that we may know his love, receive it, and love others as he has loved us. He has told us that whatever we do to the least of our brothers and sisters we do to him, and so in welcoming children, we are welcoming him. God wants to help us never harden our hearts to a child, born or unborn, but with pure hearts see God in them, because they, just as much as we, have been made by God in his image and likeness.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Gratitude and Praise for God&#8217;s Word about Marriage<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Today, Jesus has led us back to the beginning, so that we might see with new eyes the beauty of his teaching about marriage, and to ask him for his grace that we might receive this word with truly pure and loving hearts. After the first reading, the Lector said, \u201cThe Word of the Lord,\u201d and we all replied, \u201cThanks be to God!\u201d After I said, \u201cThe Gospel of the Lord,\u201d everyone exclaimed, \u201cPraise to you, Lord Jesus Christ!\u201d That shows the gratitude and praise we are always called to give to God\u2019s holy and saving word, even and especially when it is hard to live and summons us to deep conversion. Today we ask Jesus to give us all the help we need to live according to his words, so that he may take us, not just back to the beginning, but to a future in the Father\u2019s house where we will enter into the eternal union between Christ and his bride, the Church, which is anticipated in the one-flesh union of holy communion in the Mass. This is our faith. This is the faith of the Church. How proud we are to profess it, in season and out of season, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.<\/p>\n<p><em>The readings for today&#8217;s Mass were:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"cs_control_3684\" class=\"cs_control CS_Element_Textblock\">\n<div class=\"CS_Textblock_Text\">\n<div class=\"bibleReadingsWrapper\">\n<h4>Reading 1 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/readings\/bible\/Genesis\/2:18\">GN 2:18-24<\/a><\/h4>\n<div class=\"poetry\">The LORD God said: \u201cIt is not good for the man to be alone.<br \/>\nI will make a suitable partner for him.\u201d<br \/>\nSo the LORD God formed out of the ground<br \/>\nvarious wild animals and various birds of the air,<br \/>\nand he brought them to the man to see what he would call them;<br \/>\nwhatever the man called each of them would be its name.<br \/>\nThe man gave names to all the cattle,<br \/>\nall the birds of the air, and all wild animals;<br \/>\nbut none proved to be the suitable partner for the man.So the LORD God cast a deep sleep on the man,<br \/>\nand while he was asleep,<br \/>\nhe took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.<br \/>\nThe LORD God then built up into a woman the rib<br \/>\nthat he had taken from the man.<br \/>\nWhen he brought her to the man, the man said:<br \/>\n\u201cThis one, at last, is bone of my bones<br \/>\nand flesh of my flesh;<br \/>\nthis one shall be called \u2018woman, \u2018<br \/>\nfor out of \u2018her man\u2019 this one has been taken.\u201d<br \/>\nThat is why a man leaves his father and mother<br \/>\nand clings to his wife,<br \/>\nand the two of them become one flesh.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"cs_control_228452\" class=\"cs_control CS_Element_Textblock\">\n<div class=\"CS_Textblock_Text\">\n<div class=\"bibleReadingsWrapper\">\n<h4>Responsorial Psalm <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/readings\/bible\/psalms\/128:1\">PS 128:1-2, 3, 4-5, 6<\/a><\/h4>\n<div class=\"poetry\">R. (cf. 5) <strong>May the Lord bless us all the days of our lives.<\/strong><br \/>\nBlessed are you who fear the LORD,<br \/>\nwho walk in his ways!<br \/>\nFor you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork;<br \/>\nblessed shall you be, and favored.<br \/>\nR. <strong>May the Lord bless us all the days of our lives.<\/strong><br \/>\nYour wife shall be like a fruitful vine<br \/>\nin the recesses of your home;<br \/>\nyour children like olive plants<br \/>\naround your table.<br \/>\nR. <strong>May the Lord bless us all the days of our lives.<\/strong><br \/>\nBehold, thus is the man blessed<br \/>\nwho fears the LORD.<br \/>\nThe LORD bless you from Zion:<br \/>\nmay you see the prosperity of Jerusalem<br \/>\nall the days of your life.<br \/>\nR. <strong>May the Lord bless us all the days of our lives.<\/strong><br \/>\nMay you see your children\u2019s children.<br \/>\nPeace be upon Israel!<br \/>\nR. <strong>May the Lord bless us all the days of our lives.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"cs_control_228454\" class=\"cs_control CS_Element_Textblock\">\n<div class=\"CS_Textblock_Text\">\n<div class=\"bibleReadingsWrapper\">\n<h4>Reading 2 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/readings\/bible\/hebrews\/2:9\">HEB 2:9-11<\/a><\/h4>\n<div class=\"poetry\">Brothers and sisters:<br \/>\nHe \u201cfor a little while\u201d was made \u201clower than the angels, \u201d<br \/>\nthat by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.<br \/>\nFor it was fitting that he,<br \/>\nfor whom and through whom all things exist,<br \/>\nin bringing many children to glory,<br \/>\nshould make the leader to their salvation perfect through suffering.<br \/>\nHe who consecrates and those who are being consecrated<br \/>\nall have one origin.<br \/>\nTherefore, he is not ashamed to call them \u201cbrothers.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4>Alleluia <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/readings\/bible\/1john\/4:12\">1 JN 4:12<\/a><\/h4>\n<p>R. <strong>Alleluia, alleluia.<\/strong><br \/>\nIf we love one another, God remains in us<br \/>\nand his love is brought to perfection in us.<br \/>\nR.<strong> Alleluia, alleluia.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"cs_control_228453\" class=\"cs_control CS_Element_Textblock\">\n<div class=\"CS_Textblock_Text\">\n<div class=\"bibleReadingsWrapper\">\n<h4>Gospel <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/readings\/bible\/mark\/10:2\">MK 10:2-16<br \/>\n<\/a><\/h4>\n<div class=\"poetry\">The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked,<br \/>\n\u201cIs it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?\u201d<br \/>\nThey were testing him.<br \/>\nHe said to them in reply, \u201cWhat did Moses command you?\u201d<br \/>\nThey replied,<br \/>\n\u201cMoses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce<br \/>\nand dismiss her.\u201d<br \/>\nBut Jesus told them,<br \/>\n\u201cBecause of the hardness of your hearts<br \/>\nhe wrote you this commandment.<br \/>\nBut from the beginning of creation,<br \/>\n<em>God made them male and female.<br \/>\nFor this reason a man shall leave his father and mother<br \/>\nand be joined to his wife,<br \/>\nand the two shall become one flesh.<\/em><br \/>\nSo they are no longer two but one flesh.<br \/>\nTherefore what God has joined together,<br \/>\nno human being must separate.\u201d<br \/>\nIn the house the disciples again questioned Jesus about this.<br \/>\nHe said to them,<br \/>\n\u201cWhoever divorces his wife and marries another<br \/>\ncommits adultery against her;<br \/>\nand if she divorces her husband and marries another,<br \/>\nshe commits adultery.\u201d<br \/>\nAnd people were bringing children to him that he might touch them,<br \/>\nbut the disciples rebuked them.<br \/>\nWhen Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them,<br \/>\n\u201cLet the children come to me;<br \/>\ndo not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to<br \/>\nsuch as these.<br \/>\nAmen, I say to you,<br \/>\nwhoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child<br \/>\nwill not enter it.\u201d<br \/>\nThen he embraced them and blessed them,<br \/>\nplacing his hands on them.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/250px-Weyden_Matrimony.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-16261\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/250px-Weyden_Matrimony.jpg?resize=218%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"218\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/250px-Weyden_Matrimony.jpg?resize=218%2C300&amp;ssl=1 218w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/250px-Weyden_Matrimony.jpg?w=250&amp;ssl=1 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 218px) 100vw, 218px\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fr. Roger J. Landry Church of the Holy Family, Manhattan 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B October 7, 2018 Gen 2:18-24, Ps 128, Heb 2:9-11, Mk 10:2-16 &nbsp; To listen to an audio recording of today&#8217;s homily,\u00a0please click below: &nbsp; The\u00a0following text guided the homily:\u00a0 The greatest of the gift of marriage in God&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10722,1063,3,7],"tags":[1725,4922,2026,4694,4923,2987,11210,663,664,3448,5390,3054,725,665,11211,1884,4011,376,4019,11212],"class_list":["post-16255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-2018","category-audio-homily","category-homily","category-year-b","tag-abortion","tag-adam","tag-contraception","tag-divorce","tag-eve","tag-faithful","tag-fruitful","tag-gen-218-24","tag-heb-29-11","tag-humanae-vitae","tag-indissolubility","tag-love","tag-marriage","tag-mk-102-16","tag-nuptial-gift-of-the-person","tag-pope-paul-vi","tag-ps-128","tag-respect-life-sunday","tag-same-sex-unions","tag-union-of-christ-and-the-church"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Remedying Hardness of Heart with Purity of Heart, 27th Sunday (B), October 7, 2018 - Catholic Preaching<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/remedying-hardness-of-heart-with-purity-of-heart-27th-sunday-b-october-7-2018\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Remedying Hardness of Heart with Purity of Heart, 27th Sunday (B), October 7, 2018 - Catholic Preaching\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fr. Roger J. Landry Church of the Holy Family, Manhattan 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B October 7, 2018 Gen 2:18-24, Ps 128, Heb 2:9-11, Mk 10:2-16 &nbsp; To listen to an audio recording of today&#8217;s homily,\u00a0please click below: &nbsp; The\u00a0following text guided the homily:\u00a0 The greatest of the gift of marriage in God&#8217;s [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/remedying-hardness-of-heart-with-purity-of-heart-27th-sunday-b-october-7-2018\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholic Preaching\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-10-07T21:30:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-10-07T21:31:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/250px-Weyden_Matrimony-218x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. 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