We draw darkness through our conduct.
If we have abused drugs, alcohol, or sex, if we have been focused on money, if we have been antagonistic — full of anger — we must seek deliverance from what found entrance.
Go over every possible opening — not in paranoia, but with the Rosary. “Did you do anything that has never been confessed that you are ashamed of?” asks Father Longenecker in his book, Praying the Rosary for Inner Healing. “Did you experiment with sin or indulge in destructive behaviors that you have never brought to Confession?”
We forget that when we have sex with a person, we form a soul tie. We become “one.” If they are harboring spirits, those spirits can transfer. All sin has that possibility. So do past traumas that caused spiritual wounds.
It was Dr. McAll’s opinion as a medical professional that the subconscious acts out on the body the unexpressed areas of conflict, either consciously, verbally, or physically, by selecting a target or end organ which can deal with them most appropriately. Every thought has a physical outlet (he theorized). These unexpressed areas can also be spiritual ones. “A mother seeking help for her anorexic daughter admitted the fact of an abortion, apologized to God, and in prayer committed the baby by name,” he recalled. “Not only was the girl’s anorexia healed, but the mother’s constant headaches suddenly ceased. [Another] mother and her three children were all asthmatic. Her father’s asthma began at the age of six when he witnessed the death of his three-year-old sister. A tub of water, which was boiling on an outdoor fire of olive wood, fell on her and he was blamed for the accident. Three generations of the family subsequently had allergic sensitivity to olive wood plants or oil. The final therapeutic approach was a repeated Eucharistic service for the three-year-old child whose funeral had been conducted in anger.”
Added the psychiatrist: “At fifteen years old, a girl developed encephalitis which apparently caused complete blindness and she said she was paralyzed. After spending two months in the hospital, she recovered, being left only with spots of numbness. She had two disastrous marriages before she was twenty-three, and four years later was back in the hospital, blind and paralyzed again. The families of both her parents were involved with Curanderos (Mexican witch doctors). There were also two murders, two vehicle deaths, and two people who disappeared, all in three generations. After a hospital visitor prayed with the patient, she began to improve. Three years later, she met and married a caring Christian man and now lives a normal, happy life.”
“Sin is both contagious and hereditary,” says Father Hampsch. “Yet, it is not really correct to say that sin is contagious or hereditary. It is really only sin’s consequences that are contagious or hereditary. Sometimes specific ailments are assigned to specific sins, for example, the offspring of adulterers are often infertile or die young (Wisdom 3:16) and the descendants of those who practice bribery often have defective eyesight (Job 17:5). Many persons are afflicted with excessive fears and phobias or aversions, rage, anger, resentment, outbursts of temper, pouting, overwhelming sense of guilt feelings, addictions to drugs or alcohol, many types of sexual perversions or sexual drives that are very difficult to control, strong temptations to infidelity and fornication, adultery, many types of relationship problems that affect deep levels of the psyche.”
We must cleanse this. “Two sisters of a lady with breast cancer had died from the disease,” is another account from Dr. McAll. “The family tree showed a history of deaths from cancer in the past three generations. There was also a pattern of disobedience in marital matters, a lack of family cohesion, love, and trust; also, many deaths had occurred at very young ages, plus stillbirths and abortions. At a Eucharistic service, the lady was able to apologize for the misdemeanors of her family and commit those who had died without forgiveness and repentance. She saw a wooden gate beside which stood the Lord Jesus and a flow of people coming and going through the gate. Before passing through, her father paused to give his daughter a words of thanks and appreciation.”
“Certainly, we know that physical traits and illnesses can be passed down from generation to generation,” adds MacNutt, the Florida evangelist. “In addition, we have learned that spiritual generational influences can affect us — for good or evil. Many world cultures, such as Asian, Native American, and African believe ancestral influences can dramatically affect living individuals, and their tribal religions deal with freeing them from harmful ancestral influences. Even Dickens’ A Christmas Carol reflects this belief. Let me suggest to you that you write out a simple spiritual family tree, mapping out the positive spiritual influences that you recognize in your forebears, but also listing the negative patterns,” he says, reiterating Father Cerulli. “This is very similar to what we do every time we go to a doctor’s office and are asked to check off a list of physical diseases that run in our family. For example, doctors want to know if there is a pattern of heart disease, cancer or stroke in a family, because if so, the patient might be subject to the same physical weakness. The same is true of spiritual weaknesses. Patterns can run through an entire family. On a larger scale, we realize that entire ethnic groups are predisposed to certain problems, such as the Irish to alcoholism and the Africans to sickle cell anemia. If you look at the characteristics of your own ancestry, especially your parents, your grandparents, your brothers and sisters, your aunts and uncles, you probably will observe certain patterns of behavior.
He continues: “When the patterns are positive, such as with a godly heritage, we thank God — especially for how He has gifted us through our parents and grandparents. When we find patterns of weakness or sin, we can pray for healing. The good news is that Jesus can break that inherited pattern or disposition as it affects us and our children. Jesus came to set the captive free (Luke 4:16-22), and that captive may lie within us, a prisoner of the past. The first step in the healing process is simply to recognize that your family’s history may affect you and need healing. Sometimes this influence may even be demonic and can descend from generation to generation until it is finally broken. But most of what we experience is far more ordinary. When I outlined my generational family tree, I was surprised to see the patterns that emerged. I found that my family reveals a history of abandonment, primarily through death and sickness. My parents and grandparents grew up in many ways as orphans, and this pattern has gone back for generations. The effect upon me is that I was a lonely child who felt more comfortable being alone and preferred to do everything by myself. In some ways, of course, this has been a blessing (for instance, in writing books), but in other important ways, it has made it hard to fulfill Jesus’ great commandment to love others and to go out to them. It has taken a lifetime, but God has been faithful to gradually change that excessively introverted side. Whenever we discover such a harmful pattern, Jesus desires to free us.”
[resources: Life Missions, Family Healing and Praying the Rosary for Inner Healing]
