Transcript

Speaker 1: Jesus said to his disciples, to you who hear what I say, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you.

Speaker 2: Welcome back to Scripture for your inner outcasts. It's September 10th, 2026. Thursday of the 23rd week in Ordinary Time. Today, we're joined by Doctor Peter Malinowski, a clinical psychologist and one of the co-founders of our parent organization, Souls and Hearts.

Speaker 1: It is good to be with you. This is Doctor Peter, and I am focusing in on the gospel today, Luke six, verses 27 to 28. Jesus said to his disciples, to you who hear what I say, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you. And we almost always interpret this in interpersonal relationships, in relationships between two people or among three or more people. We're looking at this externally, and that makes sense because that's the primary significance of this passage. But but there's a but I argue that this is also true within us. In other words, this is true of the parts of us who hate us, who curse us, who mistreat us. Typically, what we do when we are experiencing mistreatment inside, when parts of us hate other parts of us. Usually there's a battle going on, an attempt to silence, an attempt to suppress an attempt to exile. This is how we get our exiles parts no longer accepted. And there's reasons for that, because there is real mistreatment that happens inside. So often our enemies are those parts of us who, with good intentions, who with their limited vision, who with their agendas wind up harming us, wind up hurting us.

Speaker 1: And so, so many people's lives are very fragmented. There is so much disconnection inside. And I want to slow things down here and listen again to what our Lord says. He says to you who hear what I say. Okay. So he's speaking to those who are willing to listen, Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. We're to love. We're to do good. We're to bless. Can we think about those parts of us that our managers have rejected, condemned, cursed? Can we think about how we might approach those parts differently with compassion? Now, that might be really difficult. It may take some real progress, some real doing inside. But so often our most significant enemies are within us. I often hear from people who wonder about whether they're being oppressed by demons, or who wonder if they might be, you know, influenced in various ways. But when you actually break down what's going on inside, demons don't have to trouble these folks because they are derailing themselves left and right by their own self, sabotage, by hating themselves. And there can be this like pattern, the cycle of hatred which is based in so much misunderstanding.

Speaker 1: We need to have this Christian message, this message of love from our Lord to love your enemies. We need to take that inside. The way that we love our neighbor is going to reflect the way that we love ourselves. This is straight from Saint Thomas Aquinas. So let's take this really seriously. Who are our enemies inside? Who within us has been harming us? And can we slow down? And instead of fighting. Can we ask parts to unblend? Can we get the innermost self more prominent? Can we get some softening, relaxing back? Can we have a big open heart to all of our parts Rather than just battling and fighting inside. And that doesn't mean that we don't sometimes have to hold parts back or restrain parts who are really bent on something that's harmful. Yes. But with love, with gentleness, with kindness, sometimes firmness is necessary, but a different approach. We won't get anywhere by hating ourselves. And if we begin to hate ourselves, or if we continue to hate ourselves, we're going to hate others. Too often our enemies are really our own selves. And can we love those enemies?

Speaker 2: Doctor Peter is the host of his own podcast called Interior Integration for Catholics, which you can find on all podcasting platforms.

Speaker 1: Our lady, our mother, Untier of knots. Pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us. Saint John the Baptist pray for us.