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Healing the Family (Part 2)-Generations with host Patti Brunner discusses “Healing the Family Tree”, the “Father Wound”, and the “Mother Wound”, sharing what Patti Brunner has learned from Fr. John Hampsch, Fr. Philip Scott and personal experience. Recognize your own inherited tendencies and those of family members. Remember healing the family will heal the world.
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I first heard Fr. John Hampsch teach on “Healing the Family Tree” in the 1990’s. I had never thought past my own choices affecting my life. After hearing Fr. Hampsch, I realized that, like all great teachings that stretch me out of my box of beliefs, the Catholic Church has taught these truths but I just had never connected the dots. Are you aware of family issues that may have left their effects on you in the form of unwanted tendencies, behavior patterns and defects in body, mind and spirit? The easiest ones to identify would be from abuse or addictions but there can be so much more as the saying goes, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”. And as Fr. Philip Scott says, “It’s hard to be a father if you have never been a son.”
You are listening to Truth of the Spirit. I’m your host Patti Brunner. We continue with the Healing the Family series with Generational Healing and Healing the Family Tree.
You can recognize the effect upon the generations with Adam and Eve certainly. The Church names this “original sin”. Jesus came to heal us from this generational sin. In Baptism salvation removes the punishment of everlasting separation from God but concupiscence, the tendencies toward sin, remain and, until a new heaven and a new earth enters time, the effects of Adam and Eve’s sin remain. But you need not go back but 3 or 4 generations to be affected by your familiar ancestries.
One of the most popular “Truth of the Spirit” podcasts is from the retreat given by Fr. Philip Scott. He shares that a father wound or a mother wound is when, as a son or daughter, we never bonded emotionally with our father and mother, our biological parents. The third chapter of the book of Sirach gives wise advice to parents. Verse 9 says, “A father’s blessing gives a person firm roots, but a mother’s curse uproots the growing plant.” Which were you given? Blessing or curse? Which do you give? Fr. Scott says that giving a parental blessing includes the elements of a lot of love, affection, human touch, kisses, words that give life, affirmation, teaching, “I love you”. He says, “Children spell love = t-I-m-e.” The blessing shares “If I’m wrong, forgive me.” It shares teaching words that instructs who I am, helping me discover who I am.” A special element of a father’s blessing is based on Hebrews chapter 12 verse “5b “My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him; 6a for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines” 7b God treats you as sons. For what “son” is there whom his father does not discipline?” Lack of love and lack of loving discipline then becomes a curse. It deforms the heart and causes an open generational wound. In Jesus these wounds can be healed by the blessings of his perfect Father!
There is also the toxic effect of our personal sin and that of our family that reinforces our susceptibility to illness and countless ailments of body, mind, and spirit. Fr. Hampsch reminds us that “Sinful parents often raise sinful children, but the personal guilt from sin depends on the individual’s free will.” The guilt of personal sin can be erased through repentance and the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Healing the generations or the family tree addresses the effect of sinful parenting, and dysfunctional parenting inherited from their own parents.
In Luke 6:44, Jesus says “Each tree is recognized by its own fruit.” Both negative and positive patterns show up in family trees in many forms; sometimes it is easy to identify the family tree by its fruit. I have a friend who has doctors in three generations of his family. But I also have a cousin, whose father was an alcoholic, and whose mother’s adultery broke up her father’s first marriage; for three generations my cousin has had illegitimate births and welfare as a way of life. I know a family where a history of child abuse of incest exists in at least two generations and the third generation was barren.
Sometimes our heritage is a mixture of blessings and problems. My great-grandfather helped finance the building of a majestic Catholic church and I married the great-grandson of a family who donated the land for a small Catholic church. When we started generously tithing as a married couple, the Lord prospered us and we have helped finance building our parish church and a parish high school in Haiti. Yet we both also inherited parenting dysfunctions.
My grandfather on my dad’s side was abandoned by his father after his mother’s death. My dad was killed in a car wreck when I was very young. My husband’s grandfather and father had negativity in parenting. His other grandfather hid a darker secret. And so it took us a long time in our marriage to discover a father’s blessing. My mom was stoic and unemotional; my husband’s mother was fearful and negative. And so we had both father and mother wounds. Our parents loved us but because of their own woundedness they failed and we failed with our own children.
One time in Reconciliation with Fr. Philip Scott I shared a particular negative trait that I realized I inherited from my mother that I could not overcome. Father Scott‘s advice to me was to go to adoration and write a letter to my deceased parent, to thus be vocal of my feelings rather than to suppressing them. It was very cleansing to be very honest with my feelings. Healing of this “Mother Wound” took place several months later when the Lord showed me my mother’s own wounds.
Every problem we have does not come from our family but many do. Psychiatrists and counselors can attest that fact. By faith, we know that now is the season for healing, even when the roots of our problems started long ago. The Lord is not bound by time; our freewill choice to forgive and to pray can affect our now, our future, and even our past.
Father Hampsch invites us to look at our ancestors and identify 1. Inherited spiritual defects—anything from prayerlessness to atheism. 2. Inherited physical defects—anything from dandruff to diabetes. 3. Inherited emotional defects—anything from shyness to suicide tendencies. 4. Inherited psychosocial defects—anything from poor inter-spouse communication to psychopathic murder. 5. Inherited societal defects—anything from in-law aloofness to organized crime families. Check your family history for personality characteristics [such as abusive tendencies] or publicly known disorders [like addictions or mental health issues], or diseases or abnormalities, miscarriages, invalid marriages, practice of witchcraft or masonry, etc., then list them in a genogram or diagramed family tree and then take these to the Lord for healing. He writes that it is of critical importance to understand that there are two kinds of evil that could be involved in infecting the family tree: the intrinsic evil of sin and extrinsic evil which includes all evil forces –devils, demons and evil spirits that may attack us. In the Lord’s Prayer we refer to the intrinsic evil of sin as we pray “forgive us our trespasses.” In the Lord’s Prayer we refer to extrinsic evil with the phrase “deliver us from evil”.
Fr. John Hampsch recommends a mass for healing your family tree. Through Jesus’ power we can break any inherited curses or hexes that may have been transmitted through the generations and cast out any evil spirits that may harass the living members of the family. The genogram is meant only to help you specify your prayer intentions thus also helping to intensify your faith. It can provide a visual framework for you to call the Blood of Jesus upon individuals, living or dead, to help them, to be applied, as it were, between each generation to block the transmission of sins’ effects. It can also help to recognize situations in which there are repeated behavioral patterns or disorders. This is not a scientific genealogy but only a prayer-focusing tool; its completeness is not necessary.
Fr. Scott Marzuk, an exorcist and parish priest in the Diocese of Little Rock, recommends taking one married ancestral couple at a time and have a mass offered for them. The Church also offers us the opportunity each year on November 2 to pray for our ancestors in the prayer and mass for All Souls. Forgiveness and removal of judgment sets you free as well as providing grace for their souls.
The healing of the family tree is needed for the next generation too. It is easy to find hate and discord in today’s culture. Remember healing the family will heal the world. Father Hampsch’s prayer for Healing the Family Tree is available from many sources online and in his book “Healing Your Family Tree”. Also in his book are the scriptural basis for ancestral sin and its effects.
No prayer is wasted. No family was perfect except the Holy Family: Jesus, Mary and Joseph. They make excellent intercessors for your family! All families! Recognize your own inherited tendencies and those of family members. On occasion we are affected by extended family and friends or people placed in the role of family by others. The soul ties created also can affect your life. Soul ties are established when sexual relations are non-marital. Give all of this to Lord. He will heal you. He will heal those for whom you pray. Read about ancestral sin in Lamentations 5:7 and Leviticus 26:40-42.
The eternal moment of the Mass is the perfect moment of healing your past as you surrender your family to God, our perfect Father. At the time of Consecration and Communion in the Mass, ask Jesus to pour his Precious Blood between each generation of ancestors and descendants, to break any transgenerational bondage resulting from ancestral sins.
I want to close this episode with Father Hampsch’s Prayer for Healing the Family Tree. “Heavenly Father, I come before you as your child, in great need of your help; I have physical health needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs and interpersonal needs. Many of my problems have been caused by my own failures, neglect and sinfulness, for which I humbly beg your forgiveness, Lord. But I also ask you to forgive the sins of my ancestors whose failures have left their effects on me in the form of unwanted tendencies, behavior patterns and defects in body, mind and spirit. Heal me, Lord, of all these disorders.
“With your help I sincerely forgive everyone, especially living or dead members of my family tree, who have directly offended me or my loved ones in any way, or those whose sins have resulted in our present sufferings and disorders. In the name of your divine Son Jesus, and in the power of his Holy Spirit, I ask you, Father, to deliver me and my entire family tree from the influence of the evil one. Free all living and dead members of my family tree, including those in adoptive relationships, and those in extended family relationships, from every contaminating form of bondage. By your loving concern for us, heavenly Father, and by the shed blood of your Precious Son Jesus, I beg you to extend your blessing to me and all my living and deceased relatives. Heal every negative effect transmitted through all past generations, and prevent such negative effects in future generations of my family tree.
“I symbolically place the cross of Jesus over the head of each person in my family tree, and between each generation; I ask you to let the cleansing blood of Jesus purify the blood lines in my family lineage. Set your protective angels to encamp around us, and permit Archangel Raphael, the patron of healing, to administer your divine healing power to all of us, even in areas of genetic disability. Give special power to our family members’ guardian angels to heal, protect, guide and encourage each of us in all our needs. Let your healing power be released at this very moment, and let it continue as long as your sovereignty permits.
“In our family tree, Lord, replace all bondage with a holy bonding in family love. And let there be an ever deeper bonding with you, Lord, by the Holy Spirit, to your Son Jesus. Let the family of the Holy Trinity pervade our family with its tender, warm loving presence, so that our family may recognize and manifest that love in all our relationships. All of our unknown needs we include with this petition that we pray in Jesus’ precious Name. Amen.”
You have been listening to Truth of the Spirit. I am your host Patti Brunner. I invite you to subscribe, its free, and come back for more on Healing the Family. With the Holy Spirit, there’s always more. Amen.
