Session 4 the 5 cardinal points

Healing of Families Seminar26th Nov 2014

Session III

5 Cardinal Points

Conducted by:-

5 Cardinal Points• To understand how the evil

one can infiltrate our lives/our family system & cause sufferings & pain, we need to understand 5 fundamental points

• These are the areas where the EO looks for an opportunity to hook onto

• These 5 cardinal points are very, very important

• They apply to every human being

• We ignore them at our own peril!

5 Cardinal Points

I. We’re created of both a physical & a spiritual nature

• God created us with a body & spirit

• St Paul in Rom8:16“It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God..”

• God’s Spirit is the Holy SpiritOur spirit is human spirit

• Since God is Spirit, our spirit is closer to the nature of God than our body is.

• This is where we relate with God – Spirit to spirit

Body & spirit are one• Our body & spirit are always

together – we only separate at death

• Whatever goes on at any given moment in my life, I’m both physical & spiritual in it at the same time

• Whatever happens in my body happens in my spirit

• Whatever happens in my spirit happens in my body.

Mutual Effect• Things can come into my life

thro my body & reach my spirit

• Or they come into my life thru my spirit & affect my bodyEamples: sickness – i) Sick body “can’t pray”ii)Unforgiveness/ulcersiii) “You may prosper & be in good health, just as your soul(spirit) prospers.”3 John 1: 2

• They mutually affect each other, for good or bad

Instructing my spirit

• Just as I need to take care of my body, so also for my spirit

• Just as I need to instruct, educate or form my body, so do I need to educate my spirit.

• My spirit also needs to be witnessed to- it doesn’t naturally have faith in the right God (effect of original sin)

How does our spirit relate to others?

• I relate to others not only physically but also spiritually every time whether I like it or not

• If I’m a parent, what’s going on btwn the spirits of my children & my own spirit?

• What about btwn my spirit & the spirit of my spouse?

• What about between my spirit & that of my boss if I’m an employee?

• What if I’m the boss?• If I have any kind of

(physical) authority (as in the physical world) the effect upon the spirit of another is greater because our spirit nature is very sensitive to authority

How does our spirit relate to other?

Price of Ignorance

• Our biggest problem is when we don’t know/understand or forget this cardinal truth as we go about our daily life

• The evil one know this and will take advantage of it & make a mess of our life.

II. We’re created attached to other people

A Study in England found out that every child born leaves behind some of its cell so that the next baby takes up these cells in their body!

No man is an island !

• Many people like to think they come into this world alone – me & me alone

• Truth is we’re attached to others

• We came from our mum & dad – takes 2 to make me!

• For 9 months, I was attached to mummy

• She was my life line!

Attachment - God’s Gift

• Attachment is for my survival & is intended by God to bless me

• New-born babies cannot survive on their own

• Many children in the world today & in the past die because of lack of attachment!

Attachment – Physical & spiritual

• Attachment is not only physical but also spiritual (Cardinal Pt. 1)

• If I’m attached to my mum physically, I’m also attached to her spiritually

• God uses this attachment not only for my survival but also to pass down the blessings He intends for my family - “Inheritance System”

• This attachment is the channel by which the Inheritance System works

Inheritance System

Ancestors

Us

Descendants

Blessings

GOD

“Attachment” & “Inheritance System”

• Unfortunately, if these blessings(intended by God) received by our ancestors are converted to non-blessing because of their freedom of choice, these also get passed down the same “Inheritance System”

• When sin gets into the system, it corrupts it

“Attachment” & “Inheritance System”

Ancestors

Us

Inheritance System

Descendants

Non blessings or curses

Sin

Consequences of Parental Choices• When people we are attached to

refuse God’s blessings, we miss out too

• If people we are attached to make mistakes, we pay the price(consequence of the mistake)Examples:

TYT Tun Taib Muhd & Saddam Hussein & the fate of their children

Effects of Choices• TYT Tun Taib Muhmd

- children of a rich man- benefit from their father’s wealth- surrounded by money, comfort & luxury

• Saddam Hussein- children of a dictator- enjoy power for a while- grew up terrorizing people- dead at 25

• Children of both are affected by the choices of their parents• Many people pay a high price for the choices made by their parents

Family-link

• This attachment links up the family members, even in the case of adoption

• If there’s problem in the family, it’s OUR problem, not just individual because of attachment

• This attachment works both ways - for good or for bad.

• God intends it for good but I have been given the free will to choose to use it for blessing or curse

“Family Scape-goats”

“You may eventually come to understand that because there was a bondage in the family & someone had to carry it, your siblings carrying it & thus not making it in life freed you to become successful, despite all appearances of hard work on your part.”

“In other words, you went through because your siblings didn’t & got trapped. If they hadn’t gotten trapped, maybe you would have been trapped instead!” (Fr Joe’s book)

Individualism is deceptive

• Reason why individualism is so deceptive & destructive!

• If I only think of myself, that I have nothing to do with the family’s problem, that I can do what I want or like because it’s my life, I may be the open door to suffering & pain for my loved ones now & generations to come.

• Such attitude may also prevent me from detecting what may really be going on in the lives of the family!

“Blind Spot”

• Individualism creates “blind spot that necessarily turns us in the wrong direction as we begin to look for the answers to our problems” (Fr Joe’s book)

Jesus came to put right the System

• When God sent Jesus Christ, He did not change the system

• Jesus was part of His Holy Family system!

• He came to correct the faulty system and transform it to be as God intended it to work for us

III. Our most important & fundamental choices in life are made for us by others

• Who are your parents?• Their race?• When & where

were you born?• Which child are

you in the family?• Were you given away

for adoption?• What school did you

attend?

• What neighbourhood did you grow up in?

• What was the religion of your family where your lived your childhood?

• What kind of upbringing did you have? Rich, poor, happy family, strife-filled family,….

• Etc…

Life’s Fundamental Choices• Fundamental choices &

most important decisions in our lives have been made for us by others.

• God put the power for such decisions for our lives in the hands of others(our parents/ guardians), to make the best choices because of our age

• This is to ensure our survival & also that we become useful people in life.

• These decisions are beyond our control but have profound impact on our lives – shape & mould us

• Whatever later decisions we make in life are built on top of these fundamental ones

Physical & spiritual effect of choices

• If those fundamental decisions were bad/wrong, we would have turned out differently!(eg. religious cult)

• We’re both physical & spiritual

• “Whatever choice our parents or families made for us in the body(*), had a spiritual connotation to it. And conversely, the spiritual choices(**) they made for us had bodily connotations to them”(Fr Joe’s book)* choice of school** Dedication to the spirits

Effects of Guardian’s Personal choices• The spiritual & bodily

choices our parents/guardians /ancestors made for their personal lives also have equally the same effect on us & our lives – whether we were there or even before we came about!

• How? Through the attachment link

• Egs. the job my dad chooses (oil rig), the occult my grandmother practiced

Our personal history is Important

• Our “personal history” plays a very pivotal part in our life & our present situation, especially when we want to discern how to pray effectively for a particular sticky, messy, problem confronting us or our family.

IV. The power of our spoken words

IV. The power of our spoken words

• God creates the world out of nothing just by talkingGenesis 1

God spoke & what He said happened

• God made us body & spirit & our spirit part is the closest to God for God is Spirit (Jn 4: 24)

• We share in our spirit that godly quality of God’s Spirit with which He created things simply by talking.

• Our spoken words have the power to bring things into existence

• We create our world with our words!

Physical & spiritual power of words• Since we are both body &

spirit our words are therefore not only physical but naturally spiritual too.“They therefore have a spiritual effect on the person, & consequently end up having a material effect that you finally observe.” (HOF Book)

• “We speak our words & they become flesh on & in people.” (HOF Book)

• That’s why we can build people up with our words or tear them down in the same way.

Spiritual Power of words• Jas 3: 6 -10 – “James

calls the tongue a fire, a restless evil, a deadly poison, & says that it curses. All this because it is a vehicle of something with a spiritual creative power – the word.”

• Book of Sirach (23: 7 -15) warns about the terrible consequences of swearing in one’s life:-- such as Guilt, sin’s doubly great, scourge/affliction in the household, death

• Swearing are words• Because of the terrible

consequences, God forbids us from swearing & even making oaths in His Name

Power of Words

• The power is in the nature of the words we speak.

• Eg. Of a gun being triggered unintentionally but the nature of the bullet is to shoot & kill

Creative Power to bless

• God shares with us this creative power of words that we speak goodness into the world around us, into people’s lives

• That we may bless those under our authority first, & any other person we come across as well, that they may be bless.

• The more physical authority we have over another’s life, the more spiritual power our words carry for that person

Example: Parent-childTeacher-student, Employer-employeePriest-faithfulBishop-priest

Power To Destroy• Many lives are filled with

unnecessary burdens because human words of life were not spoken to them or because bad words of nonlife were spoken to them

• Nonlife words affect people negatively, even when the speaker doesn’t intend a nonblessing.

Parents Take Note !

• If parents say negative words of nonblessing to their child, more often than not those words will carry through because God does not suppress the effective nature of the gift of the power He has given for the good.

• God’s gifts are irrevocable (Rom 11: 29)

• As parents, we need to avoid nonblessing words, esp. curse words!

Make a difference with words

• “Bless those who persecute you, bless & do not curse them.”Rom 12:14

• As we bless, we speak life into them

• We effect some improvement in them to which God will add as He sees fit

• If I curse instead, I’ll be adding sth bad & things will only get worse!

• Blessing is survival for us & improvement for the persecutor.

• Both come out better!• In real life situation, more

often than not, we response with nonblessing words!

• And the situation worsens!

For the “boss” – From Fr Joe

• “Speak good things to your employees & they will do better; the workplace will become fun, & at the end of the day, you will even make more money because everyone is working better.”(HOF Book)

• “Instead, we unknowingly use our own power of the word against our own workplaces & our employees even when we are the boss, injuring our own finances while earnestly, and devoutly sometimes, praying to God to improve them!”

God’s Call to Bless• As God’s people(priests or

laity), we have been commissioned & empowered by Him to speak to others in His Name

• This God is always blessing(His nature) & He wants us to continuously convey that nature of His so that His people may be blessed.

• Even when they are bad, they are to be blessed. In fact, that is when they most need the blessing, that it may help them revive them.

• Use our words to bless, bless, bless. It is good for everybody, anywhere, all the time.

• Fr Joe’s practice of blessing baby in the womb

• 1st Miracle after Pentecost in Acts 3

• Peter & John, using the Name of Jesus, brought healing to the cripple

• The Jewish elders asked- “By what power, or by what name, have you done this?” Acts3: 16

“Let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health, by the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth….for there is no other Name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” Acts4: 10-12

V. The power of the Name of Jesus

• “And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using My Name they will cast out demons,…”Mk 16: 17

“Therefore God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the Name, so that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bend, in the heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Phil.2: 9 – 11

V. The power of the Name of Jesus

Power & Jesus’ Name are synonymous

• The power & the Name of Jesus are synonymous

• Many times in the Gospels, Jesus told His disciples to pray in His Name to the Father & the Father will hear those prayers

• Many prayers of the Catholic Church end :-“We ask this in the Name of Jesus the Lord”“Grant this through Our Lord Jesus Christ Your Son”

• “In” & “Through” are the same thing in the language that Jesus spoke

Salvation in the Name of Jesus

• St Peter declared that only by the Name of Jesus we can be saved.

• Goodness alone doesn’t saved people

• When Jesus came into world, there were good people

• He came because goodness alone does not save anyone. We are saved because we believe in Jesus. Jesus saves!

• Parable of the TalentsMat 25: 14 - 30The man’s honesty(v25) didn’t earn him heaven- he was thrown out!

Mat 25: 30

The Most Powerful Name

• When we used the Name of Jesus, we call upon the whole salvific act – Jesus’ passion, death, resurrection, Holy Spirit, etc…

• There’s tremendous power in the Name of Jesus – the most powerful Name

• When we pray in the Name of Jesus, we shall be using the power naturally invested in our words & also calling upon the most powerful Name, Jesus

• The power of spoken words & the power of the Name of Jesus are power tools given by God to us !

5 Cardinal Points -Recap

Conclusion• These 5 Cardinal Points are

meant to bless us• We need to understand them,

use them & safeguard them as God intended

• Failure on our part can result in so much pain & sufferings in our lives & future generations because of satan who is always distorting God’s gifts for the purpose of SKD