Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts

Transcript

"At that time, Samuel was not familiar with the Lord because the Lord had not revealed anything to him as yet. The Lord called Samuel again for the third time. Getting up and going to Eli, he said, "Here I am. You called me." Then Eli understood that the Lord was calling the youth. So Eli said to Samuel, "Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply, 'Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.'" Welcome to Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. Today is January 14th, 2026, Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time.

I'll be providing the reflection for today's episode. My name is Elizabeth and I'm the producer and host of Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. From today's Mass reading, I'd like to reflect on the first reading from 1 Samuel chapter three. "At that time, Samuel was not familiar with the Lord because the Lord had not revealed anything to him as yet. The Lord called Samuel again for the third time. Getting up and going to Eli, he said, 'Here I am. You called me.' Then Eli understood that the Lord was calling the youth. So Eli said to Samuel, 'Go to sleep, and if you are called, reply, 'Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.'"

So I'd like to speak to the inner outcasts who might be listening to this podcast right now. And if you're familiar with IFS, or internal family systems, we would call these exiled parts, meaning the parts of you, the independent personalities in you that are cast out, that have become outcasts in your internal family system because of their burdens and the extremeness of their emotions. So in these verses from the first reading of today's Mass, it strikes me how Samuel is not familiar with the Lord because the Lord had not revealed anything to him as of yet. It strikes me that it says that Samuel was not familiar with the Lord. And this makes me think about how you exiles the inner outcast who might be listening to this podcast right now. It's possible that you are also not familiar with the Lord. And there could be many reasons for that. You could feel like there is no God. You might not even understand the concept of God because you were so young. You might have had the experience that figures in your life, such as parents or other authority figures who would have represented God to you at the age at which you were burdened and cast out. You might have had the experience of those people, well, not being loving towards you, and that would hinder your understanding of God.

And so, just like you might feel, Samuel also experiences in this first reading, a lack of familiarity with the Lord, such that when the Lord calls him, Samuel doesn't even recognize his voice. And maybe that happens to you, you exiled parts. There might very well be moments in your life, in the past or present or future, where the Lord is speaking to you and taking care of you and wanting to enter into relationship with you. But you can't because of your exiled position and because of how you are not familiar with the Lord yet. Now, in this first reading, I think it's really beautiful how Samuel goes to his mentor Eli, and Eli puts the connections together for him and says, this is the Lord. This is not me speaking. Next time you hear this voice say, "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening. So in this passage, Eli is a guide, a mentor, an authority figure for Samuel, who leads him towards the Lord. And in your internal family system, that is the role of your innermost self. Your innermost self, when it is allowed to enter into proper integrated relationship with you, the exiled parts, it can perform the beautiful, beautiful task of taking you to the Lord and revealing the Lord to you and teaching you about God, and teaching you how to recognize his voice and bringing you into relationship with him.

Listeners are invited to learn more about the innermost self, which was mentioned in today's episode, by checking out our sister podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics, episode 158. With that, we'll end with our invocations. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.