285 How to Come Out of the Darkness

Transcript Pam Malinoski: "The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be." Elizabeth: Welcome back to Scripture for Your Inner Outcasts. Today is June 19th, 2026, Friday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time. Today we are joined by Pam Malinoski, the Integrator for Souls and Hearts. Pam Malinoski: From Matthew chapter six, verse 22 and 23. "The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be." When I reflected on this portion of today's gospel, I thought about how important seeing clearly is in our lives and how so many of you exiles cannot see clearly. Consider a few of these examples. If you grew up with a distant or absent father, mother, or caregiver, you likely picked up the burden of abandonment at a very young age. It's possible that you look at the world and those around you with a skeptical eye, expecting to be left on your own again. The idea that God is always with you and will never abandon you may not be comprehensible to you, with good reason. Yet that inability to feel God's presence can leave you in interior darkness, and that darkness can make it difficult or even seemingly impossible to see God's love and truth. Others of you might have been surrounded by people who put you down, pointed out your faults, or constantly criticized you. You may have picked up a burden of feeling unworthy or not enough, which often generates feelings of anger and injustice. Those beliefs and feelings are frequently seen as "bad" by our broader systems. And so they're exiled. They are not allowed to be seen. They are not allowed to surface again. That protective behavior is understandable, but it leaves us once again in interior darkness. The answer, then, is to let light into our systems. Your innermost selves want to see you beloved exiles, and they want to be seen by you as well, in the light and in the truth. You, along with all the protectors in your system, have an important role to play. Beginning to meet, understand, and love one another leads to greater interior integration, allowing more and more light first into your interior world and later to shine upward to God and outward to others. Elizabeth: Listeners are invited to learn more about the innermost self, which was mentioned in today's episode by checking out our sister podcast, Interior Integration for Catholics, episode 158. Pam Malinoski: Let's end with our invocations. Our Lady, Untier of Knots, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint John, pray for us.