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Question Title	Posted By	Question Date
Spirit of Jezebel	Lee	Saturday, January 19, 2013
Question: Dear Brother, After trying the seven steps for self delivery, I contacted you four years ago for a personal consultation because of the problems I was having in my family life. You did not find anything in my history. I fasted and prayed for four months before learning my problems were caused by the spirit of narcissism with my mother-in-law. We have been unable to do much beyond some personal protection. Just when I think we are free, another nasty note shows up. We still suffer from the lies she tells, and she keeps involving my Husband's siblings where they don't belong. Is it possible to stop this spirit from interfering with our peace? Thank you. Lee
Question Answered by Bro. Ignatius Mary, OMSM(r) Dear Lee: I am sorry to hear that problems are continuing with your mother-in-law. Your mother-in-law probably needs psychiatric help as well as spiritual help. Such help is not possible, and thereby healing unlikely, unless she chooses to ask for help. You can pray that God will try to convince her to seek help, but the choice will be hers as God does not intrude upon anyone's free will. The spirits of narcissism and especially that of Jezebel are difficult spirit to cast out. Narcissism prevents a person from seeing anything beyond themselves, and from taking responsibility for one's actions, and the Jezebel spirit is a tenacious and unrelenting spirit that will do anything to cause trouble. All that anyone can do is to pray for the mother-in-law generally, and perhaps pray the proxy prayers that our in our Spiritual Warfare Prayer Catalog, linked below. But, ultimately the decision to work towards freedom and healing is the mother-in-law's. For your own family, the protection prayers in our Catalog are appropriate, but in the long run more drastic measures may be necessary. In extreme cases, when all else fails, it is sometimes necessary to walk away from family members and have nothing more to do with them for the protection and peace of one's own marriage and family. In essence, to divorce the family member. In even more intense situations this may even require changing one's telephone number, and in still more intense situations, even moving to another location. This advice comes not only from the point-of-view of spiritual self-protection, but also from both a psychological and spiritual concern for the errant family member. As long as a relationship is maintained with the abuser, the abuser is enabled to continue with the abuse. Our tolerance encourages continued abuse. We do no one any favors by doing this. From both a psychological and a spiritual perspective enabling dysfunctional behavior does far more harm than good to everyone. St. Paul teaches a principle whereby members of the Church family may need to be cast out (excommunicated) [1 Cor. 5:1-5]. As a last resort excommunication is necessary. Excommunication is an act of love. It is telling the errant person that his behavior is so egregious that he can no longer be in communion with the Church family. This measure is done in hopes that it will be a slap in the face to the errant person to wake him up to realize that he must change. The hope and purpose is always for reconciliation someday. The same "excommunication" must also be done as a last resort in our own families sometimes. To not do this is to enable the family member's dysfunctional behavior thereby not providing the person any motivation to change. Enabling causes everyone to lose. The only other option would be to stop struggling over it and to accept as mortification the suffering that is caused by the mother-in-law. Offer the suffering back to God for the healing of your mother-in-law. If doing this option, then you and your spouse must willingly accept the suffering without complaint. Otherwise, the "excommunication" measure may be necessary. We will be praying for you, your family, and for the mother-in-law. God Bless, Bro. Ignatius Mary For information on how to receive help see our Help page. We suggest that before contacting us directly for help you try the Seven Steps to Self-Deliverance. These self-help steps will often resolve the problem. Also our Spiritual Warfare Prayer Catalog contains many prayers that may be helpful. If needed you can ask for a Personal Consultation.

Question Title

Posted By

Question Date

Spirit of Jezebel

Lee

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Question:

Dear Brother,
After trying the seven steps for self delivery, I contacted you four years ago for a personal consultation because of the problems I was having in my family life. You did not find anything in my history. I fasted and prayed for four months before learning my problems were caused by the spirit of narcissism with my mother-in-law. We have been unable to do much beyond some personal protection. Just when I think we are free, another nasty note shows up. We still suffer from the lies she tells, and she keeps involving my Husband's siblings where they don't belong. Is it possible to stop this spirit from interfering with our peace?
Thank you.
Lee

Question Answered by Bro. Ignatius Mary, OMSM(r)

Dear Lee:

I am sorry to hear that problems are continuing with your mother-in-law. Your mother-in-law probably needs psychiatric help as well as spiritual help. Such help is not possible, and thereby healing unlikely, unless she chooses to ask for help.

You can pray that God will try to convince her to seek help, but the choice will be hers as God does not intrude upon anyone's free will.

The spirits of narcissism and especially that of Jezebel are difficult spirit to cast out. Narcissism prevents a person from seeing anything beyond themselves, and from taking responsibility for one's actions, and the Jezebel spirit is a tenacious and unrelenting spirit that will do anything to cause trouble.

All that anyone can do is to pray for the mother-in-law generally, and perhaps pray the proxy prayers that our in our Spiritual Warfare Prayer Catalog, linked below. But, ultimately the decision to work towards freedom and healing is the mother-in-law's.

For your own family, the protection prayers in our Catalog are appropriate, but in the long run more drastic measures may be necessary.

In extreme cases, when all else fails, it is sometimes necessary to walk away from family members and have nothing more to do with them for the protection and peace of one's own marriage and family. In essence, to divorce the family member. In even more intense situations this may even require changing one's telephone number, and in still more intense situations, even moving to another location.

This advice comes not only from the point-of-view of spiritual self-protection, but also from both a psychological and spiritual concern for the errant family member. As long as a relationship is maintained with the abuser, the abuser is enabled to continue with the abuse. Our tolerance encourages continued abuse. We do no one any favors by doing this. From both a psychological and a spiritual perspective enabling dysfunctional behavior does far more harm than good to everyone.

St. Paul teaches a principle whereby members of the Church family may need to be cast out (excommunicated) [1 Cor. 5:1-5]. As a last resort excommunication is necessary. Excommunication is an act of love. It is telling the errant person that his behavior is so egregious that he can no longer be in communion with the Church family. This measure is done in hopes that it will be a slap in the face to the errant person to wake him up to realize that he must change. The hope and purpose is always for reconciliation someday.

The same "excommunication" must also be done as a last resort in our own families sometimes. To not do this is to enable the family member's dysfunctional behavior thereby not providing the person any motivation to change. Enabling causes everyone to lose.

The only other option would be to stop struggling over it and to accept as mortification the suffering that is caused by the mother-in-law. Offer the suffering back to God for the healing of your mother-in-law. If doing this option, then you and your spouse must willingly accept the suffering without complaint. Otherwise, the "excommunication" measure may be necessary.

We will be praying for you, your family, and for the mother-in-law.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary

For information on how to receive help see our Help page. We suggest that before contacting us directly for help you try the Seven Steps to Self-Deliverance. These self-help steps will often resolve the problem. Also our Spiritual Warfare Prayer Catalog contains many prayers that may be helpful. If needed you can ask for a Personal Consultation.