14-08-2026, Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe
σκληροκαρδία (sklérokardia Gk) (Hardness of Heart En) (Mt 19:8)
The Word to reflect today is from today’s Gospel passage according to Matthew (19:3-12). The word literally means a stubborn attitude toward changing one’s behaviour; hardness of heart; stubbornness; insensitivity; a resistant attitude denoting unreceptivity stubbornness, obstinacy.
Let me remind you, that in the last few days, we saw the hardened heart of a person not willing to reconcile, the unforgiving servant with a hardened heart towards another servant who owed him some money. Today, we have the hardened hearts of the Pharisees, who come to test Jesus. They refer to the law about divorce. For context, divorce was prevalent in society at the time of Jesus, though the Jewish law forbade it. The pharisees who have σκληροκαρδία (hardened hearts), here not willing to accept God’s law, but seek to look for exceptions to the law, point to Moses allowing divorce, and in a way supporting it. However, Jesus, points that Moses is not to be blamed but the hardened hearts of corrupt people.
Moses however does not change the divine law. As was local custom, that the husband could let go of his wife for any reason; Moses adds a precept on the morality of the law, prescribing a notice be given to a wife who was proved of indecency / infidelity. It was so that both could try to see if reconciliation was possible. Moses introduces a precept, not to support divorce but to discourage divorce. Added to that, Jesus adds, if the man gave a notice wrongly, he was responsible for adultery. So also, anyone who got involved with that accused woman, would also be part of adultery.
σκληροκαρδία (hardened heart), here refers to perverseness in heart to not obey the Law of God, which Jesus quotes, “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Mt 19:6) Jesus’ love for the law in the matter of divorce is seen earlier in (Mt 5:31-31). The Pharisees were with σκληροκαρδία (hardened hearts), when they overlooked the law for their perverse desires. The Old Testament (Deut 10:16, Jer 4:4) calls this hardness as the foreskin of the heart and asks that we circumcise our hearts from this hardness.
What about you and I? Do I have a σκληροκαρδία (hardened heart)? It is possible, when we don’t obey God’s law, when we don’t believe God’s Son Jesus. When we search for loopholes, ways to escape God’s law and live as per the customs and practices of the world. Let us pray that the “…LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live. (Deut. 30:6)