275 Your Light Must Shine Before Others

Transcript Speaker 1: Just so your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly father. Speaker 2: Welcome to Scripture for your inner outcasts. Today is June 9th, 2026, Tuesday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time. Today we are joined by Justin Brown. Justin is a Catholic therapist licensed in Illinois and Texas. Speaker 1: Greetings from Central Illinois. On this June Tuesday, wishing you all peace and blessings wherever you may be listening and an early happy birthday to my son Augustine, whose golden birthday is tomorrow. Today's scripture comes from the gospel reading Matthew chapter five verse 16. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly father. Right away I become aware of a young part of me in exile. I refer to as Buster. He brings to mind when I was young, uh, somewhere in the neighborhood of five years old and a little older. I was silly, fun loving, love to make people laugh. Put on a show for my sisters and parents, share a drawing that I did, or show someone what I could do in sport or on my bike. And I also had fire engine red hair. It gained attention of adults in the grocery store who would always comment, my peers and older children who would make fun of and call me names pretty regularly. And I can remember getting wrongly accused on the bus solely because I was easy to identify. Now, I must confess, there were definitely times in my childhood that I could be found guilty for some mischief that I actually did take part in on the bus. But the point being, I very often felt exposed, vulnerable, on display, and self-conscious. I can remember the physical sensations of my face turning flush, stomach churning, my gaze lowering, wanting to hide when someone would comment, make fun of or draw attention to me. Speaker 1: I notice how my protectors quickly learned how to make sure I did not stand out or bring attention to myself, because it didn't always feel safe to be seen or let my light shine. Being seen could bring embarrassment and shame. I learned ways to sit back, observe, keep quiet, go unnoticed, hide. Simply not engage. And while this felt safe, it also felt constricting. And to be honest, in some ways, I'm still working with and attending to and showing love to Buster. But I call myself to remember and you must remember that we are a gift that has been given, and we are a gift that is meant to be shared. So for any of you vulnerable, tender, shy, fearful exiles who are afraid to be seen, apprehensive about letting your light shine, remember we have a loving father who delights in us and wants us to share the gifts we are in, the love that he has given us with one another. And just to let you know, dear exiles in any protector parts that are hearing this. I don't mean that we must always be willing to be in the spotlight, or put ourselves at risk in order to let our light shine. But can inmost self, our adult self, help make those decisions? Because you little one, you are not made for fear. You can be secure in your identity because you know who your Heavenly Father is. You are meant to be you playful, joyful, authentic, delightful, and free. Speaker 2: If you're enjoying the content of this podcast, if you're a Catholic who wants to deepen their human formation, then the resilient Catholics community might be a good fit for you. We're accepting applications for the most recent cohort, named after Saint Mary Magdalene, from June 1st to June 30th, 2026. Learn more in the description of today's episode. Speaker 1: Let's 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.