God often works through
people in ways we least expect. He sends folks and events onto the pathways
of ours lives.
For this reason, we should always seek to look for the good
-- for God -- in a person (or circumstance).
Meanwhile, whatever occurs, we should always
remember that God
is the Creator of the universe and can
turn things that are bad (anything) into things that are good
(when we let Him).
This is also true with our families:
Relatives so often have good to offer us. They
have been set in place to help us, and us them.
There are times, however, when the influence
is negative.
A burgeoning number of books -- most by
priests -- are focusing on that issue: healing the family tree. For often, there are what seem like peculiar,
negative, harmful
traits that run through families.
Family members may be prone to jealousy,
anger, lust, pride,
alcoholism, timidity, failure, and other negatives
--
traits that can be passed down and may also be
transmitted by friends, co-workers, and others (in our paths) who are not quite
so positive and whose flaws may attach themselves to us because we have an
attachment to the person.
It's a serious and
mostly unrecognized issue, one addressed in a truly fresh and inspired
new
book by Father Yozefu-B. Ssemakula, who is
now ministering in the U.S. (based in the Pensacola-Tallahassee diocese)
and hails from Uganda. There is no more in-depth book on
this mysterious, important topic, nor one filled with such
powerful prayers (to cleanse and heal the family).
Although we rarely
recognize it, says Father Yozefu (for our consideration), evil of the kind that
contaminates a person from sinful traits or behavior can be spread from relatives and others in close
contact with us. Call it transference.
"In
general, I normally say if a problem shows up just twice in a family, you
can safely consider it a family bondage," writes Father Yozefu boldly.
"Do the family healing prayer. You will not
regret it. With time I have learned to begin any prayer for anybody by
[first] praying for the healing of their family -- and we are always surprised
about how much (bad) just quits even before you touch it."
In other words, many root problems are from
hidden familial or other relational circumstances.
The priest warns that evil in families often
materializes as untoward events like accidents, especially of children who
bear the brunt of generational baggage. Secret traits such as sexual
deviation may be inherited from relatives and ancestors or transmitted by
friends without our knowing it. At the root of many bondages is evil, he explains.
That's particularly true -- as we have often
emphasized -- of the wrongful sex or involvement with the occult. A visit to a palm reader or medium or psychic or astrologer
can contaminate a family line if such was done by a parent or grandparent
or even much further back -- and perhaps more than just a few generations, argues
Father Yozefu, necessitating prayers for the complete cleansing of a
lineage. Doing that leaves our children more of a spiritual
footing.
We certainly don't want to leave them what was heaped
upon us.
Nor should we resign ourselves to bearing
"sins of the fathers" (and the repercussions). Many problems can
be resolved by breaking free of family negativities -- and avoiding
contact with darkness.
It is a mission in life:
to cleanse. It is important to purge ourselves from wrong encounters and attachments
to negative people (for the devil also
puts people such as those onto our paths).
We are called to pray for their deliverance --
and move on. Especially potent: contamination that is transmitted through
carnality. For when we have a wrongful soul tie with someone, we are
exposed to their unfortunate aspects (and they to ours). How to
cleanse? "Given the spiritual 'stickiness' of the
sexual relationship, it is even more imperative to subject it to Christ's
salvific power," Father Jozefu writes in
The Healing of Families: How
to Pray Effectively for Those Stubborn Personal and Familial Problems.
"It is therefore good that one make a comprehensive list (may use
initials instead of names) of all people with whom they have ever had any inappropriate
relationship, physical or otherwise, as far back as they can remember,
even if all this has been confessed and repented of previously. This is
not a denial of the forgiveness already offered by God if these sins have
been confessed; it is merely taking care of another aspect of the effect
of those sins. Besides, many do frequently experience that, despite their
good will and prior sacramental repentance, they were not freed from
lingering on these past relationships. The prayer that we say to
specifically and consciously 'cut' these relationships in spirit is
experienced by many as a powerful enhancement of the effects of their
sacramental Confession." In other words, often, a residue -- a blotch
in the spirit -- must be expiated.
And it isn't just sex and the occult. We can
receive darkness -- or inherit it -- in many ways. "Satan promptly sets in
motion this 'electric shock' to contaminate not only that person but as
many as he can who are also attached to the person (i.e., family)," says Father Yozefu, pointing out
that materialism -- worship of man-made objects
-- is as bad as the occult because it is the reverence for -- idolatry of
-- man-made objects instead of God, "such as money and all its
derivatives," says the priest. In our modern time, there is much evil
because "the heart of man can be practically eaten up with materialism,"
he notes, which is just another trap set by Satan. "He seems to get the
same result [as with the occult], only in the second case, instead of
being clothed with Santeria, or African religion's messy rituals, for
example, it is clothed with sleek cars and luxury homes."
When there is pain in our lives,
we must look
to purge the hidden force or obstruction. Let us add that when there is
pain, often God is calling us to reflect and re-evaluate.
Once we get back to who we really are, we must
stay there.
How frustrated many are, when
-- because the block remains -- grace seems to bounce off. Prayers don't
seem to "work." Despite devotion, the path remains unclear.
The result can even be illness. In fact, the
result often is illness -- argues Father Jozefu.
People
die for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). As Father Jozfu also explains, we can also
suffer due to an attachment with someone who is deceased -- which is
another reason why it is so crucial to pray that souls of those we have
known ascend
into Heaven.
Father Jozefu, who offers page after page of
prayers (for breaking curses, for breaking evil "seals,"
for cutting bondages, for protection, for blocking access points, for
infilling with the Holy Spirit), recounts the case of a woman who came to see him
because suddenly -- in her fifties -- she had become an alcoholic.
Nor was it a family trait.
When
Father Jozefu searched further, he says, he
discovered that the heavy drinking began after a friend who was alcoholic
died. Though she had taken a little alcohol to keep her friend
company, the woman had never been intoxicated; now she was drinking until
she passed out.
The priest asked her, "Can you imagine that
you could be drinking your friend's alcohol?"
"What, father?" she replied. "What are you
talking about? She is dead!"
Notes the priest, "I explained how the whole
thing works, and how her friendship was also a spiritual connection
because she had consented to drinking -- however little -- with the
alcoholic friend. So I said, 'I will say a short prayer for you -- here on
the phone -- and I am going to ask Jesus to separate you in spirit from
your alcoholic friend, so you won't have to drink anymore.' She agreed.
The prayer was less than two minutes long and simply consisted of a format
that included the following: 'In the Name of Jesus, I cut you free from
your alcoholic friend. I put the Cross of Christ between you and her that
it may enhance in you the good qualities you appreciated in her, and that
it may block away from you any negative things that came to you through
your relationship. And that she may rest in peace. Amen.'
"You notice that alcoholism as such was not
the subject of our prayer, neither was stopping the drinking. We had
simply prayed that she be separated in spirit from her friend.
"And, as I was to learn later, it was the end
of her 'alcoholism.'"
No comments:
Post a Comment