As far as your family is concerned, your responsibility
is to love and serve them, and to be a source of blessing
for them. However, beware of assuming the position
of teacher, preacher, or reproacher before your elders.
through prayer, love and service, you will be able to win
them over to Christ.From Heart to Heart
Fr. Tadros Y. Malaty
Category: PARENTS
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(8) Why are Some People Unable to Enjoy
Purity?- Family Decomposition and Breakdown:
The young man or woman looks for the lost love in the family in whomever he/she meets and with any possible means, even if that will cost him his eternity! Familial love and awareness builds sound family relations with the children; and thus enables them to find joy in making an open discussion with their parents –or at least one of
them- to grow properly into adolescence, and to become deeper with time.
Purity
Fr. Tadros Y. Malaty - Family Decomposition and Breakdown:
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(8) Why are Some People Unable to Enjoy
Purity?- Inner Worry:
a) A young man once told me that he didn’t undertake any wrongful physical actions till he was 17 years old. But once there started to be some problems and arguments between his parents, he left his father’s house till he rushed to these undertakings to compensate him for the great worry that lingers inside him.
b) I was surprised to meet a young boy –ten years old- who is addicted to these wrongful physical actions; and the main reason behind that was familial decomposition and lack of peace and mutual respect not just among the parents, but also between the parents and their children!
c) No wonder that many teenagers fall under the pressure of evil thoughts and actions during exams’ periods, even if they feel that they need every possible minute and energy to get ready for these exams; but their suffering from worry pushes them unconsciously to fall under these wrongful actions!
d) When a young man or woman falls into the lusts of thoughts or the doings after a long period of victory, his/her energies get imbalanced due to feeling of despair. This causes him/her to fall under an endless series of physical faults. Despair, and the exaggerated feeling of guilt, adds fuel to the fire of physical lusts.
Purity
Fr. Tadros Y. Malaty - Inner Worry:
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Your disobedience to your parents and counselors will surely yield disobedience to you in due time.
Obedience and Sound Personality
Fr. Tadros Y. Malaty -
OBEDIENCE AND PURITY
Many years ago, a youth came to me seeming to be religious, quiet, and decent. Bitterly, he complained about adultery of the heart. He said, “I fast for long periods and cry during my prayers for the Lord to release me from the war of evil desire, but all is in vain. I always read the Bible and refrain from reading any cheap attractive books. I have no bad friends and do not see any bad attractions. What else can I do?”
I asked him, “What is your relationship with your parents?” He said that he always complains and argues with them. I had put my finger on the problem; he disobeys his parents, so his body does not obey the soul. He who does not have a good relationship with his family cannot control his inner feelings. This is the holy law: “‘Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise ‚that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.” (Eph. 6:2-3). Since the meeting with this youth, I concluded that he who complains from evil desires must review his dealings and relationship with his parents, brothers, relatives, colleagues, and employers. He who plants violence and disobedience will not reap anything but inner war and temptations.Obedience and Sound Personality
Fr. Tadros Y. Malaty -
…Actually, I will not say anything to the mother, because her excuse may be old age, weakness or loneliness. But I tell you, O daughter: Is your mother’s home too small to accommodate you?! She is the one whose womb wasn’t too small to carry you!
If you could live for nine months in her womb, can you not live one more day in her home? Or is it that you cannot tolerate her?!…
Your response might be: my mother’s behavior is wicked! She seeks earthly things! She despises fasting! Sin is her make-up! She walks about in obscene clothes! That’s why I cannot live with her!
Before anything else, even if she was as you described her, you will be rewarded for declining to search for her mistakes.
She carried you in her womb, nurtured you, and kindly put up with your childhood with noble affection. She washed your clothes and nursed you in illness… She sustained you till you became a young woman and taught you the love of Christ. Therefore, you should not be annoyed by the behavior of your mother who dedicated you as a virgin to serve your Groom “Lord Jesus.”
—St. Jerome
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Working things through with our parents therefore has the potential to affect all our relationships profoundly, even our relationship with ourselves. Because the internalized image of our parents is so formative of our own sense of self, we are mistaken if we think we can rid ourselves of our parents simply by putting the distance of time or space between them and us. Decades, indeed a whole lifetime, can go by without seeing them, but our relationship with them will not cease to live on inside our own minds. Even if we have consciously “forgotten” them, they are nevertheless operative and present to us unconsciously, that is, outside of our awareness. Insofar as we successfully dissociate ourselves from them inwardly, all that we actually accomplish is to split them off from our ego awareness; unfortunately, in doing so we also cut off any possibility for growth, change, or healing to take place in relation to them.
Bearing the Unbearable: Trauma, Gospel, and Pastoral Care
Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger -
If parents fail to do this [embrace their own unconscious wounds], they unwittingly pass on the weight of unhealed suffering to their children. It is not the psychic wounds of the parents which are, themselves, toxic to the children, but the lack of conscious encounter with those wounds that pervades the family unconscious and gets transferred to the next generation. If the previous generation hasn’t consciously suffered, the pain will be handed on, often unconsciously, to the next generation.
Bearing the Unbearable: Trauma, Gospel, and Pastoral Care
Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger -
If they are distant or detached from their family of origin, for example, they would likely become overly invested in and emotionally enmeshed with their own children, making it difficult for the children to grow normally. They would likely feel engulfed by the overcloseness of their parent, and would typically react by disconnecting and pulling away, thus perpetuating the cycle for yet another generation. Cutting off parents apparently does not resolve the relational impasse; it merely displaces it.
Bearing the Unbearable: Trauma, Gospel, and Pastoral Care
Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger
SO GOOD QUOTES 