255 You Exiles, In Your Weaknesses, Are Indispensable

Transcript Speaker 1: In every way. I have shown you that by hard work of that sort we must help the weak. Speaker 2: Welcome back to Scripture for your inner outcasts. It's May 20th, 2026, Wednesday of the seventh week of Easter. 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. Speaker 1: Delightful to be with you. I'm focusing in on the first reading, acts 20, verse 35. For all of you exiles, and I want you to listen in to this because it's really important. This is where Saint Paul says, in every way I have shown you that by hard work of that sort we must help the weak. We must help the weak. Yes, he means this on one level, the weaker ones in the Christian community. But he also says in first Corinthians 12, verse 22. On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable. The parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable. I think about Uxelles here. I think about how each of you is indispensable in your system. There is no part that can be left behind. No part is just disposable. Every part is indispensable to you as a person. And this can be hard for excels to believe. Because maybe this did not line up with how you've been treated, how you've been treated by other people, their parts, how you've been treated by your own parts, within your own system. But this idea of weakness, it's so important actually helps us to be in right relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, Saint Paul says, for I glory in my weakness. Instead, just a quick quote here from Father Thomas Acklin Father Boniface Hicks. Their book, Relational Prayer A guide for Receiving the Father's Love, where they address this theme of weakness. And it's our cells that often hold our weakness. Speaker 1: These authors write, when we open up the depths of our hearts to him and expose our littleness, our weakness, our uncertainties, our failures, our sins, our big dreams, our playful plans, we make ourselves very vulnerable before God. This is the key to the most fruitful prayer. In other words, we need our weakness and we need you parts who are not the most maybe accomplished or the most gifted in a worldly sense. We need that littleness. We need that weakness. We need that or that wonder, that playfulness that you exiles have and that can come out if you become less burdened, if you are able to be more integrated into your system. You are absolutely essential in God's plan for you as a person, in God's plan for you as a whole system. This is not an optional thing. We need to take care of the parts of us that struggle with weakness, that struggle with being small, childlike, you know, that carry things that other parts might not like. And help our entire system come to be oriented to our identity as a beloved little son or a beloved little daughter of God. And being little implies some weakness. Most people don't believe that little children are powerhouses in, you know, the range of human existence. So it's okay to be weak. It allows for so many things to happen that help us to be in right relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, with God the Father. Speaker 2: Once again. That was Doctor Peter Malinoski. And listeners can find more content from him on the podcast that he hosts called Interior Integration for Catholics, which you can find wherever you get your podcasts. You can also subscribe to his Semimonthly reflections by going to Souls and hearts.com/content/blog. Speaker 1: And with that, we'll bring 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.