Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts

Transcript

"He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness and found human in appearance, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

Welcome back to Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts and happy Holy Week. It's March 29th, 2026, Palm Sunday. 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, Dr. Gerry, we are all the way to Palm Sunday. This is really good. There is a lot here.

There sure is. This is a long reading, too. So, but I have a question for you. What do you think? Is Jesus the exile here?

Are you talking about in the Gospel? Right. Yeah. Yeah, obviously. Is he the exile? Man, I know you've brought that up before, and I know you're making like, an analogy here, right? To the macrocosm, right? We're going from microcosm to macrocosm, right, in a sense. And I would say when you go back to the earlier reading where there is this sense of him being rejected, if you go back to the responsorial Psalm, you know, "my God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" You know, where he's expressing that feeling. He brought that to the words of the cross. Yes, I would say that there is a parallel there. Yeah.

Yeah. I kind of see Jesus as becoming and allowing himself to be in exile so that he could help our exiles. And he's there for all of us, right? Every part of us. And each one of us, of course. But he is showing us how to go from being an exile to being fully a child of God. Right. So this is such a fascinating passage because he allows himself ultimately to be exiled. And in the reading in Philippians, when he says, "He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave." This is a slave. The slave is in exile. They're under someone else's control, right? "Coming in human likeness and found human in appearance, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." So like to me, he is emptying himself. He's allowing himself to take the role of exile, but for a very good purpose. Right?

Well, let me ask you a question now. Is Judas an exile?

Yeah. You know, I wondered about that myself. So when I was looking at this as Judas in exile, you know, I feel like Judas is more of a firefighter.

Okay.

The reason I say that is that I'm actually curious about Judas's intention. And I know there's just a lot of ways in which you can interpret that, right. But Judas is acting. He's an active agent. Exiles are usually in the background, almost inactive. Right. Okay, so Judas is actively doing something here, and I believe Judas thinks he's doing the right thing.

I totally agree with you on that. I totally agree with you on that. I actually draw that out a lot in episode 46 of the Interior Integration for Catholics podcast called Shame and Tragedy: Judas Iscariot and You. But I was thinking he was in exile. I totally appreciate the idea of him being a firefighter. And firefighters can actually, I think, also be exiled. But the difference is he exiled himself, whether he knew it or not, for using maladaptive sinful means. Right? So there was a way that he cut himself off, almost like a self-imposed exile, but of a very different kind than the exile that our Lord took on for himself.

So I think his intention was to take over. Like, on some level, I think he thinks he'll be the hero at the end of the day here.

I think you're right. But I think it'll be a hero in the sense that he basks in the reflected glory of Jesus. I think he wanted to set himself up to be Jesus's right-hand man, and to be the one who forced Jesus into becoming the Savior of Israel in a military or in a worldly sense. And then he would gain that credit. It's sort of like a particular kind of narcissism where you sort of bask in the reflective glory of an idealized other. I think that's kind of what he was going for.

Even when he took the 30 silver pieces, you think?

Yeah, yeah, I think that was him forcing Jesus's hand because he was shocked. He was shocked when Jesus didn't free himself from their grasp. I don't think Judas ever intended for Jesus to be killed. I think that was mind blowing to him, you know? And perpetuated his suicide because that was just unthinkable that Jesus would allow that to happen to him. He was not willing to reengage with him, not willing to reengage with God in a way that Peter was willing to reengage with him. Which is why there's a contrast, you know, between Peter's coming back and Judas not coming back. So there's ways that I think parts can, like, not make it back from exile, as scary as that sounds.

Well, if you're right, which I think what you're saying is really fascinating. But if you're right, then it really does speak to a lot of us because he believed on some level that his will being imposed would be better than God's will. Like, he wouldn't have thought that way directly, but indirectly he did. In other words, I have to do what I think is right, regardless of what God is actually telling me I need. And that that would be better, right? In fact. And no one would have that much kind of hubris if they really were face to face with God. You know, to actually have to say, hey, I think it would be better this way, God. But in some ways, he is in fact, doing that, if what you're saying is correct, which is a lot of us. Like, I think I want to do God's will, but how often do I actually just do what I want to do, hoping it's God's will or hoping that it's the better than whatever God might have had in mind?

Well, and I think there's where you see the contrast between Peter and Judas, because Peter also believed he knew better than Jesus, you know. And Jesus rebuked him and said, get behind me, Satan. Right? Right after he had praised him for recognizing that he was the Son of God, that he was the Christ, that he was the Messiah, you know. But then Peter immediately goes to challenging him and contradicting him. Right? So, so you kind of see the two there and I don't know, you know, obviously Saint John gives the impression that there was some malice in Judas's heart. I don't doubt that at all. You know, we heard that at the Last Supper Satan entered Judas's heart. But yeah, I think this is much more nuanced and complex. And sometimes I think we cast the figure of Judas as being so bad that it's remote from us, kind of like Hitler and Judas and Stalin, you know, they're all kind of like together. And I think it's more nuanced than that. And I think Judas was really suffering to overcome, he was trying in a maladaptive way to overcome a deep sense of shame. And I make that point in episode 46. But at the same time, not slowing down, not listening to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, not taking them seriously, not even looking at like, the law and the prophets. I mean, this is blood money. This is, you don't do this, you know, even under the old law.

Yeah. I mean, I like your interpretation, and, I mean, I guess it's an open question, but I do tend to see Judas as having despaired, and I tend to see him as having basically collapsed and felt like God had, in a sense, he had been tricked or abandoned or something, that Jesus wasn't really who he said he was, and that in fact, everything was going to pot and I have to do something, protect my own butt and get out of here. That's how I tend to look at it. And I'm not saying your interpretation is wrong. I think it's very fascinating. But if that second interpretation is correct, then you know, he is a part, a firefighter part that's just simply trying to make things stop, right? Like I don't believe anymore. I think we're all in trouble. We're all going to go down. I'm going to save my own butt, which is exactly what a firefighter does.

Exactly. That's a really interesting point. And so I just want to, when we speak about this and we're addressing, you know, these questions. I want to just make sure that we emphasize that we're speculating. Like we don't really know his heart. We don't really know. There's a lot here. But just so that, you know, you exiles out there can see how desperate some of this can get. You know, like, yeah, this is being reflected. It's being played out in the stories of the various characters around the passion.

So Jesus is the exile or he puts himself in that kind of position. And Judas is actually the firefighter saying, I can't handle what Jesus is saying.

Oh, this is really good. Go with this. Wow.

So therefore, I am going to put that out. I'm going to put out that flame that is Jesus, because where he's going is not where I feel safe to go and it's too much. And so he does what he does. And in fact, Peter also can feel that way too, right? On some level, because he's going, this is all going down a path I didn't expect. I'm overwhelmed. Right? And he denies Jesus. He doesn't outrightly betray him the same way, but he denies him, right? Right. And in a way, Jesus as that exile who is perceived as overwhelming, actually, you know, we'll talk about next week is actually showing us that we have to walk through the pain, through the suffering, through that towards something even better that that's actually takes us to the resurrection.

Well, I'm imagining what you might be wondering, maybe some of you and the question that I may be picking up is, then who's the innermost self in the system? If we have Jesus as the exile, if we have Judas as the firefighter, is there an innermost self in the system? I have an idea that I'll float.

God the Father?

I think it also might be Mary. I think it also might be Mary. Now remember, we're playing a little fast and loose with this. Okay? You know, there's a kind of perfection obviously in Mary, you know, in the natural realm. And, you know, she encountered him, we believe by tradition as he was carrying the cross. Right. And consoled him. But yeah, I mean, maybe God the Father as well. But definitely, you know.

That's fascinating. I'll have to sit with that. I mean, she holds him. I mean, tradition, right? She holds him after the crucifixion. We know in the Gospel of John, I believe that she's there at the cross with John. So she is with him the whole way. So yeah, in many ways, like the innermost self, she is present and she brings just compassion and care through this horrible ordeal. So, you know, that works in an analogous way as well, right?

So just to kind of think of that, you know, because sometimes, you exiles, it might be really hard to connect with God the Father or with Jesus or with the Holy Spirit, just because there might be some really toxic God images. And when I've worked with so many exiles in so many people's systems, so many of them actually do gravitate to the gentleness and the warmth of of our Lady, of our Mother Mary. That's a really common spiritual confidant. And we talk about this in some of the episodes of Interior Integration for Catholics around spiritual confidants. And that's a big part of the Resilient Catholics Community, in the first year we get into spiritual confidants, in the second half of our programing. But yeah, just because she can help us with our human formation and it's said that she was also, this is sort of apocryphal, right? But that she was also really concerned about Judas, really concerned about Judas.

I've not heard that.

Yeah. In her motherly heart. Yeah. Well, so fascinating. And we are coming into now Holy Week. And again, our prayers are with you. And when we pray for you, that means praying for all of you, all of your parts, including your exiles. And so from all of us at Souls and Hearts, to all of you, so many blessings as we begin Holy Week.

Many of our parts carry distorted and untrue perceptions of who God is, and these are sometimes called God images. If you'd like to learn more about this concept, I'd recommend you check out our sister podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics episodes 23 through 29, which is linked in the description of today's show.

And with that, we'll draw 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.