Pastoral care is part and parcel of holistic growth. We know that growth does not happen overnight – it implies a change in time. While growing, it is so easy to go from one extreme to the other. Hence, growth needs a lot of monitoring and one way of monitoring growth is for the carer to adopt what Rollo May calls “creative consciousness of self”. What is it about?
In order to clarify his concept, May makes use of a psychological term that is concomitant with consciousness, ie ecstasy. The latter means “to stand outside one’s self.” The pastoral carer is expected to take an objective glance at what is occurring in herself/himself while ministering. To use Aeschylus’ words, as put in the mouth of Orestes, it means “to go behind things, beyond hours and ages, and be all things in all time…”
An authentic pastoral identity comes about when the carer ceases to fall prey to an “all turned inward” pastoral perspective. On the contrary, s/he should start a process whereby s/he will turn his/her own gaze outwards. This outward gaze reminds me of Jesus’ generous gaze. “As he went ashore he saw a great throng, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things” (Mk 6, 34). Teaching was the need people had at that moment. Jesus could minister to these people when he saw their situation, ie he felt and understood their need and let his compassion motivate him to respond to it. In order not to neglect them, Jesus had to step outside himself to care for them.
Simone de Beauvoir wrote that “life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and surpassing itself”. Living implies change, otherwise a human is not worth living. The worth livingness of a pastoral life lies precisely in its continual self-reflection in the hope that it will improve in itself as well as to those it is called to serve. Standing on the mountain peak of reflection is essential for a caring pastor. Through this arduous, painful, and struggling process of reflection, the pastor can gain new insights as to where s/he is and where s/he has to go.
New pastoral insights come along only when the pastor affords spending time engaging with her/his own reflective travail. This struggle to be can be likened with the sorrowful woman who is in travail because she is expecting her hour to deliver a child. When the child is delivered she is enraptured with joy for her offspring and forgets completely the anguish she has endured (see Jn 16, 21). Even if the struggle to be a pastor involves discipline, it is through such travail that the pastor can create himself/herself, become free and is redeemed and affirmed. If s/he dares to open herself/himself up to the challenging yet healing journey of change, the struggle to be becomes the adventure of a new way of being. So, “Eph’phatha,” that is, “Be opened.” (Mk 7, 34).
Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap
San Gwann