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Lawyer: most likely the
lawyer is training his children well but I give up. So what happens now if
parents messed up their children? Is it a life sentence to hell?
 o one goes to
hell who truly loves God. Of course, many persons
fool themselves into believing they love God—just
as they deceive the world around them into believing they love God—when
they are really doing many things contrary to love
that only push God away. In fact, that’s one of the purposes of this
website, to reveal the psychology of such unconscious
deceit.
 Saint Teresa of Avila,
for example, lived for 20 years as a nun before she discovered
real love. She spent the early years of her vocation
engaged in vain gossip, attractions to worldly status, and superficial
prayer—until an experience of mystical love set her heart on fire. Finally
understanding what it means to stand in the real presence of Our Lord, she
set about reforming her own life, along with her own religious
order.
Saint Catherine of Genoa grew
up with a yearning for holiness but once she got married she turned from
God into a life of perversion. After about ten years of self-indulgent
“love” for the world, she suddenly had visions of God’s pure
and patient love for her. And this is how she responded:
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 Lord!
I give myself to Thee. I know not what I am fitted for but to make a hell
by myself alone. O Lord! I desire to make this compact with Thee: I will
give this sinful being of mine into Thy hands, for Thou alone canst hide
it in Thy mercy, and so dispose of me that nothing of myself can anymore
be seen. Occupy me wholly with Thy love, which will extinguish in me every
other love and keep me wholly lost in Thee, holding me so engrossed by Thee
that I shall find neither time nor place for self. |
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—Saint Catherine of Genoa
Spiritual Dialog, First Part,
Chapter XII |
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Now, that might sound like a
radical proposal to many persons today—especially those under the pernicious
influence of liberal, watered-down “Christianity”—yet remember
what Christ told us Himself about the conditions of discipleship:
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 Whoever loves father or
mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and whoever loves son or daughter
more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose
it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. |
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—Matthew 10:37-39 |
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In regard to your question, then,
this all means that if you want to raise children
properly, you have to love God more than you love your children and more
than you love your life and more than you love your work in the world. By
loving God as Saint Catherine describes, you make it possible to
show your children how to love and to serve God.
Otherwise, you botch the whole job.
And if, after living a life of
self-indulgent “love” for the world, you finally discover that
you have botched the job of raising your children, then you have one
choice: return to God as Saint Catherine describes. In other words, take
that cross you wear around your neck like a piece of jewelry and start carrying
it.
This necessitates about three
steps:
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You will have to make
reparation to God for your past mistakes, and for
the sins your children have committed as a result of your
failure to direct them properly. And by making
this reparation to God you make it possible for your children to recognize
real love and to return to God as well. |
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You should also admit openly
to your children that your previous behavior was wrong, and that you’re
sorry for the mistakes you made. Much of the psychopathology of those who
feel
victimized derives from their unconscious
desire to show the world
how much they have been abused and to hear someone acknowledge their pain.
Anyone who has ever been injured, therefore, really wants nothing more than
to hear the one who hurt him admit he was wrong and to apologize. So give
your children the honesty they deserve. |
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You should then set about living
a truly holy life, free of every shred of
hypocrisy that your children can point to
in scorn. In all of this, you should pray for your children with the intensity
of Saint Monica and Saint Rita. And, after
many years of sacrifice and prayer, you might find your children coming around
back to the Church. |
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This is all a heavy price to
pay for your past mistakes. But if you don’t pay the price, you will
spend the rest of your life getting angry at
anyone—including God Himself—who points out your
self-deceit. And being angry
at God is, well, not the path to heaven.
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