262 You Do Not Have to Pay Your Own Ransom

Transcript Speaker 1: The Son of Man came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Welcome back to Scripture for your inner outcasts. Today is May 27th, 2026, Wednesday of the eighth week in Ordinary Time. I'll be providing the reflection for today's episode. My name is Elizabeth and I'm the producer and host of Scripture for your Inner Outcast. In today's mass readings, the word ransom comes up again and again and again. It's in the first reading, the Alleluia verse and in the gospel. So our Alleluia verse is Mark chapter ten, verse 45. The Son of Man came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. So let's talk about this word ransom. If I can speak directly to the inner outcasts who are listening, so the exiled parts of the systems of all of our listeners, you all might be very young and might not even know what the word ransom means. A ransom is the price you pay to rescue somebody who has been kidnaped. Out. What comes to mind is the short story by the author O. Henry the Ransom of Red chief. And also, what comes to mind for me is the Space Trilogy series of novels by C.S. Lewis and the second of that trilogy titled Perelandra. God speaks to the main character whose name is Ransom, and God says it is not coincidence that you are named Ransom because in that book series, this character is a Christ like figure. Speaker 1: So in our readings in today's mass, Christ is saying that he is the ransom for us. He is the price that is paid to rescue us. The kidnaped people from our kidnapers. Now, if you're like me, that might sound kind of radical and kind of scary. And it actually is. Christianity is really radical. Jesus's teachings were really radical. And so I just want to share this message in the hopes that it resonates with you, because it certainly resonates with me, with my inner outcasts, that you don't have to rescue you yourself. You don't have to pay your own ransom. It's actually already been paid for you. Jesus worked really hard so that you don't have to. The burden of rescuing yourself, the burden of paying your own ransom, does not fall on you. You do not need to take that burden on. You do not need to save yourself. If you take that burden on, it's going to be too heavy for you. And maybe you already have taken it on and it feels so heavy. Imagine what it might feel like if the burden of paying your own ransom, the burden of saving yourself from sin was taken away from you. Speaker 2: I'd like to invite listeners to subscribe and leave a review for this podcast on whatever platform you are listening to it on. Doing so really helps us to spread this podcast to a wider audience, and we really appreciate it. With that, we'll end with our invocations. Our lady, our mother, Untier of knots. Pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist pray for us.