Trouble among devout family members

[holyrood]

I’m just looking for some understanding.

My parents are both ‘devout Catholics.’ Active in the church, tithing, my mother says daily Rosary, dad attends daily mass…

I believe my sister also says a daily Rosary, worked as a youth leader in the church, is fervent in her faith, studies theology, defends the faith, etc…

I also strive to live my faith to the best of my ability, treat others well, mass, confession, Rosary, etc.

Yet I’m not on speaking terms with any of them. My father is also an alcoholic and I suspect a pervert… My mother is bitter, angry, and complaining. She finds fault with many people and once they’re slotted into the Bad category in her mind, they can never do anything right or good by her. My sister is short-tempered and high strung. (I don’t entirely blame her–she’s still coping with her own issues from our upbringing.)

I quit going to family functions because of routine outbreaks of screaming rages at our get-togethers–directed at me and my children.

Through the years, I have dealt with things like being chased through snowbanks and choked by my father, having my mother constantly say negative things about me to my extended family, friends, mother-in-law, and children–things that I believe have negatively affected my relationshiops with some of these people because these people believe them. (I don’t entirely blame her–I suspect that years ago I spoke up about things my dad did and got labeled a liar rather than her having to face what he really was and maybe having to become a single mother–and I believe she has looked for any reason to believe bad of me since then, to prove to herself that everything really was and is okay.)

I have heard over and over from my parents and siblings (who learned it from my parents) all my faults and the things I need to fix, till I finally said this is ridiculous! Even a broken watch is right twice a day. (BTW–I’ve lived straight as an arrow, got a great education, live a clean and productive life, take my children to church, teach them the faith, and get a great deal of respect and am generally liked by people outside my family, including my neighbors, bosses and students, so it’s not that I’m a complete screwup who needs to be told to straighten up.) I have a dozen voice mails on my phone from my dad telling me what a lousy parent I am, and calling me a trouble maker and an ah*.

I could go on. But I think that gives a pretty clear pictures. When I talked about it here on Catholic forums about 5 years ago, the unanimous response was that there’s no dealing with crazy except to walk away from it. I did.

But I still believe they try to follow their faith, as do I. I don’t believe they’re putting on a show for anyone. Yet I struggle to understand how a family can have so much disharmony with so many people truly trying to follow their faith. Any thoughts on this, and prayers would truly be a comfort.

 

[BettyBoop416]

Being a “devout Catholic” does not automatically guarantee that someone is a good person. There are all kinds of crazy, criminal, violent, addicted, dysfunctional Catholics out there. Unfortunately, you seem to be related to a bunch of them.

Prayers for you.

 

[holyrood]

Being a “devout Catholic” does not automatically guarantee that someone is a good person. There are all kinds of crazy, criminal, violent, addicted, dysfunctional Catholics out there.

I guess that’s exactly my question: why?

How can you sincerely believe and practice your faith and still behave so badly? I’ve even posted the same question here before probably worded slightly differently…and I just can’t wrap my mind around it. How can it be that my mother sincerely says her Rosary every single day and goes to Mass and prays…yet God never enlightens her that these things she’s saying about me are untrue, unkind, and unjustly damaging my relationships with others?

How can my sister sincerely practice and study her faith and yet never be granted the grace to control her temper or find the peace that has eluded her all these years?

I simply don’t understand where God is in this? Is it possibly because my mother is praying sincerely…but praying for God to change everyone around her? I just wish I could understand.

Unfortunately, you seem to be related to a bunch of them.

Prayers for you.

Thank you for your prayers.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

All I can think is that they are more going through the motions than truly living their faith. If they were really living the faith, they couldn’t be treating people the way they are. There are lots of Catholics who can run through the routines, but never really allow Jesus into their lives. And your relations seem to be some of those, as well as, well…Kind of off-balance, shall we say?



Distance makes the heart grow stronger.

 

[EasterJoy]

If they weren’t saying the Rosary every day, they might be in jail by now.

C.S. Lewis wrote this in “Mere Christianity” in the chapter titled, “Nice People or New Men”

*"…If you mistake for your own merits what are really God’s gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel: and all those gifts will only make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee.

But if you are a poor creature poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends do not despair.

He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) he will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be last.)…"*

So maybe they’ll be very great saints some day, you never know. Still, it is not a sin to stay off of whatever road they’re driving those machines on. You’ve done your part and taken your knocks. You can drive elsewhere. Just keep them in your prayers, and hope that they are, indeed, doing their very best with the gifts they were given.

 

[agnes_therese]

But I still believe they try to follow their faith, as do I. I don’t believe they’re putting on a show for anyone. Yet I struggle to understand how a family can have so much disharmony with so many people truly trying to follow their faith. Any thoughts on this, and prayers would truly be a comfort.

Many of us are broken, to one degree or another. But in some, the brokenness is in areas of their lives that are much more visible to others, while for others, it is more hidden.
They may very well not even realize the break between their faith and their actions. I believe you are right to keep your contact with them to a minimum. But they need a great deal of prayer!

 

[natashapa]

I am very glad you brought this topic up. You are not alone in this family struggle. I have a very devout sister - she attends Mass weekly and sometimes during the week, prays the Rosary, encourages my daughter (she is her Godmother) with books on faith, sends her cards with hand-written Gospel verses - even now, after my daughter has been confirmed.

Yet, she keeps a “dead to me” list, where if she has felt slighted by someone more than two-three times, she cuts them out of her life. She spreads malicious gossip constantly. She is often extremely disrespectful to the point of cruel to our mother, a truly good person and devout Catholic.

I have tried to speak to her about this. I’ve spoken to my priest. For now, I’m following my priest’s advice, which is to keep communication open, but to explain to my daughter that how you treat those closest to you should mirror how Jesus treated his Mother and the Apostles. As much as I love my sister, I cannot let her actions impact my daughter adversely.

I will pray for your family, and wish you peace. Your struggle sounds much harder than mine. It is hard to understand those who claim to be devout Catholics, yet act quite differently.

 

[LilyM]

All I can think is that they are more going through the motions than truly living their faith. If they were really living the faith, they couldn’t be treating people the way they are. There are lots of Catholics who can run through the routines, but never really allow Jesus into their lives. And your relations seem to be some of those, as well as, well…Kind of off-balance, shall we say?



Distance makes the heart grow stronger.

St Paul said, in essence, that you can do and be everything that seems good and wonderful but if you do it without love (or more correctly charity) then it is fruitless.

You can see what they do as far as their faith goes, what you cannot know completely is the spirit and mental attitude with which they do it. Some people are badly psychologically damaged for different reasons, others are wilfully malicious or prideful, others still simply ignorant. These may outwardly do all the right things without having the right mindset.

All you can do is pray for them.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

St Paul said, in essence, that you can do and be everything that seems good and wonderful but if you do it without love (or more correctly charity) then it is fruitless.

You can see what they do as far as their faith goes, what you cannot know completely is the spirit and mental attitude with which they do it. Some people are badly psychologically damaged for different reasons, others are wilfully malicious or prideful, others still simply ignorant. These may outwardly do all the right things without having the right mindset.

All you can do is pray for them.

Something I struggle with greatly myself.

 

[HolyRosaryChild]

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Every person commits sins directly caused by satan “it” as I label the evil! No one person has a clean Soul who is in the position to judge; there is no such thing as a Soul or person who can be labelled by another person (Catholic and Christians alike) as ‘dysfunctional, violent, crazy’ etcetera. Every Family have their problems caused by “it”; it is a matter for every person to follow Jesus Scriptures, Commandments and pray pray and pray for His Love and Divine Holy Intervention and Wisdom to flow through each and every one of us to combat the temptation of evil; “in our thoughts and in our words and what we have failed to do”!

May I suggest that your Family members including your Father open up Medjugorje and take a read of what Our Lady Mary Mother of Jesus instructs us to do which totally reflects Jesus Scriptures and promotes and encourages us of the steps to be taken daily in our lives and many of the reasons for these steps!

An individual can be a Catholic or Christian all of one’s life and not fully comprehend all of the damage we are doing to our Souls in just one or two evil thoughts and actions; let alone the many other mortal sins committed, to our Souls on a daily basis. For instance, labelling or thinking of other family members’ diseases and sins is permitting “it” to do more damage to our souls; the solution is to pray, pray and pray as Jesus and Our Lady Mary Mother of Jesus always call upon us to undertake! For it is only through Prayer opening up our Hearts to Jesus and Our Lady Mary that He is able to fully intervene through His Divine Love and Mercy into Families’ Lives to change situations for the Good!

All Families are functional; there is no such thing as a ‘Dysfunctional Family’. We are all sinners striving to love one another in His Image and Ways.

 

[LilyM]

Something I struggle with greatly myself.

So do we all, sister, I’m sure :yup:

 

[jmcrae]

Something I struggle with greatly myself.

So do we all, sister, I’m sure :yup:

Same here.

 

[HolyRosaryChild]

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
For instance, a viper tongue (am guilty of this myself through “its” temptations in between praying hard during each day) and according to Jesus Scriptures “His Word” is a serious sin in its self, and can be more serious than a person who has a disease of alcoholism not being nasty to others in their thoughts and in their words.

What I am trying to say here (this is a reminder for myself too by the way as a sinner), far more damage done to our Souls and Soul journeys, thinking ill and stating ill, of other people and their problems, than a person who has an illness caused by “it/evil” who is not committing the range of sins, that other Christians are!

I have learned that when dealing with Family Members and rows or disharmony; I pray for the situation hard until Jesus has Healed the situation (every situation) and He does through Our Lady Mary Mother of Jesus’ Divine Loving Intercession! Every time over 30 years! Every Family (whether we place blinkers over our eyes or not) have problems caused by “it/evil”. It is our responsibility being God’s Children to pray for His Divine Loving Intervention to remove all negativity and problems.

If negative and evil situations in Family members lives have continued, then insufficient praying and opening up of our Hearts to Jesus trusting and having full confidence in Him has not been undertaken. It is commonsense! If the evil one is continuing to work through Families, and we are not fully or sufficiently opening up our Hearts and offering up our Crosses to Jesus daily, how is Jesus able to Intervene through His Divine Love and Mercy!

 

[holyrood]

May I suggest that your Family members including your Father open up Medjugorje and take a read of what Our Lady Mary Mother of Jesus instructs us to do which totally reflects Jesus Scriptures and promotes and encourages us of the steps to be taken daily in our lives and many of the reasons for these steps!

My father has gone to Medjugorje. He and my sister went to the Holy Land together.

I guess I struggle to believe that the problems continue due to failure to pray hard enough. People still have free will. If I didn’t pray hard enough for my marriage, then the words mean nothing…yet it failed. Because my husband chose to continue lying and cheating. I have watched the most devout family, in a very devout and prayerful parish, lose their daughter to cancer. There was definitely not a lack of prayer there. Not that I won’t continue praying for them. I have, I do, and I will

Some people are badly psychologically damaged for different reasons…

All you can do is pray for them.

I pray for them close to daily. I do believe my mother is very badly psychologically damaged. She has lived in an abusive marriage for 50 years. I believe my father himself is broken and damaged from his upbringing.

If they weren’t saying the Rosary every day, they might be in jail by now.

Thank you for this reminder.

C.S. Lewis wrote this in “Mere Christianity” in the chapter titled, “Nice People or New Men”

*"…If you mistake for your own merits what are really God’s gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel: and all those gifts will only make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee.

But if you are a poor creature poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends do not despair.

He knows all about it. You are one of the poor whom He blessed. He knows what a wretched machine you are trying to drive. Keep on. Do what you can. One day (perhaps in another world, but perhaps far sooner than that) he will fling it on the scrap-heap and give you a new one. And then you may astonish us all not least yourself: for you have learned your driving in a hard school. (Some of the last will be first and some of the first will be last.)…"*

So maybe they’ll be very great saints some day, you never know. Still, it is not a sin to stay off of whatever road they’re driving those machines on. You’ve done your part and taken your knocks. You can drive elsewhere. Just keep them in your prayers, and hope that they are, indeed, doing their very best with the gifts they were given.

Thank you, Easter Joy, for a very thought-provoking passage from one of my favorite authors! Over the last 7 years of dealing with this (I moved far away for many years because of it, and only 9 years ago moved back, thinking things had gotten better), I have had some gems dropped in my lap one by one that have made it easier and easier for me to pray for them and this is another.

I suppose another thing I struggle with sometimes, though, is that I also had a less than ideal upbringing, but I chose to read self-help books, dig deeper into my faith, see a counselor, etc. Of course, I have long since concluded that a major thing that helped me was that I had a driving passion in life, which gave me hope and a goal to pursue. I don’t think either of my parents or sister had that, and that is a gift from God.

 

[umgriz932001]

Prayers for you!
My family has similar problems. My grandfather (devout Mexican Catholic) treats his wife (my grandmother) and children (my mother and Uncle) like second rate citizens while his “family” (my great uncles, aunts, cousins) are spoiled and protected by him. My brother and i and our children have always been treated better than his children, but not better than his extended “family”. My mother did not grow up in a pleasant household. He was abusive mentally, emotionally and physically to them. He isn’t physically abusive anymore, but he is still mentally to them. My grandmother is an extremely weak women. She is/was too afraid of being on her own to leave him. And the one time, she really thought about it, she was going to leave my mother and Uncle with him. (Thankfully she didn’t.) But i truly believe that my grandfather does not see his behavior as being bad while he prays, attends Mass regularly, donates money to lots of charities. I don’t think it enters his mind that he has a bad attitude and needs too change. But on some fronts he has changed, so maybe it is something that managed too break through that he needed to change. My brother (who i can’t understand treating his children like he does since we grew up in a really steady household) made my grandfather mad about his treatment of his great grandchildren.(Not that my grandfather apologized for their treatment or acknowledged the past/current treatment.) My mother was like where were you the last forty years? He is only now seeing the mistreatment my mother and Uncle went through, by watching my brother do the exact same thing. But we can’t convince my brother that he needs to change. He thinks everyone else has the problem, not him. Does it make sense? No. God will explain later. I have come to the conclusion that i will never get my human brain to understand or figure out why they behave like that. It is beyond human comprehension. As long as you know and understand your problems (sins, thoughts) you can control that. I have a major problem with self righteous and pride that I’m doing it better then others. It doesn’t help me to pray for them when i don’t have the right mind set (when I’m fighting that self righteousness or pride) and i have to change my thoughts, pray for guidance to fix how i think before i can even tackle how to pray for them. The best thing i have come up with is to pray for God to help them in whatever they are dealing with, since He is the one who truly knows the areas they need help. Instead of struggling trying to understand the ins and outs, turn it over to the Lord. It will ease the burden, that is what i do daily.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

I’m just looking for some understanding.

I can sympathize with what you’re going through. We no longer see my extended, Catholic family because we got tired of hearing what bad parents we are, how horrible & irresponsible we are for having “too many” kids, how we should have aborted our two youngest, etc. Now we get criticized for not living our faith because we refuse to keep subjecting ourselves to this abuse. At the same time, we get badmouthed viciously for living our faith to what they consider to be a freakish degree.

And while not family, I have a friend who considers himself devout (his wive would say very or too devout). He has a massive porn collection, says he’s glad he never had a daughter because he couldn’t trust himself with one and worries about what he may do when his son starts bringing girlfriends home. Another married friend prays the Rosary at least daily, goes to adoration and will drive hours out of his way while on vacation so as not to miss Mass. He’s gotten in trouble several times for inappropriate behavior with female coworkers, and I no longer look at anything that pops up in my Facebook ticker for him because of how much of his activity involves flirting with other women and liking and making inappropriate comments about the scantily clad pictures of his female friends.

I don’t understand how anyone who considers themselves Catholic (especially the ones who consider themselves good Catholics or actively seem to be devout Catholics) can do these things. I consider my family a lost cause because even if they’d apologize and swear they’d never do these things again, they’ve claimed the same to others in the past, and the things they’ve done are bad enough that I can’t risk exposing my kids to it further. With my friends, I keep praying for them. We’ll probably cut way back on how much we see the one once our daughters get a little older, and we no longer see the other because my wife is so disgusted with his behavior, but I keep praying that their faith will eventually help them to overcome some of these things. As for understanding it, I don’t know that I’ll ever get to that point.

 

[holyrood]

How perplexing! I clearly remember quoting some of these, replying, and hitting post. Where has it gone? And I’m now off into the business of the day. For the time, I’ll say, thank you for all the (name removed by moderator)ut. It is greatly appreciated and encouraging.

 

[maryjk]

As many say, we are a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.

Why do they act that way? Because like you, and like me, they are sinners.

 

[gardenswithkids]

If they weren’t saying the Rosary every day, they might be in jail by now. …

​

As far as the question of disharmony, I’m going to play with a musical analogy. Certain instruments–even if they are in tune,–just don’t sound right together. We never seem to listen to music featuring a trio of piano, violin and tuba. Not all instruments “work well” together. Certain instruments are best kept apart or only put together in large gatherings, (like an orchestra). Some instruments (like both piano and tuba) are usually very limited in number even when performing with an entire orchestra.

I’m going to suggest to the original poster that there may be something about the temperament of the individuals involved that is* either too different or too similar* that makes her getting along with her family members difficult. Add in the alcoholism and living with an alcoholic, and those people are already living life on the edge. Now add in a family member that just somehow sets them off (because she’s either too different or too similar in temperament to one or more of the others), and her family falls over the edge.

Family gets to experience us at our ugliest. Sometimes “practicing our faith” sounds like the music practice of a young child or a band of young children who have not yet figured how to make everything sound good together.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

As many say, we are a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.

Why do they act that way? Because like you, and like me, they are sinners.

Part of the problem I have, and I imagine it may be the same for the OP, is that I’ve been afflicted by some of the same demons that I see in my family and friends’ lives but I’ve gotten past those, largely thanks to God’s intercession in my life and me actively practicing my faith. I go to Confession regularly and pray the Rosary daily (sometimes more). That causes me to reflect on my actions and my sins. That keeps me on the straight and narrow and prevents me from doing a ton of things I did in the past. I have a statue of Mary sitting over my computer. I couldn’t imagine going to an inappropriate website with her looking over me. Seeing how my faith has helped me, it bothers me that these people, especially the ones who claim to be devout or “good Catholics,” can still either do the awful things they do, or just be all around horrible people.