Honoring parents and sin

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GandalfTheWhite

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I love my mom, but I don’t always show it the way I should - I understand that. The way she reacts to things and the way she deals with issues sometimes makes me very nervous and then I just easily get angry and “not so nice”.

Like today! We live away from each other (university student) and she often calls me. Now, she asked me to do something few days ago, and I totally forgot to do it. The thing is that I’m not very organized and I often forget stuff, while she is the exact opposite. She just can’t get used to the fact that I something unintentionally forget to do things. Now, this often causes conflict between us. She started repeating me how horrible this is, how I don’t care etc. Well, while I really didn’t want to I got a angry and we ended up in a minor “word fight”. It wasn’t anything serious (it was mainly my annoyed tone and sometimes verbal “counter-attacks”) but still. We should honour our parents and that certainly wasn’t honouring them. It’s just sometimes very difficult and I just can’t be all nice when someone keeps poking me.

So my problem is that I’m afraid that dishonoring my parents is actually a mortal sin. I don’t know, but I’m a bit afraid that it is. What do you think? If now, what would make it a mortal sin. I basically went to confession today (before the even)

Also, how would you behave in such situations? Hanging the phone would be the best option but that certainly wouldn’t be nice and also it would be very impolite.

Thank you for your attention!
~G
 
Dishonoring your parents is not a single thing, but a range of things, from rolling your eyes to neglecting them when they are old and in need of your assistance. Somewhere in there is the line between venial and mortal sin. I don’t know exactly where that line is - I suspect it slides around a bit - but I don’t think you crossed it by acting annoyed.

That said, it wouldn’t hurt to apologize and make sure you do the thing your mother wanted you to do.

Betsy
 
Sorry for taking so long to reply.

When do you think this becomes a mortal sin?

Whenever I get into an argument with my parents (especially my mom who is quite nervous latelly) I then feel really bad (like filthy) and I’m afraid that I might have a mortal sin and so I fear to take the Communion because I can’t go to confession whenever I want to. 😦 This is REALLY troubling me latelly.
 
GandalfTheWhite said:
Sorry for taking so long to reply.

When do you think this becomes a mortal sin?

Whenever I get into an argument with my parents (especially my mom who is quite nervous latelly) I then feel really bad (like filthy) and I’m afraid that I might have a mortal sin and so I fear to take the Communion because I can’t go to confession whenever I want to. 😦 This is REALLY troubling me latelly.
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Do you call and appologize to your mom ever? Also, are you more easily annoyed certain times of the month than others. Do you find you’re more easily annoyed when you’re stressed? Recognize what’s going on in your life those times that you’re quick to talk sassy and then, if your mom calls at those times, kindly let her know that you cannot talke at the moment because of your mood but that you will call her back when you’re not ready to be rude. I finally did that with my mom (and I live and work with her) but it works much better and we don’t fight like we once had.
 
In your OP, you mentioned a “minor word fight” and an “annoyed tone.” The examination of conscience that I often refer to lists “serious” disrespect under mortal sins. What you describe does not seem to be serious. Serious offenses (in my opinion) would include true verbal or physical abuse - name calling, yelling, serious unfounded accusations of bad character, hitting, throwing things - that sort of stuff.

The reaction you have to your behavior shows more that you love your parents and that you have a sensitive conscience than that you have committed mortal sin. Venial sins are ugly things, and you rightly feel bad about them, but they do not sever your relationship with either God or your parents. What you have described (annoyance) does not appear to be a mortal sin to me.

Remember that you must have, in addition to serious matter, which is in doubt here to begin with, full knowledge and full consent of the will in order to commit a mortal sin. That’s why sins committed in the heat of the moment are not always mortal. If you gave full consent to what you were certain was seriously wrong, it was mortal. If not, it was venial.

Perhaps you might go over these questions with your priest the next time you go to Confession.

Betsy
 
Ye, I went to confession as soon as I could last time it happened but now it kinda happened again and I remembered that I totally forgot about this thread.

My mom is a very ‘time table’ type of person while I’m more of a ‘mañana’ type of person. I do stuff (mostly unless I forget them) but I like to space them out. On the other hand my mom is the exact opposite. This sometimes causes conflict between us. Basically today she told me to do something and I said that I would do it but after a short while since I wanted to finish a little ‘research project’ of my own (nothing important really). Well, she didn’t like this and I still tried to tell her that I would do it later (I also felt a bit lazy at that time like I often do…but that’s another issue). Well to make the story short she got annoyed with me and started criticising me. After a while this made me very nervous and during the argument I told her that ‘she would make a good captain in the German Nazi military’ because of the way I felt she was treating me. I also didn’t tell her what I’m working on when she asked me. 😦 I knew what I’m doing is bad, it’s not like I was doing it unconsciously or something, I was just too weak to let it be.

So you see, I failed once more. And once more I’m confused about what kind of sin it is. Since then I appologized to her but that has nothing to do with the seriousness of my actions, which I’m having hard time to asses. So, since here is something more specific, could you help me? I just really want to take the communion tomorrow and this might just prevent me from doing that, but of course being in the state of mortal sin is even worse. Oh well… 😦

Ye, one thing that I find really hard to work with is the concept of mortal sin. I’m having hard time assessing what is and what isn’t a mortal sin. I know the criteria but how do I know what is a grave sin and what isn’t? I know some thing that are because the Church has listed them or they are more-less obvious but what about the rest? I think I should start a new thread on that topic.

One more thing, could you please pray for me that I’m better at controlling myself and not giving in to my anger or frustration? Thank you. I’m not saying this so you think I all nice and when I do it I don’t do it consciously. I sometimes have hard time asking God for forgiveness because I feel like I’m not the one making the mistake and I’m to proud…but of course even if I wasn’t the one starting an argument I shouldn’t react like that and I often know that I shouldn’t do it and I do it anyways. Oh well, now I’m just typing without really making any sense.

Oh, and thank you all for your posts, they were helpful. I especially really like the examination of conscience link, it’s going to my favorites.
 
Yes, I will certainly pray for you. May I suggest that you make a very specific resolution to help you stay out of these arguments? You have carefully analyzed the differences between you and your mother. Perhaps you could resolve to simply do things her way, right away, instead of your preferred method of leaving it for later. You have admitted that what you were doing this last time was not important and that you were feeling lazy. Is she asking you to do huge, time consuming jobs, or little things that would be only a minor inconvenience to you? If you drop everything and take care of her small requests, you will please your mother, please God, and grow in generosity and maturity. Then you will have some credibility when you ask to postpone her larger requests for a good reason. You can stay out of the situation that causes the arguments. When you resolve to “avoid the near occasions of sin” in your act of contrition, this is the kind of thing you are saying you will do.

Now, as to this last incident… you referred to being too weak to let it be. That says to me that you may not have fully intended to insult your mother. Did your “mental editor” flash a warning to you that what you were about to say was seriously wrong, only to have you go ahead anyway, deciding that you really wanted to do the thing you were certain was seriously wrong? If so, then you should get to Confession before receiving Holy Communion. If not, you can probably conclude that this was another very ugly venial sin, for which you are sorry.

You know, I think many of us have such a horror of committing any sin at all that we judge the seriousness of the sin more strictly than necessary. I do not mean that we should become lax, not admitting the gravity of really bad things. But I do mean that not every ugly thing we do is enough to sever our relationship with God. It is easy to shift the criteria so that we consider imperfections and temptations to be venial sins, venial sins to be mortal sins, and real mortal sins to be unforgivable.

This is the sad road to scrupulosity. This is why it is so important to form one’s conscience properly, going neither to the side of laxity or to rigorism. Here is a book that I find really helpful. In addition to the examination of conscience in the earlier post, I think you will get some solid guidance from the book. There is no “official” list of mortal sins published by the Church. Some will tell you that anything that breaks one of the Ten Commandments is a mortal sin. Common sense will tell you otherwise.

Read and study a little moral theology, keep asking your priest questions, and you will develop a good conscience.

Betsy
 
Thank you Batsy! You are very helpful! 🙂
Now, as to this last incident… you referred to being too weak to let it be. That says to me that you may not have fully intended to insult your mother. Did your “mental editor” flash a warning to you that what you were about to say was seriously wrong, only to have you go ahead anyway, deciding that you really wanted to do the thing you were certain was seriously wrong? If so, then you should get to Confession before receiving Holy Communion. If not, you can probably conclude that this was another very ugly venial sin, for which you are sorry.
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Well, I as far as I can remember I did know that it’s not the a good thing to do or say. I will see if I can manage to get to Confession tomorrow. Hopefully I will.
 
I will return to this thead once more to ask for more opinions…to specifically answer the following questions:

When does ‘not honoring’ one’s parents become a serious sin? How serious is serious? Where to draw the line?

I’m looking for a good guide because I often struggle with it (as you cound see) and then suffer from fear of being in mortal sin. I really want to form right understanding on this matter so I don’t neglect the serious or panic from the venial.

I guess beating, throwing things, using strong verbal insults can go to the serious cathegory. But what else? And what doesn’t?
 
Let me step in from a mom’s point of view. 😉

It’s our job to be Nazi camp guards. No. We don’t enjoy it.

We know if we do our job right, we eventually are out of a job.

We long for that day to come, when we can stop being the overseer and be able to enjoy our children as responsible adults. No, we don’t want to have to follow you all around the globe telling you to clean your room and pick up your drycleaning.

We are terrified that you “haven’t gotten it yet” and if left to your own devices, you will starve to death because you forgot to eat, or you will end up in a ditch somewhere.

We have spent your entire life making sure you are safe, anticipating your every need, knowing you better than you may know yourself yet, watching over you for every small indication of sickness, sadness, so we can leap into action and keep it from getting worse.

Just because you turned 18 and think you are now an emancipated adult overnight, it does not mean that overnight we can break 19 years of care, concern, love and worry. (We alone were taking care of you before you even saw the light of day, and put our own needs behind yours even as you were in utero.)

Old habits die hard. You are here and have survived this long because we were responsible, attentive and made you a priority. You owe us a debt you can never fully repay. We don’t expect you to. We expect you to pass it along and give our grandchildren the same measure of devotion you were given. And not to live your own life so horribly that you destroy what we spent our lives doing.

We don’t think you’re an adult just because you’re at University. We know you are still immature and in need of reminders. That’s why we call you to check on you. Trust us that someday you will give your eye teeth for that call from someone who cares about you like we do. There are many in the world who will never get another call from their mother “annoying” them again. And they miss it.

We’ve put up with your tantrums and backtalk and verbal fisticuffs for almost 20 years. We don’t enjoy it. But that’s what children do. We’re waiting for you to grow up and find a better way to communicate. Somewhere our own mothers are laughing at us because payback is wonderful, ain’t it?

Sounds like your mom has always been very responsible. She follows the rules. She wants you to be dependable and mature also. Why not surprise her and next time she calls, have done what she wanted you to? Then instead of unpleasantness, she will have a sense of hope that maybe your relationship can move to the next stage. Not warden/detainee, but grown woman and child who are able to talk about other things, and maybe you can get to know your mother as someone who has her own ideas, dreams, hopes and plans for the future. Because once you are “independent” she still will keep living, you know. And only when she is certain you will do it without falling on your face will she be able to relax and get on with her own life. Don’t you owe her that?

Go buy her a card. Write an apology for this and all similar disrespect. Send her flowers or something. Don’t wait till Mother’s Day, Christmas, or her birthday.

What you are doing is venial. Mortal sin would probably involve screaming at her that you hate her, refusing to speak to her at all, destroying her possessions, destroying her reputation to others, accusing her of things she never did in public, striking her or other physical violence, or namecalling that does not border on the comical. (I happen to think Nazi camp guard is pretty comical myself. But that’s just me. My kids ever call me that, I’ll tell them to go to bed immediately, in German.)

If you grow up and stop behaving like a high schooler, maybe she will never lower the Mother’s Curse on your head: “May you have three just like yourself.” 😉

Seriously, we mothers develop a pretty thick skin. And in spite of what you say to her, she loves you like no one else on the planet ever will. Once you understand that, your attitude toward her will change and your interpretation of her motives will soften. But it may take that day when you hold your own child in your arms to understand the full weight of responsibility and care she has had for you.

But at least you have a conscience about it and are sorry. She just needs to know that you don’t say those things and proceed without a second thought. So give her that, why don’t you? She is probably hoping the contest of wills thing you’ve had going since you were two would become a thing of the past. Next time you feel you are impatient with her, ask yourself this honestly: How much patience has she had to exert with you all these years? 😃
 
And the reason I didn’t give a list…

We all want a list with God, don’t we? Do you have a list with your friends of things you are or aren’t allowed to do? Or things that will annoy them, and then a separate list of things you can do to make them never want to talk to you again?

Whether it’s your relationship with God, your parents (who teach us much about obedience and honor to God… if you can’t respect the parent you see, how can you respect and love our Father in Heaven?) or your relationship with friends, it’s not about a list. It’s about motives, behavior, love, and doing what we need to to keep a relationship strong and loving. If you are looking for a list in your relationships, it all becomes about legalism and not about love and honor. God already gave us a list. And one of those is to honor our parents. If your actions don’t feel like you are honoring your parent, then they probably aren’t. Try this one: ASK mom if she feels honored by you. She’ll tell you. Probably starting with the words, “Well, most of the time you’re pretty good, but…”

Now you have a goal. Ratchet it up a notch to “I couldn’t ask for a better more respectful child.”

Do it with God too. 😉
 
Liberanosamalo said:
Let me step in from a mom’s point of view.

It’s our job to be Nazi camp guards. No. We don’t enjoy it.

We know if we do our job right, we eventually are out of a job.

We long for that day to come, when we can stop being the overseer and be able to enjoy our children as responsible adults. No, we don’t want to have to follow you all around the globe telling you to clean your room and pick up your drycleaning.

We are terrified that you “haven’t gotten it yet” and if left to your own devices, you will starve to death because you forgot to eat, or you will end up in a ditch somewhere.

We have spent your entire life making sure you are safe, anticipating your every need, knowing you better than you may know yourself yet, watching over you for every small indication of sickness, sadness, so we can leap into action and keep it from getting worse.

Just because you turned 18 and think you are now an emancipated adult overnight, it does not mean that overnight we can break 19 years of care, concern, love and worry. (We alone were taking care of you before you even saw the light of day, and put our own needs behind yours even as you were in utero.)

Old habits die hard. You are here and have survived this long because we were responsible, attentive and made you a priority. You owe us a debt you can never fully repay. We don’t expect you to. We expect you to pass it along and give our grandchildren the same measure of devotion you were given. And not to live your own life so horribly that you destroy what we spent our lives doing.

We don’t think you’re an adult just because you’re at University. We know you are still immature and in need of reminders. That’s why we call you to check on you. Trust us that someday you will give your eye teeth for that call from someone who cares about you like we do. There are many in the world who will never get another call from their mother “annoying” them again. And they miss it.

We’ve put up with your tantrums and backtalk and verbal fisticuffs for almost 20 years. We don’t enjoy it. But that’s what children do. We’re waiting for you to grow up and find a better way to communicate. Somewhere our own mothers are laughing at us because payback is wonderful, ain’t it?

Sounds like your mom has always been very responsible. She follows the rules. She wants you to be dependable and mature also. Why not surprise her and next time she calls, have done what she wanted you to? Then instead of unpleasantness, she will have a sense of hope that maybe your relationship can move to the next stage. Not warden/detainee, but grown woman and child who are able to talk about other things, and maybe you can get to know your mother as someone who has her own ideas, dreams, hopes and plans for the future. Because once you are “independent” she still will keep living, you know. And only when she is certain you will do it without falling on your face will she be able to relax and get on with her own life. Don’t you owe her that?

Go buy her a card. Write an apology for this and all similar disrespect. Send her flowers or something. Don’t wait till Mother’s Day, Christmas, or her birthday.

What you are doing is venial. Mortal sin would probably involve screaming at her that you hate her, refusing to speak to her at all, destroying her possessions, destroying her reputation to others, accusing her of things she never did in public, striking her or other physical violence, or namecalling that does not border on the comical. (I happen to think Nazi camp guard is pretty comical myself. But that’s just me.)

If you grow up and stop behaving like a high schooler, maybe she will never lower the Mother’s Curse on your head: “May you have three just like yourself.”

Seriously, we mothers develop a pretty thick skin. And in spite of what you say to her, she loves you like no one else on the planet ever will. Once you understand that, your attitude toward her will change and your interpretation of her motives will soften. But it may take that day when you hold your own child in your arms to understand the full weight of responsibility and care she has had for you.

But at least you have a conscience about it and are sorry. She just needs to know that you don’t say those things and proceed without a second thought. So give her that, why don’t you? She is probably hoping the contest of wills thing you’ve had going since you were two would become a thing of the past. Next time you feel you are impatient with her, ask yourself this honestly: How much patience has she had to exert with you all these years? 😃
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:clapping: :clapping: :clapping: :clapping: :clapping: :clapping:

Post of the day - of the week - of the month - of the year!!!

Betsy
 
GandalfTheWhite said:
I love my mom, but I don’t always show it the way I should - I understand that. The way she reacts to things and the way she deals with issues sometimes makes me very nervous and then I just easily get angry and “not so nice”.

Like today! We live away from each other (university student) and she often calls me. Now, she asked me to do something few days ago, and I totally forgot to do it. The thing is that I’m not very organized and I often forget stuff, while she is the exact opposite. She just can’t get used to the fact that I something unintentionally forget to do things. Now, this often causes conflict between us. She started repeating me how horrible this is, how I don’t care etc. Well, while I really didn’t want to I got a angry and we ended up in a minor “word fight”. It wasn’t anything serious (it was mainly my annoyed tone and sometimes verbal “counter-attacks”) but still. We should honour our parents and that certainly wasn’t honouring them. It’s just sometimes very difficult and I just can’t be all nice when someone keeps poking me.

So my problem is that I’m afraid that dishonoring my parents is actually a mortal sin. I don’t know, but I’m a bit afraid that it is. What do you think? If now, what would make it a mortal sin. I basically went to confession today (before the even)

Also, how would you behave in such situations? Hanging the phone would be the best option but that certainly wouldn’t be nice and also it would be very impolite.

Thank you for your attention!
~G
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I know what you mean, as for the arguing with Mom. I used to hang up on her (to save my pride-or she’d hang up on me.) I’m not proud of that; I regret it very much. What I began doing, and this in all areas of my life, is asking my Guardian Angel to warn me ahead of time when I’m approaching sinful behavior. As for arguing with Mom, when I feel my blood begin to boil, I say a quick prayer, and calmly, and quickly, tell her that I’m really upset and I need a few minutes before I talk to her (I have to tell her I’m upset or she won’t be willing to let me go.) This has worked very well, whether in person or on the phone. She either let’s me leave/hang up without being angry or hurt. I call her back a few minutes later, and things more often than not go well from there.🙂
 
Thank you for this topic.

I’ve long been wondering about how exactly to honor my parents, one of whom who has sexually abused me, another one who has criticized me and put me down all my life, from early childhood on up, & criticized me to the point where I began to believe I was unworthy to be able to drive a car, hold a job, marry and grow up and live on my own.

I’m in my late 40’s, and I live across the country from my parents who are elderly but are able to take care of themselves. My husband and I are in debt and don’t have the money to make a trip to visit them.

It hurts so bad sometimes just to hear them say certain things to me, in fact, even a certain inflection of a word or a phrase they say to me can make me cry even during a phone conversation.

I haven’t visited them in 12 years and it hurts so when I’m around them as well as the rest of my biological family.

Thanks for listening.
 
baltobetsy said:
Remember that you must have, in addition to serious matter, which is in doubt here to begin with, full knowledge and full consent of the will in order to commit a mortal sin. That’s why sins committed in the heat of the moment are not always mortal. If you gave full consent to what you were certain was seriously wrong, it was mortal. If not, it was venial.
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I think you’re close here, but the language is off.

In fact, a mortal sin presupposes three things, two of which you got right:
  1. grave matter
  2. sufficient reflection
  3. full consent of the will
Sufficient reflection does not presuppose full knowledge of a sin in light of its gravity. Sufficient reflection just means that you thought about what you were doing. You can easily commit mortal sin without knowing that you are committing a mortal sin.

For example, I call my mother a very bad insult, not knowing that it’s a mortal sin. Still, it is objectively grave (1), I reflected on what I was doing or saying (2), and obviously my will gave consent to the action, that is I was not under the influence of some drug or nervous twitch (3). Whether or not I know that what I did was grave does not exempt the sin from being mortal.

Whereupon you realize that you have committed a mortal sin, you should thus seek the Sacrament of Penance, presuming you are a Catholic.
 
Blackbog said:
I think you’re close here, but the language is off.

In fact, a mortal sin presupposes three things, two of which you got right:
  1. grave matter
  2. sufficient reflection
  3. full consent of the will
Sufficient reflection does not presuppose full knowledge of a sin in light of its gravity. Sufficient reflection just means that you thought about what you were doing. You can easily commit mortal sin without knowing that you are committing a mortal sin.
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Check your Catechism of the Catholic Church. Start at number 1857. Here’s paragraph 1859:
1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.
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It is impossible to be guilty of a mortal sin without knowing it. You can commit an act that is materially sinful, gravely wrong, however you want to label it, but if you do not understand it to be wrong, you cannot be guilty of mortal sin.

Betsy
 
baltobetsy said:
Check your Catechism of the Catholic Church. Start at number 1857. Here’s paragraph 1859:

It is impossible to be guilty of a mortal sin without knowing it. You can commit an act that is materially sinful, gravely wrong, however you want to label it, but if you do not understand it to be wrong, you cannot be guilty of mortal sin.

Betsy
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Indeed it’s in there. Clearly, I’m operating on erroneous information.
 
How about things like wearing clothes that your parents say are too shabby or whatever? Would that be dishonoring them?
Or just generally, not doing as they tell us to do?
 
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