Let us think about the four ideological groups of Jesus’ time: the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the Zealots. Four groups that had hardened their hearts to carry out a plan that was not God’s; there was no place for God’s plan, no place for compassion. When the heart becomes hard, when the heart hardens, one forgets… One forgets about the grace of salvation, one forgets its gratuitousness. A hard heart leads to arguments, it leads to wars, it leads to selfishness, it leads to the destruction of one’s brother, because there is no compassion. And the greatest message of salvation is that God had compassion for us. That refrain in the Gospel, when Jesus sees a person, a painful situation: “he had compassion”. […] Jesus is the Father’s compassion; Jesus is the rebuke to any hardness of heart. Each one of us has something that has hardened in our hearts. Let us remember this, and may the Lord give us a righteous and sincere heart … where the Lord dwells. The Lord cannot enter hard hearts; the Lord cannot enter ideological hearts. The Lord only enters hearts that are like his heart: compassionate hearts, hearts that have compassion, open hearts. (Pope Francis, Homily at Santa Marta, 18 February 2020)