We can see the effect of generational patterns of thinking and acting. This is what genograms reveal, the patterns of suicide, the patterns of abandonment, the patterns of abuse, addiction that extend through multiple generations. Child abuse is often generational. Most men who sexually abused children were abused as children.
The negative shaming messages given children by their wounded parents can haunt their children all their lives. For example, children can be told by their parents that they are 'stupid, lazy, crazy and useless." Such pronouncements are very much like curses as they can deeply impact a person and can be transferred across the generations, repeated in one form or another, to multiple generations. I have seen this within my own family of origin.
One story about curses: I encountered one family who had a curse placed upon them by a witch. The mother had sought the help of a witch in Mexico. The witch cast a spell to help heal a family member and then demanded more money; the woman did not have more and so the witch in a rage put a curse upon her and her family. She called upon the devil to send a lost soul from hell to haunt the woman and her family forever.
The woman became deathly ill and later diagnosed with terminal cancer of the uterus. I first met the woman and her story when I came to visit the son and his mother as a member of a hospice team, it was close to sunset and I heard this cry that sounded like a human and a bird at the same time. I remarked about it to the hospice nurse as I knew the birds of the area. I had never heard of any bird like that before. Later, the nurse went into the one room house and the son came out and related the story of the curse. He said that the demon manifested itself every sunset with this birdlike call that sounded human. I told him I heard that call. At that moment an invisible cloud descended upon me and the man. It felt like a million million mosquitoes buzzing and whispering all at once. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I felt this tremendous fear. I could not think. I felt total confusion. I could not even remember the Lord’s Prayer. Finally, I began to repeat the name of Jesus over and over and the spirit of confusion left.
Jesus warned us not to curse each other. Why would he tell us not to curse if curses have no spiritual effect? Jesus showed that curses do have power when he cursed the fig tree and the fig tree wilted and died.
We see how blessings are passed on by the patriarchs to subsequent generations. The story of Jacob and Esau demonstrates how important receiving the blessing of the Patriarch. It was not just a blessing as the firstborn to receive the temporal goods of the patriarch but a spiritual blessing, too.
Jesus took the curse of our sins, the wrath of sin upon his own body. He died in three hours which was unusual as the Gospel relates the guards expected to need to break his legs. This suggests that perhaps He died so quickly because He endured the curse of sin upon Himself. That curse of sin is real.
What healing Masses do among other things is ask God to remove any intergenerational curses. It is not the only thing that healing Masses do.
This practive of healing Masses is not a denial of Jesus redemptive power on the cross that we receive in baptism.
Remember Jesus washed the feet of his disciples in John’s recounting of the last supper and told his disciples to do the same as an example of loving each other as He loved them.
We wash ‘our feet’ in baptism but we also do this in other sacraments including the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Holy Mass. As sinners, we need to go for cleansing as we fall into sin individually and collectively.
As Catholics, we believe that through the power of Jesus’ redemptive act on the cross, we can extend into the present His healing power to break the power of sin and death. His death on the cross occurred 2000 years ago, but its redemptive benefits are carried forth into our present. God is not in time. For Him, there is no past or future, there is only one moment, NOW. Those who do healing Masses believe that Jesus does this with intergenerational curses and that the benefit of Christ’s death can extend both in the past, present and the future.
As an example of this benefit that transcends time, Mary our Blessed Mother received the benefit of Christ’s death on the cross before the fact at the moment of her conception; she was born without original sin.
