Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts

Transcript

"Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned."

Welcome back to Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. Today is February 22nd, 2026, the First Sunday of Lent. Today is a special Sunday episode of Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts, as we are joined by both Dr. Gerry Crete and Dr. Peter Malinoski, the co-founders of Souls and Hearts. They will be offering a joint reflection on today's readings.

Wow, Dr. Gerry, we're in Lent. We are in Lent. And these readings, man, they start us off with Lent. Like there is nothing that quite says Lent to me like Psalm 51. So first of all, so good to be with you again. I really enjoy this time that we get to spend together doing these episodes and really reaching out to the exiles in our audience, and that always like, brings up just such empathy in the parts of me that have experienced exile. And so it's actually really beautiful to be able to do this with you and with the parts of you that have formerly been in exile as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I know it's really fun. I'm excited to see when we get together and we bring these different ideas. Something magical usually happens. So let's see what happens.

Absolutely. Just, what struck you from from these readings, from the responsorial psalm, the verse before the Gospel, whatever?

You know, I had a funny reaction, and I'm still kind of like processing it. So we'll see what happens here. But, you know, I can't help it. Of course, I want to look at the Psalm 51. But first, in the Gospel of Matthew, we have Jesus being in the desert. So the minute I think of the desert, you're in the desert, you're in the unconscious mind. You've gone deeper, in my mind, immediately that's kind of where I go if it's an ocean or a desert. And so Jesus goes into his inner world. And what happens? The devil tempts him, right? And so he's being tempted on multiple levels. And when I think of temptation a little bit, I do tend to go with thinking, oh, there's a manager, maybe there's a firefighter who wants to act on it, but maybe there's a manager being tempted with something like being tempted with greatness. We have managers that want to be superstars. We have managers who want to be respected. You know, knowing angels will come and rescue me because I am, you know, and this kind of thing. And so we have all these things. And of course, Jesus says, get away, Satan. Right, he pushes it away. If I think about it for myself or for any regular person, right. And I'm thinking, you know, all these managers, all this busyness, all this temptation, and it's the exile that's left behind, right? Because what does the exile actually need? I think my own exiles are not looking to be wealthy. They're not looking to make sure that they're, like, well respected. They're not trying to do all these things. And yet there's this temptation going on, and the whole system is like, you know, in a turmoil in the middle of figuring out, oh, what do I do? And everything. And, you know, and when Jesus says, get away, Satan, you know what happened? My exile felt comfortable. It felt like Jesus was saying, I'm protecting you.

Oh, really?

Yeah. That's not where you were going, right?

No. Absolutely not. Because I had a kind of a strange reaction here, too. But let me back up to the first reading from Genesis 2, because ever since I was little and understood something about the story, my question was always, why did they do it? Why did they do it? Why did Adam and Eve eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? And especially in this prelapsarian state, you know, where they had not experienced sin yet. Like, what were they going for? And it goes to something that was a quality of being divine. And now we're going to get into theosis or divinization, deification. I know that floats your boat. We've talked about this a lot, but yeah, I mean, why? "The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom." So I think there was this need inside from a part that was either disconnected or becoming disconnected, driving this, that, yeah, I want to be like God and know everything. Right. And that was sort of the promise, right? Satan says -- that was the deception -- "You certainly will not die. No, God knows well, the moment you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like gods."

Mhm.

And so I was sort of thinking about that and how in my system I have my evaluator part who's a manager part that's driven by the fears of my Little One and my Adventurer Part who carry fear, and also Cat who is my part that carries big feelings. These parts are sometimes exiled. Where knowledge is a way to help with the need for survival and felt need for safety. The fantasy on the manager's part is, if I know more, I will be able to protect these exiles that are scared or that are concerned about survival or that are concerned about having enough agency. And so there's sort of this real basic integrity need of survival. So and at least in my system, I think that a lot of the succumbing to temptation is managers, sometimes firefighters, but they're trying to use maladaptive means to solve the integrity need issues or the attachment need issues or the identity issues that my exiles have.

You know, that's so interesting. Where I go with it still links to the Gospel here, because here's the way I look at it in the same prelapsarian thing, which we don't have enough time to really get into it, right? But from more of an Eastern Christian perspective, Adam and Eve were like children. They were innocent and naive. They were our exiles before they were exiled. Right. So they retain that innocence and goodness and just natural curiosity and everything else. And so I think when they see the fruit and the serpent's tempting them and they're thinking, oh, you can be like God. Well, they don't even know the difference between good and evil at that point. So we can get into it, who knows? But like, they lose that, in a sense, managers appear. Because they're like wanting something kind of like what you're saying, I think, and grasping towards something. And so that's the beginning of having parts that, you know, are going to have agendas. And so now all of a sudden what happens after the fall, right, is they get exiled. So that this little innocent child that was Eve and Adam, those are literally exiled away like on some level and lost. To take it to our own realities, like we're never going back to the garden. We're never going to be those innocent children again. We're never going to be just our pre-exiled exiles. Right? But, I mean, we have something even greater that's in store for us, to link it to what I was saying before, though, about Jesus. When Jesus says, get out, serpent, right? I'm not going to let my managers run the world here, right? Then my exile suddenly feels heard and seen and valued. So that inner child, very much like an Adam and Eve who was exiled and who's still a bit of a child, gets to be brought into the system. Now it won't be the same, right? But it will be loved. And so when Jesus protects that exile, I feel loved.

Yeah. That's so interesting. Well, I'm wondering if you can help me with something here. There's a line in the responsorial psalm, and it has to do with the repetition. So when my exiles are not in a good place, when they're not in right relationship with my innermost self, and I say, "be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned," which is the response in the responsorial psalm. It's from verse 3a of Psalm 51, and we repeat it over and over again. "Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned. Be merciful, Lord, for we have sinned." And this happens to me sometimes in litanies, too. You know, we say, Lord, have mercy, Christ, you repeat these things, have mercy on us. You know, you go through the Trinity. It can be like my exiles if they're not in right relationship with my innermost self, if they're struggling with their toxic God images, it can be like, okay, maybe if I say it one more time, he'll listen to me. Or maybe if I say it one more time, almost like I'm trying to convince God, because God actually may be ambivalent about being merciful to me or something like that. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's the repetition feels like it's pleading to try to convince a God who otherwise, without the pleading, might not respond.

Yeah, thank you for saying that. Let me give you a perspective. Okay, I get it. I totally get it, I get it why that could be taken that way by our exiles or other parts. Even so, I pray, usually every morning I'm praying the morning prayer from the Eastern Church. I use the Melkite prayer book, but I think it's mostly the same prayers in other Eastern prayer books. And we say, Lord, have mercy. And there's a point after saying the Lord's Prayer that you say it 12 times. Yeah, I literally go, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy. Say it 12 times. And you know what? I don't take it like, oh, please, God, one of these 12 times you're going to finally. I take it like it's a humming of my heart and it's like I'm in a state of just, yeah, Lord have mercy. And it's a receptivity. Like I'm not saying, Lord have mercy, please have mercy. I'm like, taking it in. I'm receiving the mercy and I'm just basking in it as I'm repeating it. So the same with this Psalm. "Be merciful Lord, we have sinned." It's being received. It's receptive. And so as you're repeating it, you're just honest and you're just like, yeah, on some level, yeah, I don't deserve any of it. But be merciful, Lord, for we have sinned. And I'm saying that because I know he is the Lord of mercy. And each time I say it, he receives it. And so it becomes a balm in my heart. It becomes, as you're repeating it, it becomes a balm like, oh, you know. And then the words of the actual, I mean, Psalm 51, one of the most beautiful. If you're ever feeling sinful and horrible, you know, about yourself, feeling full of guilt. This is the Psalm. You know, create in me a clean heart. Renew a steadfast spirit within me, cast me not away, you know, and all this. And you know what? If we have time, like, I have this one little quote that I was reading and I got it from, I use the Word on Fire bibles. I just love them. And they have little like as you're reading the different passages, they have little like clips and sometimes they're Bishop Barron himself, sometimes it's some saint. And I was reading one I'd never read before, Saint Catherine of Siena, when she was asked about the devil and temptation, actually. So it does fit. And she was asked like how she handles it if she sins, right, and how a sinner should handle it. And she says it's always about relying on his mercy. And she actually says, I'm going to butcher it slightly. But she says, even if a person had sinned, every sin that every person in the whole world could sin, and it was all concentrated in me, it would be but a drop of vinegar in the ocean of God's mercy. I literally broke down in tears when I read that. Yeah. Like to me, I didn't even know Saint Catherine of Siena was that good at mercy. Like, she seems a little tough, you know.

Right, right. Absolutely.

Like she's going to fight with the Pope to move him back where he's supposed to be. And yet she said that. And to me, it was like, oh my gosh, her heart. She understands God's love and mercy.

So I'm wondering if exiles might be able to take just a little bit of this in, that God's mercy is for you. Because hear the plea in the Psalm, right? "A clean heart create for me, O God, a steadfast spirit renew within me. And then, cast me not out from your presence and your Holy Spirit take not from me." That particular stanza is all about like exiles, right? A clean heart. The heart includes all of our parts, including our exiles. This is not just, you know, support my spiritual managers, you know, so that they can be righteous in your sight, you know, and we'll banish the rest that are unacceptable to you into the internal dungeon of the unconscious or something like that. Like, no, it's about create a clean heart, all of us steadfast spirit time is limited. But anything final, Dr. Gerry, that you'd like to share?

You know, again, a beginning. Lent. This is a time, yes, of remorse. Right. You know, and fasting and almsgiving. And this is a time of preparation. But it is a time also to receive that mercy. Right. And I believe, like, you know, we didn't get into it all, Romans. But even this passage, like it's all about repentance. You know, the necessary ingredient from our end is simply repentance.

Repentance.

Yeah, yeah. And this is a season of repentance. Not that we have to be perfect or we have to have everything figured out, but that we simply turn and just say, you know, like with the psalmist, like, be merciful, Lord, like I have sinned. It's just that's the turn of the heart that needs to happen, and God will lavish his mercy.

Listeners can find more content from Dr. Peter Malinoski on the podcast that he hosts called Interior Integration for Catholics, which you can find wherever you get your podcasts. You can also subscribe to his semi-monthly reflections by going to soulsandhearts.com/blog. Thanks for joining us and we'll see you again tomorrow.

Well, with that, let's invoke our patroness and our patrons. Our Lady, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.