THE MIGHTY ELIJAH PART 5

The Lord is My Shepherd by LDS Bookstore

I used to think that Elijah’s mission to turn our hearts to our fathers solely meant motivation to do proxy baptisms for the dead, as was practiced in the meridian of time according to Paul who used this practice as proof to the Sadducees of the reality of resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:29). Temple work for the dead was well and truly operational in the meridian of time because of Elijah’s visit on Mount of Transfiguration conferring the priesthood power on Peter, James and John (Matt 17:3). Consider, however, how much more can be accomplished by this practice:

"Perhaps we regard the power bestowed by Elijah as something associated only with formal ordinances performed in sacred places.  But these ordinances become dynamic and productive of good only as they reveal themselves in our daily lives.  Malachi said that the power of Elijah would turn the hearts of the fathers and the children to each other.  The heart is the seat of the emotions and a conduit for revelation.  This sealing power thus reveals itself in family relationships, in attributes and virtues developed in a nurturing environment and in loving service.  These are the cords that bind families together, and the priesthood advances their development."  (James E. Faust, Father Come Home, May Ensign 1993)

Sometimes in ‘turning our hearts to our fathers’, some resolutions need to happen and most often than not they involve some form of forgiveness. Some of us hail from dysfunctional families, some from abuse, some from abandonment but all come from flawed humanity. If something is holding you back from the sealing ordinances, know that forgiveness is the key. It will free and change you and it will replace all the grief that is in your heart with unearthly love.

I know something of ‘turning the hearts to the fathers’. I struggled with a sense of powerlessness most of my life. I knew instinctly that this is not who I really am but the feeling persisted for most of my adulthood which led me to feelings of inadequacy.

 

I came to a realisation at one stage that this weakness had come to me from many generations of my family. I come from a long line of poor oppressed European peasants who had lived under the oppression of feudalism followed by socialism, the oppression which drummed into them that they could never rise above their station in life. I had seen this mentality of powerlessness perpetrated in my family throughout my childhood and early adulthood in Europe. I have known my family's negative thoughts and their beliefs that influenced their lives and invited suffering.

 

From the time my family immigrated to Australia when I was 14, and the Gospel came into my life, I could not understand why I was born into my family. I am the different one, the one that seeks and knows and loves God. One day some years ago my frustration over my life which I felt was controlled by this sense of powerlessness sent me to my knees where through bitter tears I spat out to God that I hated my family and all the generations I have come from; that I hated who they were and what they had saddled me with. I felt I could not rise to my potential because of it.

 

I had never expressed such venomous thoughts before, to myself or to others, let alone to God. I begged to understand why I was sent into this family and why I carried their burden.  Within half an hour of my prayer, my heart and mind were flooded with immense understanding.

 

When the Saviour said 'my sheep hear my voice' (John 10:27) he was referring to those who are  spiritually advanced and who, because of it, recognise and wholeheartedly embrace the truth when it is presented to them. Bruce R. McConkie taught that this is a spiritual gift that was developed in pre-earth life (Mormon Doctrine, p 81). I count myself as one of His sheep. I was brought up in a strong Catholic community but I wanted to know God and I found the religion of my youth inadequate. I was 16 years of age when I sought and immediately accepted the Gospel into my life.

 

What has all this got to do with my ancestors? It has everything to do with our hearts being turned to our fathers. It was given to me to understand that those who are His sheep are often sent to families who need a spiritual shepherd. Someone who will, through their belief, give strength to those who need to be saved from their disbelief.

 

I understood through my revelation that what once was a physical oppression of my ancestors had become a spiritual stumbling block. I understood that they still lived in a state of powerlessness even though they had passed over into the spirit world. They needed the saving grace of Christ and they needed saving. When I understood this my heart was ‘turned’ to my fathers and the saving ordinances of the priesthood took on a new meaning for me. This understanding also gave me compassion towards the generations of my family and freed me to be who I truly am and not what my programming made me to be. This energy of freedom, I am convinced, reached my ancestors where they are now and paved the path to acceptance of Christ’s gospel.

 

If you are the shepherd in your family, you stand on holy ground. You do not stand alone. The ultimate Shepherd stands beside you gathering all the sheep. You are in good company. You are the under-shepherd…..yours is a sacred work……

See Father,

I brought home the sheep!

I did all that I could

To save them in my keep.

 

They come to You Father

In whose arms they belong,

They come to You,

Whom they loved all along.

 - CATHRYNE ALLEN 

OF FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS

 

I come from generations of poor peasants. I was born and raised in Croatia to Catholic parents. I remember the wheat fields I ran through, the shepherds and the animals they led to pasture, the Easter of spring and the Christmas of winter. I have not been back there for thirty years now. I don’t know that my heart could take it.

My father was the ultimate patriarch in our home and what he said was law. He was raised that way. He was the oldest of five sons in a small village and as was custom, he was expected to take over the family land and inherit the care of his parents in their old age. My father, however, did not see it that way. He didn’t want the village life so he procured an apprenticeship as a bricklayer in the neighbouring town. My grandfather was furious. He threw a chunk of bread on the floor in front of my father and told him that was the only thing he will ever get from him. Very dramatic…. No support for the path my father had chosen.  My father walked for miles every day, even in the rain, to the town where he worked. No bus for him.

My father had vision. When I was just a toddler he decided to move us to the city where his children would have more opportunities. Unfortunately, the country was part of Yugoslavia back then, under the socialist rule, and the only good opportunities that existed were reserved for anyone who belonged to the communist party. When I was on the cusp of my teenage years, my father’s vision extended all the way to Australia. I was two months shy of turning 14 when we arrived in Sydney. At 16 I was out working in an office and at 17 I went looking for a religion that could answer all the questions that the Catholic Church couldn’t.

I found The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints  in my local library. I inhaled all that I read and I knew I had to be a part of it. There was just one problem. My father decided to be HIS father. The ultimatum was given: to join the Church, I would have to leave home.  My father was beyond crushed when I left.  He did not expect that. My parents would not speak to me for a whole year. We reconciled through the efforts of my sister and a few years thereafter they went back to Croatia.

Since the time I was baptized 50 years ago, I have reflected a lot on that stressful period of my life when I was cut off from my family.  The repercussions of that event in my life have been more than I care to admit. Luckily, the benefits outweighed the sacrifice. My parents have long since passed away and I am still reaping the benefits of my Church membership. I have gone from grace to grace and been brought to higher ground of faith than I had ever imagined was possible. I have forged my own path. 

I have cried ancestral tears over my father since his passing. I have nothing but love and gratitude for him. At the time of our distress when I rejected his word as my law, he was a migrant in a new country and his favourite daughter was, in his eyes, joining a cult. He was trying to protect me. When I think of him, I see him as a little boy in a Croatian village with more than his share of family baggage and generations of incorrect programming. I love that little boy and want to hug him, now more than ever.

When in the realms of heaven I meet my father again, I will thank him for wanting to protect me but most of all I will thank him for his example of bravery in defying his father which I subconsciously followed and which led me into the arms of the Father I love above all and who aches to have us both return to Him . We will then meet at Jesus’ feet and we will remember the time that hurt us both the most but did not divide us forever.

Your life has come and gone

But your footprints remain

And your blood courses through my veins.

The flame of your sacrifices

Burns bright with all its might;

Your legacy, your love,

Your fatherly alms:

Forever etched

In the hollow of my heart.

- CATHRYNE ALLEN 

(Art: Love of the Father by Ilse Kleyn - Fine Art of America)

THE POWER OF ONE

 

 

 

I saw a show recently in which a life of nobility and honour was sullied by misconception and wrongful judgment of a person’s character. This misconception affected a whole generation for many years and cost someone the right to a better life. Grant you, this was only a show but I was fascinated by the possible reality of such a story. I come from a European lineage where an incident of judgment and lack of forgiveness within family members can be a devastating reality that is passed on from one generation to another. Historically, such unresolved family situations have spread so far and wide that they have led to tribal and national wars. One instance that comes to mind is Laman and Lemuel who through their mis-judgment of their brother Nephi’s character (2 Nephi 5:3) morphed from a family division into a national one and affected the whole population of ancient America. Such misconceptions can be passed down and become actual family traditions. It was certainly the case in Lehi’s family where his errant sons’ posterity, the Lamanites, became ‘a wild, and ferocious, and a blood-thirsty people, believing in the tradition of their fathers….(Mosiah 10:12).  This wrongful tradition caused the Lamanites’ to be a ‘scourge’ to the Nephites that led to their destruction (2 Nephi 5:25).  

 

I am always amazed when I hear someone say that they no longer speak to their parents or that they are estranged from some member of their family. Their stubbornness and hardness of heart does not allow for any mercy or empathy that might resolve the situation. I have seen this in my own family between my mother and my grandmother. Their relationship differences became a family animosity that lasted for years. In the end nobody could remember what exactly started it but people clung onto it and my grandmother died not having spoken to her daughter for decades even though they lived across the road from each other. The same stubbornness existed between my father and my grandfather who hardly spoke to one another for years. When I visited Croatia in my 20s I was astounded that my father lived so close to my elderly grandfather and hardly ever visited him. How could you not speak to or care for your elderly parents? I could have passed this hideous ‘tradition’ on to my children but I didn’t and one thing made a difference. I became a follower of Jesus Christ in my youth and became a believer in the importance of family relationships. Later on in my life I learnt the importance of forgiveness and that made all the difference. 

 

Now here is something interesting to be learnt from the story of Nephites and Lamanites who were at each other’s throats for generations. When Alma spoke to the people of Ammonihah, he told them that the Lamanites’ incorrect traditions had caused them to remain in their state of ignorance and because of it the Lord would be merciful to them and that ‘at some period of time they will be brought to believe in his word, and to know of the incorrectness of the traditions of their fathers; and many of them will be saved…’ (Alma 9:16,17). This indicates that innocent people get caught in false beliefs somewhere down the line which is not their fault until the Great Deliverer steps in and through His great mercy delivers them from their ignorance. So you see not all is lost because there is someone greater than us who can lift us out of our human frailties and save us from ourselves. 

 

If you want to see evidence of what one person’s influence can do, read the two book of Kings in the Old Testament. After King Solomon, who turned to worshipping other gods in his later life, the history of Israel went south. One king after another either led the people into idolatry or true worship of Jehovah. Their influence was astounding. One such king stands out to me who is true proof of the power of one. His name was Jeroboam. Because Solomon turned away from the worship of Jehovah, the nation of Israel was divided into northern and southern kingdoms. The northern kingdom consisted of ten tribes who were given into Jeroboam’s hands. This king was chosen and destined for something good and noble (1 Kings 11:26-38). Because of his insecurity, however, he led the 10 tribes into idolatry (1 Kings 12:26-33) from which they never recovered and which eventuated in their scattering. For generations after him, whenever it was recorded that Israel was in apostasy, reference was made to ‘Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin’. This reference became ‘an indelible stigma’ in the history of Israel. I became so transfixed by the influence of this one man that I counted this repeated reference 14 times in the books of Kings (1 Kings 14:16; 15:30, 22:52; 16:26; 2 Kings 15;9,24,28; 13:2; 14:24; 3:3; 10:29; 23:15; 10:29; 17:21). Imagine being known as someone who led a whole nation of people astray and led them to their demise and destruction. Here too, the Saviour’s mercy comes into play as evidenced in all the prophecies of Israel’s scattering and gathering in the latter-days, the beginning of which was started with the restoration of Christ’s Church. 

 

The more I learn about the Saviour, the more I become amazed at how well He manages to understand and save us from so many conditions of life. I spoke to my daughter  yesterday who is trying to un-revel her mental health issues. I asked her if she might consider the possibility that God could heal her. She replied that she needs to own her own journey to health because only she knows herself and which paths she needs to take to bring about her health. I sorrowed to hear her say this because there is one person who actually does know what it is like to be her. I could have argued that point because I had come to know of the Saviour’s healing power myself but she was not open to hear this at this point in her life. I hope that one day the Lord will open her eyes to her own ignorance and that she will seek His healing. It is her life journey and I need to allow her to own it. My parents didn’t allow me my journey when I was a teen and wanted to join the Church. It resulted in a lot of pain for all three of us which estranged me from my family but luckily it didn’t last beyond one year and our family relationship mended. I learnt a lot from that experience. 

 

Wherever you are and whatever difficulties you have experienced within your family, may you realise that forgiveness, love, empathy and mercy begins with you. If these traits are beyond you, then believe that there is someone who can grant you the power to this path. This power is in Him whom we worship and follow; in Him who knows all things and is capable of all things. By the virtue of our discipleship we have the right of access to His perfection of character if only we believe and seek it. May we have the faith to approach the merciful heart of Christ to make of us who we should be so we can be the force of righteousness and light in our families for generations to come. May we allow Him to be the lamp unto our feet now and forever.