How Does an Emotionally Abusive Relationship Come From Kindness?

It seems like a contradiction to say that anrunning about practicing poverty by not bathing and
emotionally abusive relationship can be the result ofdressing in burlap rags... much to the shame of his
acts of kindness on the part of the minister.father. Francis reportedly also gave away the
But it happens. Especially when kindness is not askedcontents of his father's shop while his father was
for by the targeted person. It is also common foraway.
actions of kindness to have a negative effect onFrancis's father was so distressed by his son's
those who were not direct beneficiaries of the'kindnesses' that he actually locked Francis in a cell in
kindness.their home for a year.
There is a famous example from the Life of SaintKindness, like any intervention into people's lives, can
Francis of Assisi, the son of a wealthy middle-classhave unexpected and even astonishing results.
merchant, who kissed a leper on the lips as an act ofAs with any intervention by a minister into people's
kindness.lives...the minister has to be careful not to cross other
History does not give us the leper's reaction. But it ispeople's boundaries in a way that would render the
not far-fetched to imagine that the leper may notministry ineffective... one that God could not rely on
have appreciated such a symbolic gesture of Francis'sto bring his people safely home.
identification with the poor and marginalized. For allThe link below provides an example from the clinical
we know, the leper may have feared compoundingrecord, not unlike the example of St. Francis, where a
his own illness by catching something equally dreadfulpriest earned a death threat from a man whose
from St. Francis.values were deeply offended by the priest's
Now by the time that happened, St. Francis waskindnesses to his children.