Generational healing is the healing of the "family flaw." We all come into this world a "mixed bag," that is we come with both healthy and unhealthy characteristics and family traditions. We know also that people born into dysfunctional families are brought up with family laws and practices which can easily develop into serious emotional and physical problems later on in life. Generational healing aims at keeping what is good from our inheritance and rejecting what is harmful.
We carry within our mind and body our family history. This history includes our national, cultural, and religious traditions. We know from psychology that inheritance is a factor in human development. We not only inherit biological traits, but problem solving techniques used by the family and nationality which have been passed down through generations. Our fate is not determined by our ancestry, but inheritance is something that we have to deal with in healing the whole person.
BIOLOGICAL INHERITANCE
Biologists tell us that we can inherit certain strengths and weaknesses. Certain dispositions toward heart disease, cancer, and other physical symptoms can be explained genetically. However, we are finding out that these family traits need not be passed down when generational healing prayer is practiced. Just as an individual can be healed physically through prayer, so a family line can be purified from undesirable traits which the family presumed were an inevitable part of their family tradition.
PHYCHOLOGICAL INHERITANCE
We also know today that certain emotional pathologies can have family roots. We are discovering that types of depression can be found in the family tree. Certain types of destructive behavior such as alcoholism, violence, child abuse, and suicide can become a family tradition by the process known as identification. We tend to identify with powerful models in our family and unconsciously imitate such behavior.
SPIRITUAL INHERITANCE
A family's religious tradition is a powerful influence on health and wholeness. How one views one's self is determined in a large degree on how one is taught to view God. Fear of God has been a traditional technique to control behavior, and many times religious fanaticism has produced prejudices and racial disorders which have seriously affected spiritual growth and development. So much of our violence and wars can be traced back to generational roots which have become a family tradition even though the original cause has been forgotten. So much of national pride is religious prejudice and it has not always had salutary affects on people and communities.
THE HEALING PROCESS
Generational healing through prayer is based on the doctrine and belief of the Communion of Saints. What this doctrine really teaches is that we are all, living and deceased, connected in some way. Saint Paul taught this doctrine under the name of the Mystical Body of Christ. If this doctrine is true, it means that what we do here on earth has an effect on those who have gone before us and vice versa. It also means that we today can make "repair-ation" for the mistakes in our ancestral line and change the effects it has had on us in the present.
This generational healing process has two distinct movements. First of all, it prays for all deceased family members so as to help them attain to the fullness of life which God has in mind for them. Secondly, it prays for the living members that they be set free from the bondage of destructive family traditions and not propagate them to future generations.
PRAYING FOR THE DECEASED
Praying for deceased ancestors has been a religious tradition in both the East and the West. In our Judaic-Christian tradition it has roots in 2Mac.12:43-46 where Judas Maccabee orders that expiatory sacrifices offered for the slain soldiers to make "atonement for the dead that they may be free from sin." This belief is found in the Catholic belief of Purgatory. The common thread in these beliefs is that our ancestors may have left this world with "unfinished business," and that somehow we can "make up" for the deficiency by our prayers and forgiveness.
We believe that this "atonement" is what the Church teaches when we are encouraged to "pray for the souls in Purgatory." We do not have to see this state as one of suffering, but one of completion and healing. Even when a person dies, he/she may need healing and growth to fully participate in the Kingdom of Heaven . We can help these "incomplete souls" by our prayers and forgiveness. These souls are not deprived of the experience of God any more than we are on earth, but they have not yet attained the fullness of their divine inheritance as children of God.
In some way, it seems that our happiness and peace on earth is not complete until our entire family is at peace. Paul says that we are the Body of Christ, "if one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share in the joy." (1Cor.12:26)
The best form of prayer that we can do for our ancestry is forgiveness. We are convinced that many of our ancestors passed over to the other side with regrets about things they should have said or done, but were left undone. We believe that we can free them from these disappointments by releasing all anger or bitterness that was left behind. Jesus told us all, "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. " (Mt.18:18) If we want to be free from ancestral bondage on earth, we must be willing to free our departed ancestors.
Generational healing is basically healing of relationships. We can not afford to hold grudges against anyone, even the deceased. Only in freeing others can we ourselves experience freedom.
PRAYING FOR THE LIVING
Before we begin to pray to be free of any destructiveness which we may have inherited from our family line, we must first express our gratitude for what we have received that is good. Many of the family traits we have received have made life pleasant for us. Many of the good things we take for granted today are the result of hard work and dedication of our ancestors. Most of our immigrant forbearers suffered much so that we could have a good life. We have many personality traits inherited from our ancestors that are beneficial to us. There are many physical and spiritual gifts we have received. So, we begin our prayer for freedom with prayers of thanksgiving.
Jesus told us to pray, "Deliver us from evil."(Mt.6:13) Generational healing is a prayer of deliverance. We are using the direction of the Holy Spirit and the authority of Jesus to cast out of the "collective consciousness" of our family anything which is presently harmful. We say with boldness, "Whatever went on before me in my family background that was destructive, stops here? I reject it, and I will not pass it down!" We break all ties with the past that are a negative influence over the present. This prayer is not to be said in a vague or generalized way. It is to be very specific and said with authority.
HOW TO DO IT?
Dr. Kenneth McAll, in his research and practice in generational healing, has discovered that the celebration of the Eucharist is a powerful prayer for both aspects of this healing.
As far as the deceased are concerned, he is particularly interested in those who died suddenly, violently, from suicides, abortions, and those who died alone, alienated from the family. If any relative has not been properly committed to the Lord, this should be done. Also, any relative involved with violence and who may have killed others should be specifically recommended to the Lord. Even miscarriages and still born babies should be named and given to the Lord. To the best of our knowledge, we should omit no relative, but release them all to God.
As far as the living are concerned, all relatives who seem to be under generational bondage to the family "flaw" should be prayed for in a special way. All sicknesses and diseases which seem to be inherited must be rejected.
At the Eucharist, a family tree should be submitted at the offertory with all this information on it. After this, we trust the prayer of Jesus to free and heal us.
PERSONAL TESTIMONY
Jesus told us, "Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven."(Mt.23:9) In telling us this he is saying that we all have a divine inheritance from our one Source of life. We are to claim and appropriate that inheritance instead of the one we receive from earth.
Family diseases and disorders have been healed by this procedure. I have experienced this healing in my own life. In 1984 I had a heart attack at the age of forty-eight. This came as no surprise because we had a family tradition that said that McCall males die of a heart attack before the age of fifty, or they live to be seventy. Fiftieth birthday parties were always celebrated with this tradition in mind. I was lying on a bed in the intensive care unit of the hospital when I realized what I had done. I had accepted the family tradition and did what was expected of me, that is, to die of a heart attack before fifty. I immediately renounced my family tradition and affirmed life in the Name of Jesus Christ. Although I had a serious heart attack, I was back to work in five months.
This was a case of generational healing. On an unconscious level I was identifying with the family trait and setting myself up to follow my ancestral heritage. It was not until I realized it and renounced it that I could be healed.
I can testify from personal experience that we do not have to see ourselves as victims of our family diseases and disorders. The healing power of Jesus is greater than our family traditions. |
