URGENT: Honor Thy Father...and Mortal Sin, question, HELP

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Hi brothers & sisters.

Tonight, after a long and exhausting day at work,
my exhausted mother made dinner for my dad,
who got up and immediately started loudly griping about the air conditioner,
as if he is the only person who lives in the house, and being very rude and demanding
to my elderly mother.

Although I was in the other room and did not say this to his face,
his bossy, demanding attitude made me angry and I said, you shut up and knock
that off right now. Almost impusively.

Then I began to wonder, immediately, if I had “mortally” sinned.
Good lord,if it is THIS EASY to commit mortal sin, then I might as well give up.
Have I? Someone please tell me.

A little background:
though I have forgiven dad, growing up with him was a living hell most of the time.
He had the ability to work, but laid around on his butt most of the day, most days,
daring to say, openly, that he worked harder than anybody in his entire family and in fact than my mom (what gall), and harder than anybody he ever knew. !!!
He would constantly rant such things, which made me livid when I would see my exhausted mom coming home from 11 hours and the busses and in the office to bring home enough money to pay the bills and buy food, while he bossed her around like a dog because “I am the man, I am the boss of this house.” Over and over I heard this bombastic garbage, with the bible constantly being invoked to “prove” his rightness.

So, even though I have forgiven him, and he is way too old now to go back and undo these (and many OTHER) wrong things that he did to her and to us, the
unspoken, unhealed (beyond my ability to heal it myself) bitterness and remembrance of these past things remains, below the surface, and bursts forth when his “old days nature” bursts forth in all it’s galling bossiness, like it did tonight, and it makes me blow and think and , tonight, SAY, very hostile things.

Do you still feel I am guilty of mortal sin for getting angry at him for his behavior tonight and blurting out that angry response???
I sure hope not, because I wanted to do a lot of prayers for the souls in purgatory tonight, but if I’m in mortal sin, they won’t be effectual, so I won’t offer them.
I hope I’m not in mortal sin.
I didn’t PLAN to get angry at dad, or PLAN to blurt out a very angry remark, but it just happened, almost as a knee jerk reaction to behavior that I remember all too well,
with deep hatred of that behavior to this day, and which makes me see red every time it
occurs even after all these years.
Someone with some spiriitual insight please help me RIGHT AWAY, TONIGHT,
because the Devil is attacking the hell out of my mind and conscience over this right nowas I type this.
Thanks and God love you for your (name removed by moderator)ut,
Jaypeeto4
 
If you did it out of impulse you did not do it willfully. You cannot accidentally commit a mortal sin and the way you described it, I think you probably reacted before you had a chance to think about it.
 
Jaypeeto4 said:
Although I was in the other room and did not say this to his face,
his bossy, demanding attitude made me angry and I said, you shut up and knock
that off right now. Almost impusively.
Click to expand...
(Bold emphasis mine)

I don’t see how this could be anything close to mortal sin. You haven’t met the conditions required for it to be mortal (Grave matter, knowledge that the action is a mortal sin, full consent to do the action). Anger isn’t always sinful, there is such a thing as righteous anger, and Jesus left us many examples in scripture, where he expressed anger. There may not be sin at all, or venial at the most. You may have a problem if you are harboring anger against your father, and you haven’t tried to let go of it and move on. This is something you should discuss with a priest and/or a Catholic therapist. “Almost impulsive " and” almost knee-jerk" indicate a lack of full consent, plus there is the lack of grave matter.

Finally, don’t skip your intended prayers on the premise that “they won’t be effectual” because you might be in mortal sin. a) You don’t know if you committed mortal sin, and b) If you were, once you submitted the sin to the keys of the confessional, all the merits and effects you would have obtained, are given at the moment of absolution. So your prayers’ effects would be eventually obtained anyway. It’s the devil who puts the idea in your head to not bother praying because you won’t get the graces and merits of prayer due to mortal sin, because he doesn’t want you to get those merits and graces at all.
 
I am no one with authority. I do not judge you. My humble opinion and advise is for you to reconcile with your father before you loose the opportunity to do so.
I recommend you to read how Noah’s sons covered their father’s fault, walking backwards so they would not see anything wrong with their father (Genesis 9, 21 +). I know you mentioned you have forgiven him, but, I think, that your impulses and anger come not from your father’s actions, but yours. Check to see if You have judged him for the way he treats your mother. If so, then you need to ask for forgiveness. Then, and only then will your impulses and anger begin to heal. ”After you have reconciled, then you can continue with your offering”
HONOR your father and mother and your days will be long…
No matter how sinful, for it doesn’t say ”if they are Just, if they are good, if they are sinless”.Pray for your father. The attitude your father might have might be the cross you need to enter heaven…many of the souls in purgatory that you have prayed for are also praying for you and your mother and father!
 
I will use my experience as an Army officer for comparison.

My Soldiers and NCOs are required to treat me respectfully and obey me. With that said, I understand that I am human and fallible. I have, on rare occasion, been respectfully, but firmly informed that I was reacting emotionally, or without all the facts.
I thanked the person who informed me.

I am also a father and a devoted son. I honor my father as I would expect my children to honor me. And that includes acknowledging that I make mistakes and calling me on them (again, I stress respectfully) so that I can become a better person.

I understand that you snapped on this occasion, and I believe that he will forgive you (and I know that God will forgive you). My advice for next time would be to not wait until you cannot control the outburst, but as soon as you start seeing this behavior developing, ask him to step into another room with you and talk about the issue.
 
Thanks all.
I do realize that it was emotional, and not planned.

Yes, you are supposed to honor your father and your mother,
even if they are not perfect.
News flash: none of them are.

I went through years and years of abusive behavior, mixed with sometimes nice things
but always with strings attached, by this gentleman.
Worst of all was the way he treated my mom for years. Right in front of us.
And he would invoke the BIBLE (the man is the head of the house) to justify talking to her like a dog, NOT WORKING, multiple adulteries (including often bringing the current
whores home for my mom to cook for and entertain them, etc. If I were committing adultery on my wife, I wouldn’t have the gall to do something like that, and it was done repeatedly in many “affairs.” Bring them home for her to cook for them and entertain them and their hubbys and kids. What the hell???) I mention this NOT to shame my dad,
whom you all will never meet anyway, but to emphasize what my background is here.
This went on for decades, almost constantly, and by the way, though he has “confessed” a lot (not to a priest, he is not Catholic, though I am praying like mad for that to happen), he has, to my knowledge, never apologized to my mom at all for his horrendous arrogance, refusal to work (STILL, to this day, claims that he worked harder than any of any of his or her relatives, which is an unbelievable refusal to face even basic reality), and STILL insists that he has always been “the boss of the house.” Listen, guys, who may have the same attitude, if you don’t work, don’t even look for work, abuse your wife,
commit multiple adulteries on her, and do things even worse than I have mentioned here, and that repeatedly, YOU NO LONGER HAVE THOSE RIGHTS THAT GOD GIVES TO HUSBANDS. They are not given by God as “power trips” for the Man to enjoy, but for Order and Decency in the house and for the man to be OF SERVICE to his wife and kids.
Like Jesus, who IS our Boss, is also our Servant (which is amazing to me).
Those Headship Rights are not a free pass to be an A******E. And then have the cajones to INVOKE THE BIBLE and St. Paul’s teaching on headship to dare tell your family that God has given you the right to demand abject submission despite your arrogant, unrepented abuse. So to the one who said that the problems come from WITHIN ME,
I have to disagree with you most vehemently. I did not do this to myself. Nor did my sibling, And most certainly, nor did my mom.
All three of us are very forgiving to him. And we really try to be kind and merciful and all that. Even respectful. But RESPECT has to be earned. Using the example of Noah’s nakedness is not proper here. Noah got drunk. The bible nowhere indicates that Noah was a wife-abuser, a serial adulterer, a gross mistreater of his kids, a man who refused to try to hold down a basic 40 hour a week job, or any of those things. In fact, Noah, scripture says, “WAS A RIGHTEOUS MAN IN HIS GENERATION.”
That is not what I grew up with and have dealt with for decades, folks.
Forgiving him is one thing, tolerating the behavior when it shows up AGAIN, “father” or NOT, is another matter.
The mention of the military officer and his authority is also really not relevant. An officer has the right to demand proper obedience from his subordinates. PROPER obedience, note. Even you, the Ranking Officer, do NOT have the right to be a bum, abuse your men, and quote the bible to justify your actions.

So, while I agree with the comments generally,
I now understand WHERE the notion of CATHOLIC GUILT comes from,
because some of you are turning this around on me in a couple of the comments above.
First of all, I Have forgiven my dad. But the deep, deep, deep scars remain.
They don’t go away, no matter how many “Hail Marys” we may say.
I try not to think, at all, about the stuff described above, I only mention it to let you know where those bursts of anger come from when the occur. If I were evil, I would have outbursts of anger and disrespect toward my neighbors and other relatives, too, but I don’t.
I don’t have bone-marrow-deep emotional scars within me from those people. And again, though dad says kind things from time to time, thanks me for favors done, etc., he has never, to this day, really offered a sincere apology for all those years of absolutely abominably ungodly abusive behavior. Noah was not like that. He got drunk and was naked, and his reverent sons covered him. His son Ham thought it was funny and to be ridiculed and went out and blabbed it. That was sinful. I too have committed many sins, but I am repentant, and I did not spend years being grossly abusive to my wife and kids, to their faces, and quoting the BIBLE (making the kids hate God) to justify – DARE to try to justify – my malicious behavior AND STILL demand my “husbandly RIGHTS and authority.” I’ll say it again: If you abuse your family, YOU LOSE THAT RIGHTFUL AUTHORITY. You cheat on your wife? YOU LOSE your “rights” over her body and she has NO OBLIGATION to ever submit to you sexually again and has the RIGHT to divorce you (although not to remarry while you are living, as a Catholic). There are some men who should never have gotten married. My dad, though I love and forgive him, is one of them, and I now face that fact openly. Because of MY background, I will never get married, because I cannot risk subjecting a wife and kids to some of possibly the same continuous, to put it mildly, misbehavior and mistreatment.

Thank you for letting me know that I was not in mortal sin, because getting mad at dad does bother me. God love all of you very much, and please pray for the CONVERSION OF MY DAD. I do love him, but those scars are incredibly deep. And they no more go away than do the scars of a woman who is violently raped, beaten, and left for dead, BY SOMEONE SHE KNEW AND TRUSTED.
 
Have you talked with your priest regarding scrupulosity as has been suggested numerous times already?

You need help discerning what is actually sinful and what is not.
 
I don’t think you are guilty of mortal sin. You are in need of emotional healing. It is hard to be raised with an abusive father. You might try talking to priest and maybe a counselor who can help you. Those emotions are rising up from all the abuse you witnessed and it takes healing to get over those reactions. May God bless you and help you.
 
You protected your mother, kind sir 🙂 There is no sin in that.

Reconcile with your father, for it is good thing to do. Start by explaining him how valuable your mother is to him and you.

If he shows disrespect, he is sinning.
 
Thanks all. Just signed on to this,
and noticed the rest of the comments.
Thank you all very much.

Even though I wasn’t in “mortal sin,” I went and confessed the outburst anyway, and
I’m glad that I did.

These scars go incredibly deep, bone marrow deep,
but still I forgive him. It’s just that when traces of his former really UGLY, INSULTING behavior show themselves, then all the buried pain and former outrage, on my part, comes rising up, too. I don’t like that to happen.

Just like being raised in a Cult. I’m Catholic now, but for decades I believed the doctrines of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and all, ALL , the multi-faceted and multi-layered arguments and group/cultural attitudes that arose from them and surrounded them and gave them their significance. Know what this means? To you guys, never having been JWs,
you can pick up a WATCHTOWER magazine, start to read the ridiculous claims about “CHRISTENDOM” and “BABYLON THE GREAT” and think, rationally, WHO WOULD EVER believe this stuff?? THIS STUFF is ASININE" (( and much of it really IS asinine, too )). But if I pick up that SAME Watchtower magazine and start to read it,
then ALL the “ruts of deeply-indoctrinated JW thinking” RETURN WITH A VENGEANCE, and it’s as if I’m believing all of it, and all the attitudes, fears, and angers that derive from it, all over again, as if I had never, ever converted to the Catholic Faith. I simply cannot read, nor stand the sight of, JW literature for that reason. And every week, while I’m waiting on the bus stop saying my Divine Mercy Chaplet, a JW will come up to me and politely start trying to engage me in conversation, and I’ll let him or her know (very nicely) that I’m familiar with their beliefs, but that I have researched the doctrines of 1st Century Christianity and not found in the early writings ANY TRACE of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’s
Interpretations of the Bible and Christianity and that, in fact, the very, very early, 1st and
2nd Century Christians were all, doctrinally, Catholic.
They are, truly, SURPRISED by that response. They really believe that all the early Christians were, doctrinally, JWs, who apostasized into Catholicism under the influence of wicked old Emperor Constantine in the 4th century A.D. When someone tells them that all the 1st and 2nd century Christian writers all believed Catholic doctrine, they are genuinely surprised and don’t know what to say. It’s the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they have been told. So they thank me for my time, offer me one more time the current Tract of the Day (which I Politely refuse to accept), and then they leave, wishing me a nice day.
It’s best, for things that have really screwed you up royally, like JW-ism did to my mind and emotions and attiitudes, to stay the HELL away from it, no matter how many years have passed since your conversion to Catholicism. I can’t be around the stuff, it just causes me too many, way too many, mental upsets.
Thanks for listening, good folks. God bless all of you.
And please pray for Jehovah’s Witnesses to convert. Please
pray 50 Jesus, Mary, I love you, Save Souls!! prayers, each day, for the conversion
and salvation of 50 Jehovah’s Witnesses EACH DAY, without fail. It would really be a kindness, because these well-meaning people are really, GROSSLY, HORRIBLY misled.
 
Dear brother,
it is kind of you to offer explanations to the Witnesses who approach you. No doubt you are sowing seeds that will bear fruit eventually, for their salvation.
I have to say, your mother may have part of the responsibility for your father acting like a jerk. If my husband brought another woman, his mistress, home and asked me to cook dinner for her, I would throw her out so fast you wouldn’t believe it. Then I’d throw the dinner on the floor, take my kids and go out to a restaurant.
Of course, if one is in an abusive relationship, it’s not so easy, I realize that. I could never have reacted like that in my first marriage, which I had to escape from with the help of friends.
There’s nothing wrong with requiring your father to show respect to your mother, at least in front of you. Perhaps you can help her learn finally to stand up for herself.
God bless.
 
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