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By LOA Editorial Office,
A great responsibility falls on spouses for the gift and task entrusted to them: since they are fertile, it is up to them to populate the earth (cf. Gen 1:28), raising a new generation for the Lord (cf. Eph 6:4).
St John Paul II taught us: “According to the plan of God, […] the very institution of marriage and conjugal love is ordained to the procreation and education of children, in whom it finds its crowning. […] When they become parents, spouses receive from God the gift of a new responsibility. Their parental love is called to become for the children the visible sign of the very love of God, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.”Spouses cannot close themselves off from the gift of fertility, destroying it even through the contraceptive mentality, not to mention using contraceptives to prevent conception or – worse still – early abortifacient drugs. By doing so, they act contrary to God’s plan and break their own marital vows, in which they declared that they would accept any progeny that God wished to grant them. The use of early abortifacient means (such as intrauterine devices or hormonal tablets) makes parents the killers of their own children. God wishes to grant us offspring, and He certainly knows our needs and capacities and has our best interests in mind. Thanks to knowledge available concerning recognition of their own fertility, spousescan responsibly benefit from this wonderful gift.
St John Paul II reminds us: “The human family, disunited by sin, is reconstituted in its unity by the redemptive power of the death and resurrection of Christ. Christian marriage, by participating in the salvific efficacy of this event, constitutes the natural setting in which the human person is introduced into the great family of the church” (FC 15). This means that it is the parents themselves who must look afterthe proper development of their children, above all in the religious sphere, helping them to develop a personal relationship with God. St John Chrysostom deplored: “How much trouble everyone goes to in order to teach children art, science and speech, and no one worries about their souls! I will not cease to admonish you […] That you must first and foremost raise your children well”. It is obvious that Satan, who “was a murderer from the beginning and did not persevere in the truth” (John 8:44), will try everything to distract our children from God, suggesting temptations in the form of easily accessible pornography, alcohol and narcotics, as well as magic practices that violate the first commandment, such as horoscopes, amulets, make-believe sorcery and various toys which encourage evil behaviour. How does one protect children from these attacks of the devil?
I had the opportunity to meet and speak with the converted witch Patrycja Hurlak, a Polish actress who from her childhood had been tormented by demons, only finding freedom after conversion and exorcism. I asked her how concerned parents could recognise a situation in which their children found themselves under the influence of evil spirits. Her answer was the following: “I am very radical these days. I’ll say this: if you won’t pray with your children, don’t expect them to pray on their own. If you won’t read the Bible with them, at least one verse a day, don’t expect that they won’t err. If you try to correct the problem only after the symptoms appear, it’s already too late. You have to implement preventive measures. For example, if you don’t take care of your car, it will give you trouble.Of course, you can’t compare raising children with taking care of a car, but if you don’t take preventive measures when symptoms appear, you find out about everything too late. And your actions have to be consistent. If, for example, parents prohibit children from reading their horoscopes but read them themselves, this will most likely have an effect on the children. There are also a lot of dangerous toys that drive children into the world of demons; television and newspapers also contribute to this. In some fairy tales, even some very well-known ones, there are subliminal messages affecting the child’s subconscious and introducing pornographic elements. I don’t mean to demonise the reality around us, but this is connected with the grooming of future clients for pornographic services – it is business. For example, if a naked woman or some copulating animals turn up somewhere in a movie, our minds won’t even register it, but the imagewill be impressed on the subconscious. So it doesn’t surprise me that your children become addicted to pornography. And I don’t mean that you have to ban your children from everything. It just means that you can’t lead someone to a place which is not familiar to you. If parents consider themselves to be believers but don’t pray with their children, it means that the parents themselves are already lost. The child has to learn the kerygmata, that is, the basic tenets of the faith, from a very early age. When parents come to me worried about something like the fact that their fifteen-yearold daughter is conjuring up spirits, I immediately ask them: do you live in a state of sanctifying grace? If our lives as parents diverge from the life of the Gospel, there is a huge probability that our children will fall on the field of spiritual battle. In our town, there was a time when you could see posters on the trams and buses that asked “Do you know what your teenager is doing?” The question is posed years too late. We should always be interested in the lives of our children and participate in them, not imposing anything on them by force. We should devote time to them, take interest in their problems, encourage them to deepen their interests, always promote good things to them and warn them against evil. Our lives should be a testimony to our faith, because if it diverges from what we teach our children, nothing will come from the teaching. Parents’ greatest efforts notwithstanding, Satan can sometimes find a way into our children’s hearts. This should not surprise us. After all, “the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour” (1Pet 5:8). If we participate in the lives of our children and don’t leave them without care, we will be able to notice quickly that something is not as it should be. Patrycja Hurlak points out that her parents didn’t notice anything wrong in her anxieties and esoteric interests because they themselves were not involved in the life of the Church. A child turning its back on the sacred is the first indicator that the evil spirit may have influence over them. If it turns out that a child is afraid of the dark, perhaps it is worth blessing the room with holy water and finding out the reasons for those fears. Sometimes there are unidentifiable sicknesses which astonish the doctors, and then it may be worth praying over the child and examining our consciousness to see if through our sin Satan didn’t find a way into the heart of our child. For example, some people superstitiously tie a red bow to a child’s pushchair, thereby giving access to the demon. Parents create an effective protective shield around their children when they take care of the family’s sacramental and prayerful life. You do not have to see the devil in everything; as Patrycja says: “the believing parent will notice that something is not right with their child.” Her advice is to entrust the child to the Mother of God from the moment of conception. So, with childlike trust, we have to turn to God and remain in perpetual unity with Him, praying together as a family, reading the Bible and regularly participating in the Eucharist. Then God will be able to fulfil His promise: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) Mirosław Rucki We encourage you to take up the burden of remaining in Christ and caring for mutual love. Sometimes in our surroundings there are no married couples who are willing to do so. This is why we encourage you to join the Movement of Pure Hearts in Marriage. Thanks to MPHM, we can remain aware that we are not alone on this path. In order to join the MPHM, you need only desire to go through life with Jesus. Go to confession with your spouse, and after receiving Holy Communion, recite the Prayer of Entrustment. To join the MPHMC, talk to each other and make a joint decision to abandon contraception, pornography, immorality and selfishness, which destroy the unity of marriage. Give all your sins to Jesus in confession, and after receiving Holy Communion, say together the Prayer of Entrustment of the MPHMC. Please inform our editorial staff about your joining the MPHMC by sending us your address, your dates of birth and the date you join the MPHMC. We will then put your names in the Book of Pure Hearts and will send you a special blessing. With Christ’s blessing Source: https://loamagazine.org/archive/2015/2015-32/the-movement-of-pure-hearts-for-married-couples-3 The above article was published with permission from Miłujcie się! in September 2020.
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