The Spirits’ Teachings
Children’s Ingratitude and Family Ties
Ingratitude is one of the most immediate fruits of selfishness. It is always revolting to honest hearts. But the ingratitude of children toward their parents has an even more odious character. It is particularly from this point of view that we will look at ingratitude in order to analyze its causes and effects. In this case, as in all others, Spiritism has come to shed light on one of the problems of the human heart.
When the spirit leaves the earth behind, it takes with it the passions or virtues inherent to its nature, and goes into the spirit world either to perfect itself or to remain at a standstill until it desires to see the light. Some, therefore, depart carrying with them great hatred and insatiable desires for vengeance, but a few of these, more advanced than the others, are allowed to glimpse a bit of the truth. They realize the disastrous effects of their passions and then resolve to do better. They understand that, in order to reach God, there is one password only: charity. However, there can be no charity without forgetting offenses and wrongs; neither can there be charity with hatred in the heart and without forgiveness.
Next, through an unprecedented effort, these spirits look at those they detested while on earth, but at such a sight, their animosity reawakens; they rebel against the idea of forgiveness and even more against self-denial, especially when it means loving those who perhaps destroyed their fortune, honor or family. In spite of this, however, the heart of these unfortunate spirits is shaken. They hesitate and waiver, troubled by their conflicting sentiments. If the resolution to do better wins, they pray to God and implore good spirits to give them strength at the most decisive moment of trial.
Finally, after years of meditation and prayer, the spirit profits from the use of a body that is to be born in the family of the one it used to hate, and it asks the spirits designated to transmit the divine orders to be allowed to fulfill on the earth the destiny of that body that is about to be formed. So, how will it behave as a member of this family? That will depend on the degree of persistence of its resolution to do better. The constant contact with individuals it used to hate is a terrible trial to which it succumbs sometimes if its will is not sufficiently strong. Thus, depending on whether its good or bad resolution prevails, it will either be a friend or enemy of those among whom it has been called upon to live. This is how one can explain those hatreds, those instinctive repulsions that may be observed in certain children and which no previous act seems to justify. In fact, there is nothing in the present existence that could have caused such antipathy. In order to understand it, one must look to the past.
O Spiritists! You must understand humankind’s grand role; you must understand that, when you produce a body, the soul who incarnates in it has come from the spirit world in order to progress; know your duties and put all your love in leading that soul to God. This is the mission that has been entrusted to you and for which you will receive recompense if you faithfully fulfill it. The care and education you give it will help in its self-improvement and future well-being. Remember that God will ask every father and every mother, “What did you do for the children whom I entrusted into your care?” If because of your fault they have remained behind, your punishment will be to see them among the suffering spirits, when it depended on you for them to be happy.
Therefore, do not rebuff the little child who spurns its mother, nor the one who repays you with ingratitude. It was no accident that made it that way and gave it to you. An imperfect intuition about the past is being revealed, from which you may deduce that one or the other of you has hated much or has been greatly offended, and that one or the other has come to forgive or to expiate. Mothers! Embrace, therefore, the child who causes you trouble and say to yourself: One of us was blameworthy! Make yourselves deserve the divine joys that God has bestowed upon motherhood by teaching your children that they are on the earth to improve themselves, to love, and to bless.
When parents have done everything they should for their children’s moral advancement but are unsuccessful nonetheless, they have nothing to reproach themselves for and their conscience can rest easy. But as for the very natural heartache they feel from the failure of their efforts, God reserves a great and immense consolation through the certainty that it is only a delay and that it will be given to them to achieve in another existence the work they began in this one, and that some day their ungrateful children will repay them with love.
God never imposes trials beyond the strength of those who ask for them; he only allows trials that can be accomplished. Regarding those who do not succeed, it is not because they lack the ability but because they lack the will, for there are many who, instead of resisting their evil tendencies, take pleasure in them. It is for these that tears and cries of anguish are reserved in later existences. Therefore, admire the goodness of God, who never shuts the door to repentance. Of all trials, the hardest are those that affect the heart. Some courageously bear misery and material privations but yield to the weight of domestic bitterness, bruised by the ingratitude of their loved ones. Then God’s great justice will be revealed to you and you will wait patiently because you understand what seemed like monstrosities while on the earth, and the wounds you received there will seem like nothing more than scratches. In that glance cast over the whole, family ties will appear in their true light. They are no longer the fragile ties of matter connecting family members, but the lasting ties of the spirit, which continue and consolidate as they purify themselves instead of being broken through reincarnation.
Spirits whose similarity in tastes, identification in moral progress and affection are led to gather together to form families. During their earthly migrations, these same spirits seek one another out in order to group together as they did in the spirit world, and from this, united and homogenous families are born. And if during their pilgrimages they are temporarily separated, they will find one another later, happy for their latest progress. But since they must not work only for themselves, God allows less-advanced spirits to incarnate among them in order to receive counsel and good examples in the interest of their own advancement. These spirits sometimes cause trouble, but that is what comprises the trial, that is where the task lies. Therefore, welcome them as brothers and sisters. Come to their aid, and later, in the world of spirits, the family will be happy for having saved castaways, who, in turn, will be able to save others.
St. Augustine (Paris, 1862)