Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts

Transcript

"Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'"

You are listening to Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. It's February 23rd, 2026, Monday of the first week of lent. Today we are joined by clinical psychologist Doctor Peter Malinowski, the co-founder and president of Souls and Hearts and host of our sister podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics.

Okay. It is great to be back with you. This is Monday of the First Week of Lent. I'm focusing in on a big chunk of our Gospel today from Matthew 25, verses 34 to 40. "Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.'" All right. So ordinarily I would just speak directly to you exiles. But today I'm going to address managers first. I'm going to address those parts who, with their good intentions, trying to help, proactively try to suppress, silence, or banish exiled parts. Our Lord tells us to love your neighbor as yourself. That's part of the second great commandment, right? Love your neighbor as yourself. And the way that you love yourself, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, the way that you love yourself is the radix et forma, the root and form of how you're going to love others.

In other words, the way you love yourself is the template by which you are going to love others. And so if we bring this together, we need to love the parts within us who are hungry, who are thirsty, who are strangers, who are naked, ill, our inner prisoners, our exiles first. Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches us that you cannot love your neighbor more than you love yourself. And Anthony Flood details this in his wonderful book, The Metaphysical Foundations of Love. Charity begins at home, says the old saying, and most people, they'll assume that that means you should take care of your family, other people who live close to you before helping people who are living further away or in another country. But let's take it even more to home. Let's take it to inside us. If you do not love your exiles, and I'm speaking again to the managers here, if you don't love your exiles, you will not be able to love similar parts in other people because it would bring up your own exiles. You can't give what you don't have. You can't give love for a particular type of exile to another person, if you don't love that same kind of exile within yourself.

And so now, shifting to exiles, this is hard for your managers to understand. Often they think they're trying to help when they suppress you. I'm inviting them in this particular episode to really consider how you exiles need food and drink and clothing and to be cared for, to be visited. And the way that happens is through your innermost self most typically, right. We want to see if managers would be willing to unblend so that the innermost self can approach you, and so that there can be that relationship established. And that's hard for managers to do. You exiles can help by agreeing not to overwhelm, by agreeing not to flood the system with the intensity of your experience, because a lot of times, your managers don't know that you can titrate how much intensity you offer. You can regulate yourselves. They're often only familiar with you when you flood, when you take over, when you blend. And they're really worried about that. So I'm encouraging this collaborative, cooperative way of working, right, parts working together. It is so critical for our Lord to have all parts and all people have their needs met. Food, drink, clothing, those basic corporal needs, but also attachment needs, also integrity needs. He wills that these be met within us as well. And we can get there by working together. And I want you to know that there's a tremendous amount of hope here. So I appreciate you managers listening to this. I appreciate you allowing your exiles to listen to this. Exiles, I appreciate you listening. It is good to be with you.

For our further exploration of attachment needs and integrity needs, check out our sister podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics episode 62, which you will find 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.