In Season and Out of Season

Father Tom DiLorenzo: Good day, it's Father Tom and Anthony today. I just want to tell you one thing: judgment will leave to God, not to me and not to you. I don't even judge myself. I allow God to judge me because His judgment is through the mercy of the Cross.

Oh yes, all have sinned, me too, and fallen short of the glory of God. Me too. But in Christ, we are reconciled to the Father. I don't worry about my sins of the past. I commit them to Christ on the Cross and I say, "Jesus, I want to live for You in a life that is sinless. And when I sin, I will run to You for mercy."

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But the gift of God is forgiveness through Jesus Christ. You see, there are people who will not go to confession because they've been away for 34 years and they're embarrassed. I tell you, it's nothing to do with embarrassment, it has to do with getting rid of it.

Get rid of those things, those sins. Let Jesus cleanse you by the blood that He shed on the Cross. Get rid of them. The Lord gave us this sacrament, and I tell you, it's a powerful sacrament, the sacrament of penance. But will people use it? Oh, I use it. I have to go to confession. I use it quite often.

Why? Because all have sinned, me too, and fallen short of the glory of God. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. That's the gift of God, eternal life through Jesus Christ. Do you have eternal life? Many years ago, when they did the baptism of babies or adults, the first thing that was asked was, "What do you seek from the church and from God Almighty?"

And the answer was eternal life. What does Jesus say about eternal life? Eternal life is this: to believe in the One that You sent and Jesus Christ who was sent. To believe in the Father and in the Lord Jesus. That's eternal life. We've already begun eternal life.

When you get to heaven, it will not be completely that you don't experience it; at least you've experienced it in the forgiveness of your sins. Oh, it'll be greater than I could ever imagine, but I've experienced heaven in the forgiveness of my sins. You have experienced heaven in the forgiveness of your sins.

That's why Jesus, on the night He was raised from the dead, said to the apostles, "Whose sins you forgive shall be forgiven. Whose sins you retain shall be retained." That sacrament of penance. People say, "Well, I don't sin." How many people have told me that? I don't sin. You know what I say to them?

"Oh, you know what the Bible says about people who say they don't sin?" The Bible says they have nothing to do with God because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. You might not say you know your sins, but you're a sinner who needs the grace of God just like me.

How could I help people if I was better than them? Like I never sin. That's a lie. I'm a sinner saved by grace. And when I sin, immediately I run back to the Lord. I run back. I don't want to live in sin, I want to live in grace.

So when people come to me, I have no reason to say I don't understand what you're going through. I do understand. And the difference is I've run to Christ with it. And that's what God wants you to do: run to the Lord Jesus with your sins. Dump them at the Cross. Let Him give you a new life.

That's what it's all about: a new life in the power of the Spirit. Now I have with me, because I'm a sinner, another sinner. His name is Anthony. And he has sinned just like me and fallen short of the glory of God.

Anthony: Maybe a little worse, Father. But you know what? Jesus told St. Faustina the greater the sinner, the greater the right they have to My mercy. Thank the Lord. And your sin is like a raindrop in the ocean of God's mercy. He's only looking at your heart.

Is your heart repentant? A contrite heart is an offering to God. Lord, I'm sorry for my sins, but I have a Savior. And I live from this place of thanksgiving for You. There's no condemnation in Christ. I don't live from a place of being condemned, I live from a place of freedom.

But how do I get to that place of freedom? I engage with the Lord at all times of my life. I don't have any unconfessed hidden sins within me because I get them out. I tell Father, I'm absolved by the Church, I'm absolved by Jesus, and I walk in that freedom and I walk in that victory.

I know my need for God. Without Jesus Christ and without His grace, not only would I be going to hell, but I would be living hell on earth. I would be trapped in sin. Sin feels good for a moment, but the devil's wrapping you up in chains and wrapping you up in chains, and then he's squeezing it on you.

But you know what he doesn't want you to do? Go and confess those sins. Because when you confess them, the chains break. Now we still have to—sin is still in the flesh, so we still have to mortify our flesh. We still need to fast. We need to pray. We need to live a life fully given over to the Lord Jesus Christ.

But the devil's afraid of a courageous soul because as soon as you walk in courage and fortitude and patience, then there's nothing. You just trample over the enemy. I was reading in the Book of Heaven yesterday and Jesus told Luisa that patience is a triumph over purity.

Because all virtues flow from the virtue of patience. From patience becomes purity, from patience becomes fortitude, from patience becomes love. You need to learn to be patient with yourself and patient with the Lord.

It can't be, "Everything is good in my life, so praise God," and then everything isn't going great in my life, so I'm falling apart. No, just stay there with the Lord. He's working everything out. Ask the Lord today, even if you don't see it, ask Him, "Lord, give me the grace to be patient in all situations."

Because a patient person is a trustful person. Right now, the Lord might be doing something and it's not in my preferred timing, but I'm patient with the Lord. And I know if I just endure in this moment, the Lord is going to release grace in His time.

And through that trial, I've gained all sorts of merit and virtue and purification to my soul because I had the patience to trust in the Lord through it all. Now we're going to Matthew today because at Mass this weekend, the Church and the Lord, they gave us the readings of the Beatitudes, which is in Matthew 5, which is a great, great grace.

If we can stick to this, we'll become like little Christs. It's not always easy, though. Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Blessed are the poor in spirit. Father, does that mean the poor that have no money in their wallet?

Father Tom DiLorenzo: Oh no, that doesn't mean money. That means in their very beings. In my very being, I know I'm desperate for God. Poor in spirit. And unless He comes, I'm going to die spiritually. So that's the experience of the whole world. They're desperate for God, the living God.

Anthony: Whether they know it or not.

Father Tom DiLorenzo: Whether they know it or not. And when you come to know it, you want to get rid of it. You want to confess it. You want to allow God, through His powerful Cross, to take it away and bleed it out by the blood of Jesus.

We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. You see, if someone came to me and told me, "Father, I murdered someone." You know what? Personally, I have too. Oh, not physically. No. But very, very, very spiritually. I've murdered someone.

I talked against them. I hated them. I put them under my feet. I know that when people come to confession to me, nothing, nothing, nothing is there that I don't know that I could do the same thing and probably have. Mercy is what is granted to the sinner.

Mercy, not vengeance. Mercy. Vengeance comes when we hold sin to ourselves. And who is the vengeful one? You. You're vengeful on yourself. Me, I'm vengeful on myself. The Lord has open arms for the sinner. That's you. Open arms for those who have fallen short of the glory of God.

That's me. And what does He say? On the night He was raised from the dead, He came into the Upper Room in the 20th chapter of St. John. And He said to the apostles—first He did, He breathed on them. Oh, I love that.

It was like breathing on a dead person, allowing the life of the Holy Spirit to come into them. He breathed on them and said, "Whose sins you forgive shall be forgiven. Whose sins you retain shall be retained." Oh, that is the gift of God in Christ Jesus.

When I was ordained a priest, 1979, the oils that were put on my hand were still dripping. Not really, but I'll tell you that again: the oil that they put on my hands was still dripping. And someone came to me and said, "I want to go to confession."

I'm going to tell you, my first thought was I'm going to call the priest. My second thought was I'm the priest. So we found a quiet place. I sat down with the person. The person poured out their heart. I listened. The person asked forgiveness. I gave it to her because Jesus said, "Whose sins you forgive shall be forgiven."

There is nothing that's unforgivable. Only the unforgivable sin is not accepting forgiveness. That's the unforgivable sin: not accepting forgiveness. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I went to confession once and the priest said to me, "You should have known better."

I said, "That's why I'm here. I didn't know better." Oh, I would never tell that to a penitent. Never, never, never. It's hard enough to go to another person and bare your soul for the priest or minister to tell you, "You should have known better." No.

That's why I've sinned, I didn't know better. But I need mercy. Without mercy, I'm sunk. And Jesus says, "My mercy is for you. No one will cast out who calls upon My name." I received mercy. And as I received mercy, the Lord tells me, "What you have received, give it out." Mercy to people. Mercy, mercy, mercy.

Anthony: And if we give mercy, we receive mercy from the Father. If we judge people, we always feel judged because our conscience is condemning us. You know, what we don't like in someone else, God uses people like a mirror.

And what we don't like in someone else at our worst, that's in us. And God allows us to see it not so we judge them, so we can have an awareness to that in us. If it wasn't in you, it wouldn't bother you. I promise. If that wasn't in you, if you don't like someone because you think they always gossip, catch yourself.

Do you talk about other people? Because if you're not a gossiper, it wouldn't really bother you. You'd know it's wrong, but it wouldn't like twist your spirit like that. And we need to have an awareness of the interior life because we need to understand, "Okay, this is really bothering me about this person. Why?"

And the Lord is saying, "Well, you know what, Anthony? At your worst, maybe I've overcome that vice, but never fully. But at your worst, Anthony, that is in you and this is why it's really affecting you." So it's like, "Okay, Lord, thank you. Not about them, purify me."

Even as we read the Beatitudes, Jesus is speaking about issues of the heart. That's what it's about, issues of the heart. When we go to heaven, the Lord doesn't see even our deeds, He sees our heart. The Lord doesn't judge us on how many people we bring the Lord, it's the purity of intention.

Am I living my life only for the glory of God? Not for the glory of myself, not so my ego can be built up, not so people can like me, but am I doing things only with the purity for the glory of God? That's why God calls us to do hard things that don't have a lot of consolation a lot of times.

Because then we're doing it just for God's glory. Like before we minister or before we go preach, and a lot of times there's no good feelings. We're carrying the weight and the heaviness of everyone that's going to be at the meeting.

But see, God does that to allow us that we're preaching and we're serving only for His glory, only for His people, only so His love can be released. Not so everyone can say Father or Anthony is great and we get all these good feelings.

No, we're carrying the cross of others as Jesus carried the cross for us. And the cross we carry is like one splinter compared to what Jesus carried. And I still complain and I still have a hard time doing it. But by God's grace, every time we carry a cross, we become stronger and stronger in the spirit and we become more singularly focused on the Lord Jesus Christ.

So to go back to the Beatitudes: blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. That all that means is you know your weakness without Christ. You know how much you need Jesus to do anything in this life. If I didn't have Jesus, I couldn't do anything. I need Him.

I need Him to help me do everything I do. If I cook, if I pray, if I drive, if I work, I call Jesus into everything because without Jesus I am nothing, but with Him all things become possible. So just know how much you need Jesus and His forgiveness.

Not only to get to heaven, but to be Christ in this life. And then the kingdom of heaven will be yours. The kingdom, it's for the humble and the meek. Jesus goes on to say, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."

You know, the Bible says in Numbers that God looked upon the earth and Moses was a very—now the man Moses was very meek, more than all the people on the face of the earth. I looked up, "What is meek mean, Lord?" It's like guilelessness. Jesus said, "Look, there's Nathaniel, a man without guile."

That's like the desire to kind of control and manipulate other people by what you say and you want to try to work things out to get your way. When God just wants us to say the truth in love and leave it at that. I don't need to manipulate someone to come to the Lord or control them.

I just need to tell them the truth in love and leave it at that and reflect the love of Jesus Christ. Because the precursor for all humility is the ability to be meek. You become unchangeable in your mind same as dishonor and honor.

So when you're meek, whether it's raining or it's sunny, whether someone is yelling at you or praising you, you don't change. You're level and you're still because you don't gain your gratification from people, the world; your peace comes from interior, from the Lord Jesus Christ.

So whether someone's persecuting you or praising you, it makes no difference to you because you carry that meekness and you carry that stability. Meekness is the answer to anger because anger comes from really wanting to control and not being able to, wanting to be seen a certain way and not.

And it keeps our eyes on our own poverty. That we're not looking for the sins of our neighbor, we're not looking for what's wrong in everyone else. And if we do, like I said, God uses someone as a mirror that that's wrong within me, I have the awareness to say, "God, this is all about me and this is about my sin and this is about You rooting it out."

And so we lose a fear of—we don't need to be honored, we don't need to be reverenced, we just need to live with the Lord Jesus Christ and live in divine union with Him. And let everyone say what they need to say, let everyone think what they need to think, let everyone do what they need to do because you begin to live for an audience of one.

It's you and the Lord Jesus and you're doing the will of God at all times. A meek soul is no turbulence. It's peace, trust, love. And when we get that grace from God, we will inherit the earth.

Father Tom DiLorenzo: Let's say someone comes to me and says, "Father, I want to go to confession." So I say, "Yes, I'd be delighted to hear your confession." And the person says, "I killed somebody." Well, that's a bad one. How do you deal with that?

First of all, I want to tell you: sin kills. I've killed people too. Not physically. No. But I've done it in reality. And so to the sinner that's killed somebody, I want to bring that person to Jesus and also to try to have that person come into the light and confess it to the authorities.

This is real. This is absolutely real. You see, sin destroys. Sin kills. That's why we need salvation and there's only salvation in Jesus. We don't hear enough about sin. We don't hear enough about sin yet the Bible tells us all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Which means all: that's you, that's me, that's us. In order to receive the glory of God and the presence of Jesus, we've got to get rid of the sin. Now how do you do that? The scripture tells us if you confess your sins, He is faithful to forgive your sins.

Get rid of them. Go to confession. Dump them at the Cross. Leave the Cross without sin, filled with the presence and mercy of God. That's what it's all about. Unfortunately, people don't come to confession the way they used to because they say this is what they say: "I don't sin." That's a lie.

You should say, "I don't know my sin." You should say, "I need the Holy Spirit to point out my sin." Oh, He'll do it. Not in a way that will destroy you but in a way that will make you whole and entire and ability to help other sinners by dumping your sin at the Cross. All have sinned: you, me, us.

Anthony: It also gives us humility, whether we want to be humble or not. It gives us meekness, as I was speaking about. To kneel down in front of another sinner and confess our sin, it's humbling to the soul and humility opens a window for grace. Pride closes it.

There's so much freedom. I love going to confession. And see right now I feel the Holy Spirit coming upon everyone, coming upon me and Father and everyone listening. And I pray the Holy Spirit just begins to convict your heart but He pours out His love.

That we live from the spirit, not from the flesh. See, the flesh will tell you, "I'm not confessing my sins." One time a guy told me, "I'll tell the priest my sins when he tells me his." It was kind of a good one. But the priest goes to confession because that's Christ in persona Christi, just like Christ comes and makes the Eucharist through the priest.

And it's a great grace. You can hear it, you know in someone's voice because you're so filled with grace and peace and mercy and love. But what it does to the heart to go to confession, it opens the windows of heaven for you. It really does and it makes you simple.

A meek soul and a holy soul is simplicity. It's like, oh, Jesus told me go to confession, I'm going. The Church tells me to go to Mass on Sunday, I'm doing it. The Lord told me to give, I'm going to give 10%. And it's really easy.

You just give and you just give and you just become like a little child and people recognize that. But where there's complicated and everything's all, "I gotta decide ten things for myself," that's not God. That's why the monks and stuff, they're just obedient.

They're just obedient to the superiors and they do what their superior tells them to do because that's the Word of God. Now I'm a Catholic man, I'm called to just be obedient to the Church. And as I'm obedient to the Church, I run in freedom.

I have the answers to the test. I'm in freedom. That's the whole thing. God has given us through the Word of God—but in the Word of God there are 40,000 denominations teaching 40,000 different things, so there's a little confusion.

But Jesus didn't come to give us a book, He came to give us a church, one church. And from that church came the Bible and came the Word of God, but that church holds all truth. It's just... it has the answers to the test.

And when I just live by what the Church and the Word of God interiorly and in the Word tells me to do, I walk in freedom. And I get to live in holiness and I get to live in peace and joy and meekness, and I get to ascend to the heights of holiness. And that's for you, too. But the Lord wants both feet in the game, Father.

Father Tom DiLorenzo: Obedience. That's the big sin, being disobedient. Disobedient to the Lord. Disobedient to my elders. Disobedience. That's what happened with Adam and Eve, they were disobedient. They wanted the fruit of that tree that was not given to them. They wanted something that was not theirs. And so what, God bless you!