Family Hostility . . . Just Sayin'

[Aya Sophia]

In families in which one member (A) has been moving along an (implicity or explicitly) spiritual path while others have not (or seem to have not), that member, without having come anywhere near a soap box or having done anything in particular (that he is aware of) to provoke another member (B) and having no animosity toward B or any other member (that he is aware of) may find B so intensely provoked that the B A once knew seems to have disappeared into dark chasm of hostility.

 

It may be that A, having intentionally chosen the spiritual path and become "better" (as in, receiving healing from the Physician), becomes more attractive to those with a spiritual eye while, in inverse ratio, becoming less attractive to those with a carnal eye, to those unable or unwilling to see or simply not interested in the interior man, fully engaged as they are (or seem to be) in the material world in which the drama of their lives is unfolding.  Sin and a sinful disposition (a disinclination toward God and the things of God that plays itself out materially in the choices one makes in one's daily life) may also be at work. 

 

In such a scenario, A may become so unattractive to B as to become objectified by B as a scapegoat and the focus of a very pure ire so that all B's hatred and hatreds may find their end in the person of A (A may also notice that the more A becomes equated in the mind of B with the "institutional Church", the more distilled B's hatred becomes).

 

A's response is, first, to continue without animosity toward B knowing that the matter is summed up very simply, as follows:  B is in need of a Physician, as A was and continues to be.  Secondly, A holds B in prayer (and B's immediate family as well as they all suffer the ill effects of B's spiritual illness, ingesting the second hand smoke).

 

 

[AccountDeleted]

A sounds very sure of A's superiority over B.

 

Perhaps that is what is upsetting B?

[Aya Sophia]

Different, certainly.  Not superior (vis. A's equating self w/B in being both in need of a Physician). 

 

 

[AccountDeleted]

A should focus less on B and more on God. Just saying...

[Aya Sophia]

Roger that.  Focus on love.

[CatherineM]

I'm the only child, grandchild or great grandchild who is still a practicing Catholic. I don't feel superior, just a bit out numbered and lonely.

[Gabriela]

I've experienced this from A's perspective. I do think sometimes the source is not A feeling superior, but B's own insecurity and hatred of God/the Church, which is elicited by A's love of the same. It's as if B sees the things s/he hates embodied in A, and so begins to hate A. (Incidentally, last night I learned about network theory, and they call this "hatred-by-association" phenomenon "transitivity". So it's a real, empirically verified thing, y'all.)

 

It's sad, and really hard, but do focus on love and watch out for condescension or anything else that could give B reason to hate.