Apologies for missing the opportunity to post something yesterday. I was driving back from Lexington, KY, after spending a bit more than a week with a new gradddaughter. Not a lot of things that are more fun than that. Plus, by driving back yesterday, I managed to beat the snow which they say is coming down quite heavily between here and Chicago. Having a child or grandchild engages your heart in a way that is very special. It stretches your emotional range. It makes you realize, yet again, that you and your particular concerns are not the things that should matter in your life. Your heart goes out to this new life. We see in today's Gospel (Mk 7: 1-13) yet another reference to oour hearts coming from Jesus. We have already seen that the disciples could not understood the multiplication of the loaves and fishes because "their hearts were hardened." (Mk 6:52) Jesus today attributes the hypocricy of the Pharisees to the fact that their hearts are far from God, quoting the prophet Isaiah. Later Jesus will say that the source of evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder and a host of other sins is our hearts (Mk 7:21-23). The loving the Lord with "all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength" is the greatest commandment (Mk 12: 30). Those who are not able to understand jesus' parables are afflicted with a heart that has "become calloused." (Mt 13: 15) The psalms use the word "heart" forty times. The list could go on, but you get the point. As humans, particularly as we get to a certain age, we worry a lot about our physical hearts. We talk about heart attacks, corronary artery disease, stents, pacemakers, and bypass surgery. We take drugs is our cholersterol is too high or to lower our blood pressure. We exercise to keep our hearts strong. We might even have a cardiologist whose sole function is to attend to the care of our hearts. That makes sense, of course, because our heart is critical to our physical well-being. But as Jesus, and the rest of scripture, tells us so often, our spiritual heart is equally important to our spiritual life, and ultimately to our eternal life. Do we pay the kind of attention to our spiritual hearts that they deserve? What do we do to strengthen our spiritual hearts? What medicine do we take to make sure our spiritual hearts do not get hardened? Do we have a spiritual cardiologist with whom we can consult from time to time? I think all of us can easily fall into the kind of hypocrisy that Jesus identifies in the Pharisees today. It is a very common disease. The key to prevention is to care for our spiritual hearts.