Conflicted friend

[sanz91392]

I have a coworker that was raised Christian. However she identifies as a wiccan. She believes in God and prays to him daily. She believes, I think like most of do, that God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them.
Which includes the crystals, minerals, plants and herbs she uses in her wiccan ceremonies. She has told me that she prays to God for guidance and that she do no harm or evil when she does her spells.
She fears that she is offending God for being a wiccan and doing spells to help and heal people. She is very clairvoyant and empathic. She can tell when people are lying, negative, jealous and trying to do harm.
Being a Hispanic Catholic, I know of people in Mexico called ‘curanderos’ that have use crystal, herbs, minerals, plants to heal and help yet are also in many cases Catholics.
I guess my question is? Is she offending God by using the gifts he gave her to help people by being wiccan?

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

I have a coworker that was raised Christian. However she identifies as a wiccan. She believes in God and prays to him daily. She believes, I think like most of do, that God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them.
Which includes the crystals, minerals, plants and herbs she uses in her wiccan ceremonies. She has told me that she prays to God for guidance and that she do no harm or evil when she does her spells.
She fears that she is offending God for being a wiccan and doing spells to help and heal people. She is very clairvoyant and empathic. She can tell when people are lying, negative, jealous and trying to do harm.
Being a Hispanic Catholic, I know of people in Mexico called ‘curanderos’ that have use crystal, herbs, minerals, plants to heal and help yet are also in many cases Catholics.
I guess my question is? Is she offending God by using the gifts he gave her to help people by being wiccan?

Sounds like superstition to me. But, yes, to use “gifts” outside of the framework of the Church is wrong. Crystals, herbs, spells, etc that is occult stuff.
As for the ability to be clairvoyant and know liars and such, perhaps she could have a career in law enforcement?

 

[PaulfromIowa]

Yes, what she is doing is both very dangerous and offensive to God.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Divination and magic

2115 God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility.

2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to “unveil” the future.48 Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

**2117 All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. **These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another’s credulity.

Michelle Arnold, Catholic Answers: “Witchcraft 101”
catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/witchcraft-101

 

[WingsOfEagles]

Many of the Wiccan practices you speak of potentially invite the devil and demonic spirits into that person’s life. Now, being an empath/psychic (if for real…it is often a person being superstitious) would be a gift from God (in my opinion) and she’d be okay there.

 

[Vic_Taltrees_UK]

If she is looking for your (name removed by moderator)ut you could assure her of your continued prayers that she will receive enlightenment and be guided to do less and less harm if any. In God’s timing people don’t always snap instantly out of something that’s not His best will for them, it becomes clearer to them over time. You could also ask her to redouble her own prayers but in a spirit of hopefulness not despair.

It’s better to let one’s gifts manifest in the natural. Ceremonies and procedures in order to bring them on or sharpen them sound quite dubious.

Some such people are harming themselves at least. It’s also a favour to others to lessen the volume of superstition they could be side tracked by.

Perhaps indeed she is ready to accept these lsatter points in which case she may well adopt a suddenly changed course.

Also, one can have a “streak” of good guessing about situations or people, and that may suddenly end and it’s not right to try to prolong it.

It would be good to reassure her that she will still have many gifts, perhaps some she hasn’t cultivated hitherto. I’m sure the world is short of minerologists!

 

[Viki63]

I guess my question is? Is she offending God by using the gifts he gave her to help people by being wiccan?

Spells are means to force God, or nature, or spirits to do your will. Even if the intention is good (to heal someone) it is not allowed. It is a grave sin. Read PaulfromIowa’s quote from the Catechism.
Please encourage your friend to give up the spells and return to Christ’s church. Her soul is at risk if she continues.
Praying for her.

.

 

[Jared2914]

Try to direct her toward prayers instead of spells. Prayers are the holy way to “cast spells”. They allow us to help others, even possibly heal them, but prayers are always centered on God. I think laying on of hands during prayer is also allowed (with the person’s permission). It’s not the same as when a priest does it for Sacraments, but this gesture may help her feel more active when praying for someone.