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A parts-informed reflection on Hosea 14:2, "Return, O Israel, to the LORD, your God; you have collapsed through your guilt."
Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Presenter: Dr. Gerry Crete, co-founder of Souls & Hearts
What is the Innermost Self? Find out in “Interior Integration for Catholics” episode 158.
Questions or comments? Email scripturepodcast@soulsandhearts.com
Share your thoughts via this episode's YouTube comments at youtube.com/@ScriptureForYourInnerOutcasts
Creators and Guests
What is Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts?
In the Gospels, Jesus reaches out to the outcasts, the most marginalized and rejected members of His society. In this very brief podcast, we take His approach inside – to reach out to your inner outcasts, the parts of you who are walking in darkness and gloom. Listen in and invite the Good News in the daily Mass readings to shine on your inner lost sheep, your inner prodigals, your inner lepers, your lame, deaf, and blind parts, your inner tax collectors, and your inner prostitutes – all those parts of you deemed unworthy and unacceptable by your protector parts.
Why? So that you can integrate inside, heal, and grow to flourish in accepting being loved, loving yourself in an ordered way, and then being able to love God wholeheartedly, with all your parts, and your neighbor as yourself. All informed by Internal Family Systems and other parts work approaches, and all firmly grounded in a Catholic understanding of the human person. Join us in seeing Scripture through a new lens, coming alive for those parts of you that may have experienced spiritual neglect and need healing.
This podcast is produced by Souls & Hearts, an organization dedicated to human formation from a Catholic lens. Learn more at soulsandhearts.com.
Transcript
Dr. Gerry: "Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God; you have collapsed through your guilt."
Elizabeth: Welcome to Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. Today is July 10th, 2026. Friday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time. Today we are joined by Dr. Gerry Crete, one of the co-founders of Souls and Hearts, the author of the book Litanies of the Heart, and a counselor with his own private practice, Transfiguration Counseling, based in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dr. Gerry: Hey there. Good to be with you today. You know, every time I read from the book of Hosea lately, it just stops me in my tracks. And today's readings are no exception. Here is a passage from Hosea. "Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God; you have collapsed through your guilt." Now, this phrase, you know, collapsed, really moved me. I'm thinking, to you exiles, something inside of you has been carrying an enormous weight. Something inside of you has been working over time, and it finally gave out. You know, we have managers, right? The parts that try to keep us functional. And we have firefighters, the parts that come with impulsive, sometimes destructive strategies. And then we have you, the exiles, those tender, wounded young parts that carry the original hurt, the shame, grief, perhaps fear. You are the part that was pushed out of consciousness because the system decided that you were simply too much to hold. And then we have the inmost self, where Dick Schwartz describes, using the, you know, the eight C's, calm and curious, compassionate and all that. The innermost self is always there. The innermost self is created fully in God's image. It cannot be destroyed or buried or obscured. Now what is Hosea saying to our system? Israel's been running, running to Assyria for security, running to horses or military power for safety, running to idols fashioned by their own hands. Why does a part run to an idol? Why does a part make a desperate bargain with something that cannot ultimately deliver? Why? Because somewhere underneath there is you, the exile, this wounded part who experienced perhaps abandonment or profound shame or even terror. And the system said, we can't go there.
Dr. Gerry: That's too painful. Just make the pain stop. And so the managers and firefighters went looking. They found Assyria. They found idols. They found the work of our own hands. Notice the phrase, "We shall say no more, our God, to the work of our hands." So what we build with our own hands to manage our pain is our coping constructs. It's our own carefully engineered systems of self-protection. The tragedy isn't that we're broken people. The tragedy is that we're hurt. You exiles are hurt and carrying pain. But you turned away from the only source that could actually hold that. But then what does God say? He says, "I will heal their defection. I will love them freely. For my wrath is turned away from them." Wow. There's no list of conditions here. Like you have to improve or change right away. It says, "I will heal your defection." The very turning away that we, our exiled parts do, will be healed. And he will love us freely, without cost and without conditions. So you, exile, are not just forgiven and returned. You are transformed. You're given a new life.
Elizabeth: 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.
Dr. Gerry: Mary, our Mother, Untier of Knots, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. And Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.