Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Part 1. The Responsibilities and Limitations of the Task - 2. Psychology and the Care of Souls - The Object of the Care of Souls
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
PASTORAL PSYCHOLOGY
The Object of the Care of Souls
We have said that Gruehn has succeeded in solving one of
the crucial problems confronting those responsible for the care
of souls today. But other questions arise. Let it be accepted
that a modus operandi can be found in which the two
fundamentally important aspects of man’s nature, the spiritual and the
psychological, are each given its proper emphasis and
treatment; it does not then necessarily follow that the working
programme of the spiritual adviser will have the breadth and
perspective that his psychological training should give it. The
question of the object of the care of souls arises and demands
consideration as a separate problem. Among whom shall a
spiritual adviser work? To whom shall his ministry of healing
be made available?
The German writer, I. B. Scheirer,! says that the care of
souls should be unconditionally anthropocentric. The proper
object of its ministry is man: any fellow human being who needs
the help that can be given has a natural right to receive it. It
is a question only of assisting another soul in distress directly
and with purity of intention. The spiritual adviser is to be
likened to a physician. His simple duty is to afford counsel and
assistance to the full extent of his ability. He can do no more;
he should do no less.
But the spiritual adviser is, in practice, usually in the service
of a religious body or institution that employs and maintains
him. The institution is probably responsible for his being
what he is, and it commands his loyalty. His interest in his
fellow men and women may well derive from this loyalty and
be secondary to it. ‘The first love of the priest is not his ward
but his cause,’ it has been said; and certainly it is often true
that only for the sake of the cause he serves is a priest or
pastor concerned with the life and conduct of other men and
women.
Scheirer insists that a thorough and radical change in motive
is essential before the care of souls can become a truly religious
activity. It must be the expression of a direct, immediate
interest in another human being’s life and destiny, his fortune
or misfortune. Only so can the work be truly done in the name
1 Moderne Seelenpraxis, Gütersloh, 1927.
32
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
