In Season and Out of Season

Father Tom DiLorenzo: Good day, it's Father Tom and Anthony today. Reading from Exodus 10:27. "But the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he was unwilling to let them go, the Jews. He was unwilling to let them go. Then Pharaoh said to him, to Moses, 'Get away from me. Take care that you get away from me. Take care that you do not see my face again. For on that day you see my face, you shall die. You shall never see my face again.'"

I tell you, that's Pharaoh. He's disgusted. The plagues came upon Egypt because Pharaoh wouldn't let the people of God go and worship him in the desert. I'm going to tell you something today. You never want to be on God's list of negativity. Oh no, you never want to be on God's list of negativity.

I know you all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Go to confession, confess your sins, repent in the name of Jesus. But we never want to be on that part of God that we ignore what the Spirit of God is saying. And that happens in many people's hearts. God keeps on knocking on their door and they say in their own subconscious or even conscious, "I hear you knocking, but you're not coming in. I hear you knocking, but you're not coming in."

We do not want to be on that side of the Lord. Even when we are corrected and needed to repent drastically, better to repent drastically than to have your heart hardened and not hear from God and not be that person that God blesses and uses. Harden not our hearts, oh Lord. Harden not our hearts. We want to serve you. Oh God, you know how weak we are. Harden not our hearts today so that we can serve you.

Do not let our hearts be hardened that when you speak a word, we do not hear you. When you speak a word, it rolls off of us like water on a duck's wing. Oh no, I want to hear from God. Even when God corrects me, tells me to repent, calls me to his first love again, I want to hear from God. I don't want to be the man who does not hear from God, that my heart grows hard and I do not know what the Lord is saying.

There are many people who used to hear from the Lord Jesus Christ, many. And their hearts grew hardened. They stopped praying. They stopped reading the scripture. They stopped going to Holy Communion. God hardened their hearts. And as a matter of fact, they think now that their experience is right even though they don't hear from God anymore. "I heard from him when I was young, but not now." Oh no, you can hear from God today.

Harden not your hearts as we did in the desert. Harden not our hearts, that our hearts would be open to hear your word and to do your will. Harden not our hearts. I tell you, there are many people who started on the right foot, who had revelation given to them, the revelation of Jesus. And what happens? They grew away from Jesus. And he kept on calling them back, and they disliked the word, and they continued in their own way.

And they did not return to the Lord. And Jesus kept on calling them. After a while, he stops calling. After a while, he says, "I am not calling anymore. You need to call upon me." Harden not our hearts as we did in the wilderness. We need a docile heart. We need a heart that hears your word. We need a heart that repents.

We need a heart that even when we feel awful, miserable, tired, that our hearts are still ready to hear the word of God. I just want to tell you a scripture that I have often had when I was in the depths of "Where is God?" I knew he was there, but there was no experience. That scripture tells me that my only friend is darkness. Psalm 88. My only friend is darkness.

But you see, even though that's my only friend, I know he's going to make dawn come again as I repent of my sins, as I go to confession and repent of my wrongdoings. Oh yes, the Lord, thank God, is like the Hound of Heaven. He keeps on knocking, he keeps on knocking, he keeps on knocking, no matter what happens. And even if we don't answer the door, he keeps on knocking.

But there comes a time when he stops, when he stops, and you're left to your own. Please, God, never leave me to my own being. Please, God, let me never be left to myself. I am in absolute need of you. You are all I have. Let me tell you, my friends, before we continue, that you are all he has. That's it. You are all he has. He has you, and he doesn't want to let you go.

And I want to tell you that his grasp, the grasp of the wounded, glorified hands of Jesus, that grasp will never let you go. The only one that lets you go is yourself. And when we let go of his wounded, glorified hands, we experience darkness. And in that darkness, it calls us to return to him and to repent. Oh yes, to repent. That's why we have the sacrament of penance, to repent in the name of Jesus.

Anthony: So the Lord, he hardens and he softens hearts. So I think a great prayer to make to the Lord before we want to witness to someone is, "God, soften this person's heart." Because the ability to hear God, the ability to love God, the ability to receive God has everything to do with the heart. The Lord said he will take away the heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh.

You see, God does not see as man sees. God sees the heart. It says in the Bible in Romans, when God comes, he will judge the heart and the intentions of man. You see, the Lord is not a judge of our results; he's a judge of our intentions. And when our heart posture is right, our whole life will be right. Then when we start to operate and do things only for the love and the glory of Jesus Christ, then we begin to hear God's voice.

We begin to know God's will. The whole goal of Christian life is to live from our heart, not our heads. If you want the power of God, it flows from your heart. If you want the ability to heal in the name of Jesus, it flows from the heart. Jesus had compassion on everyone he came across. And what is that? That is the passion of God welled up in Jesus' heart.

And he loved the people, and from that love emanated healing. From that love emanated the Holy Spirit and God's divine life. Today, Lord, I pray for myself. I pray for everyone. Anywhere where our heart has grown hard, take away the heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh. Anywhere that we are holding bitterness or resentment, or wanting to control God instead of letting him control us because we lack trust in the Lord, let our heart grow soft, Lord Jesus.

Jesus told Saint Faustina trust is the vessel in which all graces are given. If there is an area in our life in which we're not receiving the adequate grace of heaven, the problem is not on the other side of heaven, it's on us. And we need to pray for God the grace to trust in him more. And when we trust in God, he does everything for you.

The Lord told me a long time ago, "Anthony, you will come into my will more perfectly when you stop thinking and saying, 'I want, I want, I want,' and change that with saying, 'God, in you I trust, I trust, I trust.' And then let go and watch me work in your life."

Father Tom DiLorenzo: Let go and watch me work in your life. This hardened heart doesn't happen all at once. It happens as we continue to walk our own way and Jesus keeps on telling us, "Return to me with all your heart." We say, "No, I've got better things to do. I'm not returning to God." That means I'm going to have to pray, that means I'm going to have to discern, that means I'm not going to be thinking about myself as the center of the world.

But Jesus keeps on saying, "Return to me with all your heart, because apart from me you can do nothing. Apart from me you are nothing." Oh yes, that's what I am apart from Jesus—nothing. In 1968, as I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit in front of the Eucharist, I said to the Lord these words, "Oh Jesus, when I stray from you, when I walk away from you, let me suffer. Let me suffer. Let me suffer."

And the angels took that word, wrote it down. And I tell you, every time I started to walk away from Jesus, suffering endured in my life. I'm glad about it. I hate the suffering, but the suffering called me back to Jesus. I told him, "When I stray from you, let me suffer." And he did, and he does. And that suffering calls me to return to him with all my heart.

It's not there to punish me; it's there to draw me back into the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you suffering today? If you are, God says, "Come to me. I have new life for you. Come to me. I will not reject you. No one who comes to me will I ever reject. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And the will of him who sent me is this: that I should lose nothing—that's you—of what he has given me, but that I should raise it up on the last day."

Anthony: And if you are suffering, but you're living for Christ and you're living in obedience, we could be suffering because Jesus has us under the crushing to draw out all of the impurities within our soul, within our heart, so that he can draw out the oil of gladness, the new wine. It is like an olive in the olive press. There's only one way to press and make oil. We need to go through the crushing so our heart is fully directed to Jesus Christ.

In Romans, the Bible says when the Lord comes, he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and he will expose the motives of the heart. At that time, each will receive their praise from God. So what does God look at that he praises us and we can receive praise from the Lord? It isn't the results of what we do; it is the motives of our heart.

We could be feeding the poor and doing good things, but we could be doing it for our own glory. We want to live only for the glory of Jesus Christ. We want to ask Jesus to come into every action that we do and enliven our actions. If we pray, we want to ask Jesus, "Come pray in our praying." We want to ask the Lord Jesus, "Come think in our thinking, Lord. Let me have the mind of Christ."

How good God is. When the Holy Spirit calls us to do something that we don't want to do, that's how we know it's the Lord. Because the Lord will call us to give money that we don't think we have, pray for people we don't think we can reach, fast in a way that we don't think we can accomplish, because the Lord is trying to stretch our soul so that we can contain more of him.

But when the Lord tells us to do something we don't want to do for Jesus, it is a gift because it allows us to do it with purity of intention. Because when God tells me to do something that I don't particularly want to do, that means I'm doing this only for the love of Jesus.

Father Tom DiLorenzo: You see what God wants us to be? No longer babies. He wants us to grow up. No more namby-pamby. He wants us to grow up. And growing up is very difficult sometimes because sometimes he stops blessing us with his holy presence and he asks us to live by faith without the feeling of his presence. If I depended upon feeling Jesus, I would have quit two weeks after 1968.

No, I don't depend upon my feelings. I depend upon Jesus. I depend upon his word. By grace, I depend upon his church. I depend upon the heart of Christ. God has a plan for you, and it's a plan to fix your heart, a plan to heal your heart, a plan to receive God's plans in your heart. But you've got to be willing. How do I be willing?

"Lord Jesus, I'm willing to hear your plans in my heart. I'm so deaf, speak loudly so that I hear you and I do not renege what you're saying. Speak loudly, and if you have to draw pictures, draw a picture so I do what you call me to do." And he'll answer that prayer. I said in 1968, "Lord Jesus, when I stray from you, let me suffer."

And he's answered that prayer. Thanks be to God. It's a suffering that draws me back to my first love, draws me back to Jesus in the midst of what I'm going to through. Are you suffering today? He's calling you back. That's what he's doing. He's calling you back to himself.

Anthony: Because God is light, and in him there is no darkness. And when God is driving out the darkness and replacing it with his light, it all needs to come to the surface. And sometimes it can be a painful process. But God does not give us anything we cannot endure. God has given us all different measures of grace, and God knows exactly what we need.

And we just need to be able to receive it and place our "I love you, Jesus" in the good and the bad. When we come to the Lord Jesus Christ, he draws us in with consolations and good feelings. He makes it feel great for us to pray and read the word. But faith is a muscle. And sometimes when we don't feel those consolations of God, it is a gift of God that we get to work out the muscle of faith.

Everyone will pray when the glory is on us and it feels like we're receiving ecstasy from heaven. But God wants to see what you're going to do when everything isn't going your way, when you don't feel all the tangible consolations, where Jesus may allow you as a gift to share in a little bit of his sufferings. And then he sees, "Alright, let's see if he's going to still walk in faith."

And when we do that, we grow stronger and stronger in the Lord Jesus Christ because good feelings and emotions do not set us free. The truth sets us free. Jesus Christ is the truth. And living by the truth apart from our feelings gives us freedom in the power of the Spirit.

Father Tom DiLorenzo: And for freedom, Christ has set you free. Do not return to a yoke of slavery of sin. For freedom, Christ has set you free. And he has a wonderful plan for your life.

Anthony: And you know, we need to just know how the enemy works. The devil works on emotions. Everything's about emotion. "I feel this way, I believe this, I think that." Where Jesus says, "No, my child. There's only one thing that sets you free, only one thing to live by, and that is the truth." We need to walk by the truth of God's word, not by the emotions we feel, because then we live our life on a roller coaster.

Father Tom DiLorenzo: How many times have I come to this microphone feeling like a penny waiting for change? But it didn't stop me.

Anthony: But what do you say, Father? That's when you do your what?

Father Tom DiLorenzo: I do my best when I feel like a penny waiting for change because I'm doing it by faith. And I'm telling people what I need to hear myself. God is faithful, and he will never leave us nor desert us. That whatever we are going through, he says, "I am with you, I am for you, I am in you. I will not dump you." We've been dumped so many times by people.

Oh, how many times have I been dumped? Like I'll tell you the experience. When I went to a certain group, oh, they loved me. They loved to hear my teaching. Then one time I was experienced desolation. Guess what? "Goodbye, we don't need you here anymore. We don't want you, we just want you when you're up."

I tell you, God wants us when we're up and God wants us when we're down. God wants us when we're flat on our face, he wants us. I recommend to people that no matter what you feel, continue to give yourself to Jesus in faith. And faith doesn't always feel. How many times have I come to this microphone, many, many, many times not feeling?

But the word of God is truth. John 17:17, "Thy word is truth." And I spoke the word of God and I heard it for myself, and while I was speaking it, I was blessed. After it was over and the music of "In Season" started, I tell you I was back to what I was feeling before I was blessed. But guess what? I still want to be faithful in the midst of calamity, in the midst of pain, in the midst of darkness. I want to be faithful.

Anthony: So today, harden not your heart to the voice of the Lord. Because if Jesus continues to cry out to you but we ignore the Lord, the Lord will not put you in a place of constant disobedience. The Lord will just quiet himself and wait until you're ready to receive his voice, to do his will, to live by faith, to die to yourself so that you can live for the Lord Jesus Christ.

For his plans are better than your plans. God's ways are better than our ways. But it takes faith to do what God is calling us to do. Many years ago, as we were on a retreat and I didn't want to witness to a man that the Lord set up for me, he told me, "Anthony, what good is the ability for you to hear my voice if you will not be obedient to it, if you will not listen to it?"

It's better that I did not hear the Lord's voice than hear it and walk in disobedience. Today, harden not your heart. Today, Lord, we pray that you soften anywhere in our heart that is hard. I pray that you take away any bitterness in anyone. Nothing will separate you from the Lord more than fear and bitterness. Lord, give us the grace to love our neighbors, to even love the people that hurt us, to let Jesus and his emotions operate through us.

Father Tom DiLorenzo: Lord, you know that we are weak and we are absolutely needy, in need of you. Do not despise our weakness, but because of our weakness, draw near to us. Draw near to us so that we will continue to walk in faith. Though we do not feel, we continue to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.

Anthony: Let me give you a little secret. When you feel great consolations, that means Jesus is at work within you. But when you feel a little desolate, that means Jesus is at rest within your soul. So although you may not feel great, Christ within you feels wonderful.

And do this now: I surrender my life to you, Lord Jesus Christ. You are mine and I am yours. Take my life as it is and love it so that I change to be like you. God bless you.

This has been "In Season and Out of Season" with Father Tom DiLorenzo. And remember that this ministry is supported only by the donations of listeners. So please help as the Lord leads you. Father Tom DiLorenzo, P.O. Box 602, East Boston, Massachusetts 02128. "In Season and Out of Season."