Transcript

Dr. Gerry: "I did not come to you with sublimity of words or of wisdom. I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling."

Elizabeth: Welcome back to Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. It's August 31st, 2026, Monday of the 22nd week in Ordinary Time. Today we're joined by Dr. Gerry Crete, the author of the book Litanies of the Heart with Sophia Press.

Dr. Gerry: Hey, friends, good to be with you today, this Monday of the 22nd week in Ordinary Time. Well, take a moment. Settle in. Take a deep breath. Allow yourself to arrive. Just inviting you to let your shoulders drop and breathe a little bit. We have a good reading today. You know, Paul opens his letter to the Corinthians with something I find so disarming and so countercultural and healing. He says, "I did not come to you with sublimity of words or of wisdom. I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling." So let's take another breath. Can we sit with that? This is Saint Paul. He's bold. He's brilliant. You know, he's tireless. This is, you know, Saint Paul. But he admits that when he arrived in Corinth, he wasn't performing confidence. He wasn't leading with impressive rhetoric or polished wisdom. He came in trembling and afraid. And he says, that was part of the point, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom, but on the power of God. So how many of us carry a part that believes it has to arrive somewhere, right, to a job or a relationship, or like a room full of people, even a prayer, with sublimity, with impressive words and composure. Right? And we hide this trembling, fearful part, that no one sees, the uncertainty that we have underneath. So in my mind here, Saint Paul is modeling something so liberating. The trembling doesn't have to be hidden for this message to land. Sometimes it is precisely in the trembling and in admitting weakness that something truer gets through. Something that doesn't depend on our performance, but on God. This power that is so much bigger than our own composure. So I want to ask this. Is there a part of you that believes it has to be impressive, articulate, unshakable before it's even allowed to show up? Can you let that part know today that yes, even Saint Paul the Apostle came in with fear and trembling, and it was enough.

Dr. Gerry: More than enough. It was actually the very channel through which power moved. So these readings today, I mean, I focus on Saint Paul, but also the Gospel. We're really about vulnerability, even facing resistance and grace, even facing sometimes even fury. And Saint Paul comes trembling. Right. And that is the channel for power, oddly enough, and Jesus's proclamation of liberation. You know, it's met with a mob that tries to throw him off a cliff. So there's something important here, that this is to bring good news to our exiled parts. Doesn't mean an immediate universal acceptance, right? Sometimes parts, the very parts that should recognize the good news first are the ones most threatened by it. And that's okay for now. Doesn't mean the message is wrong. It just means transformation often meets resistance. But we are invited to reflect. We're invited to sit with this message and see how it is maybe speaking to us in our hearts. So wherever you are today, whether you're trembling, you have a trembling part, hoping composure is not required, or an exiled part waiting to hear you know that this Scripture is really for you. I want you to know you're not required to arrive polished. Whether you deserve it, it's already been given to you. So go gently with your parts this week. Even let the trembling ones rest in the truth, that weakness doesn't disqualify them. Let the exiled parts hear that liberty is already theirs.

Elizabeth: Once again, that was Dr. Gerry Crete. And among all his many talents, he is also a movie critic. You can check out his critiques of movies from an Internal Family Systems lens in the link in the description of today's show.

Dr. Gerry: As always, I'll just close with, Mary, our Mother, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.