Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts

Transcript

"I know the Messiah is coming, the one who's called the Christ. And when he comes, he will tell us everything. Jesus said to her, 'I am he, the one speaking with you.'"

You are listening to Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. It's March 8th, 2026, the Third 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.

Okay, this third Sunday of Lent, and we are back in our virtual studio to discuss the readings from today's Mass. As always, for these Sunday readings, Dr. Gerry, you're here. We're teaming up. Wow. We got something here. Let's hear what you got. I'm really curious.

Yeah. It's great to be with you. And, yeah, this reading is really powerful, right? The Gospel especially, is the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman. And if listeners aren't familiar, maybe many are, right. And maybe you've heard this story so many times, but some may not be as familiar, that there's sort of two aspects to Jesus talking to this woman. That first of all, it's a woman. And so that by itself, this is a woman at a well by herself, and Jesus is talking to her, as a man, by himself. So right away, culturally, like that, you just don't do that. But he does. Right? But even more exiled than just being female is the fact that she's Samaritan. So all the Samaritans were pretty much exiles to the Israelites, right? So they were considered basically heretics, I guess you could say. And so for Jesus to talk to her is a sign that Jesus loves our exiles, like he will go out of his way to connect with someone who is exiled, and she's exiled in multiple ways. That doesn't stop Jesus. So right away. That's beautiful. And I don't know why, but I was recalling last week, you know, when we did the one on the Transfiguration for the second Sunday of Lent. Well, it was a mountain. Here in this passage, they're also mentioning the mountain where the Samaritans.

So it's a different mountain where the Samaritans worship in a way Jesus is again he's breaking the rules, right. He's breaking the rules. And he's basically setting it up to say in a sense, the mountain itself doesn't matter where you are, doesn't matter. I'm leading you to a place where you're going to have a relationship with God, no matter where you are. So he's calling us all out of being exiles. He's calling each of our exiles really essentially within us, into this connection with him that transcends those kind of, you know, social, cultural rules. Right. And then the same we see in the Exodus passage, right. We've got the Israelites are out in the desert, right. And they're complaining because they don't have water and all of that. And again, Moses turns to God. And you know, what do we do? He's drawing them out of exile. It's going to be difficult, and there's going to be challenges through that. It's not an easy process to go from being exiled to getting home again. Right? But God is with us in that. So there's multiple ways in which exiles, in my view, are being called on, are being brought home or being taken care of, ultimately are being reunited. It's just beautiful.

There's a comfort in the familiarity of the dysfunction we know. Right? And so now that they're facing new challenges in the desert, the Israelites, you know, are saying, why did you lead us out of what we knew? Even though making bricks without straw wasn't something that was, you know, particularly appealing. It doesn't sound like that to me. But they're asking a question that exiles I think sometimes ask, is the Lord in our midst or not? That's the closing line in the first reading. Is the Lord in our midst or not? You know, I'm reminded of when I think it's in Isaiah. You know, your ways are not my ways, says the Lord. And your thoughts are not my thoughts. And I think that's something that takes some real humility, right, to appreciate that, wow, this is not what we thought it was. I'm reminded of last week also because there's another theophany here, right, where Christ acknowledges when the woman at the well says, "I know the Messiah is coming, the one who's called the Christ, and when he comes, he will tell us everything. And Jesus said to her, 'I am he, the one speaking with you.'" Right. So very different, in contrast, right to the radiance, you know, that the apostles have experienced in the Transfiguration, tuned to where she was right, because she doesn't know Jesus in the same way the apostles know Jesus. It's very attuned to where she is. She couldn't handle the radiance of the glory of God. She's carrying a lot of shame about her background, about the five husbands and the cohabitation, you know, and so forth. And so she's experiencing the gentleness of Christ in that sense. And then it's almost like the apostles coming back are almost like the protectors, right? Like they're astounded. Why are you talking to her? This isn't right. This isn't good, right? You can almost imagine them as like managers, in a sense, in the system. Right? So that was sort of coming to me as well as I read this.

I love that. I think that's beautiful. I love the parallels. Right. Because we see the Israelites in the desert and they're thirsty. And God ultimately does provide. She says to him, give me this water so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water. And he offers her living water. So again, the parallels so beautiful, like God will take care of us, not just feeding us the water we need when we're in the desert, or what this woman needs from the well, you know, for just regular water. But this living water that he wants to give to all of us, and in particular, I think this is a message our exiles need to hear because they're the ones almost not coming to the water. They're the ones not coming to Christ because they're afraid. Like you're saying, they're carrying all this shame, you know, all these burdens that they're carrying. And he's saying, no, I want to relieve you of those. And he does such a beautiful job of relieving her burden without shaming her.

Right. Well, and she makes a point, right, that you are a Jew and I'm a Samaritan. Right. And so she could expect to be devalued, to be criticized, condemned. Right. Because of the nature of the conflict between the Jews and the Samaritans. And yet she trusts him enough to enter into conversation with him. And this really what would seem very bizarre, right? The apostles were astonished. She was astonished. Everybody was astonished at this, except Jesus himself. Right. So, and she opened up to him. And then the other thing was I was thinking about the community she's in, right, the Samaritans that she's with, many of whom also rejected her, you know, she's coming to the well in the middle of the day in the heat of the day, partly to avoid, you know, receiving more criticism. But then they notice her, and sometimes exiles will notice other exiles being loved, getting what they need. And then that's motivating to believe that they could get what they need to. And what did these Samaritans do? They invited him to stay with them and he stayed there two days. Many more began to believe in him because of his word. "And they said to the woman, 'we no longer believe because of your word, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.'" Like, what a beautiful thing. Like she is helping other exiles to come into contact. She was the bridge for some of these other exiles to even consider spending time with Jesus. It's not all the innermost self. Right. It's not all the innermost self. Sometimes these parts learn from each other.

I love it, I love it, yeah. And you know, goes on to talk about food. So much reaping of a harvest. And so these Samaritans who were rejected are actually going to be the harvest. Right. And then again, he's making the link. "The reaper is already receiving payment and gathering crops for eternal life." So again, he's playing with that metaphor of, you know, water and food and crops, to make the point, I am calling all of you exiled people, all the rejected people into this, and I'm going to give you food, but it's going to be even richer. It's going to be eternal, right? Living water and all that. And so, I mean, it's such a beautiful metaphor that's being played out over and over again, but it also rocks the boat as far as, you think you're established, right, like the Jews, the Pharisees and Sadducees, like, those are like our managers right there rule followers or they're, you know, sticklers on the law and everything else. And Jesus is basically saying you may actually lose your place. And we're going to make room for the exiles to come home. Right. We're actually going to give them eternal life and living water like, whoa, not just come home, but like it's going to be a reward beyond what you can imagine.

Right? Right. So just the word directly to exiles to dare to believe that this could happen for you to dare to believe that this could happen for you and that God actually wills it to happen, and that there's a place, there's a way that this will unfold for you. Right. That Jesus wishes to encounter you also, and the time and place that is best for you. And so let's have some confidence in that. Let's have some confidence that the reality is bigger than the limited vision that you have, you know, when you're not in a good place, you know, there's more to this than that. Just like everybody again is astonished in this Gospel reading, just like they were astonished, you know, in last Gospel reading from last week, on the second Sunday.

And look at the beautiful message that we hear in Romans. Right. "That his love, the love of God, has been poured out into our hearts." Poured out. And in the same kind of paragraph it is saying for the ungodly. Right, while we're still sinners. He proved his love for us while we were still sinners, which is what he does for our exiles, which is what he did for the woman at the well. You know, it wasn't. You don't have to be perfect to get this. In fact, I'm calling you out of your imperfection, and I'm pouring my love into your heart. It's like it's mind blowing.

Well, in the responsorial psalm also gives us what our response should be, right? "If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts." Right. So big, open hearts, you know. And that includes to all of our parts, right? Because if we're going to be saved, if we're going to be redeemed, if we're going to enter into heaven and into the deep union with God, it's going to be all of us. It's not like just some parts of us are going to go and other parts are going to be left behind. It's all of us.

Yeah, we describe that, you know, in Litanies of the Heart and Souls and Hearts. We describe, you know, the heart as the whole self system, like the inmost self and all the parts.

And all the parts.

To learn more about the internal family systems concept of unburdening, check out our sister podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics episode 115.

And with that, we'll bring this to a close by invoking 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.