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GHAPTER VI
PASTORAL ADVICE
PASTORAL advice is an important part of the task of
caring for souls. The reminder is hardly necessary that one
need not be physically or mentally ill, or struggling with
feelings of guilt, fear or shame before one takes counsel with a
spiritual adviser. His advice may be sought about religious
matters or the practical concerns of daily life.
Of course, the fact must be recognised that a person
sometimes seeks advice for both an outward and an inward reason.
That is to say, behind the ostensible purpose of his visit there
is a concealed need or a motive of which he is not aware. Very
often this is the enquirer’s strongest reason for asking help in
spiritual matters. Again, the problems presented to the adviser
for his consideration may be merely a disguise behind which
more intimate and important dilemmas and difficulties lurk.
They may remain unexpressed, nevertheless they are there,
and it is part of the responsibility of the pastoral adviser to
cultivate a hearing ear and a seeing eye so that he can dispense
the help that is needed as well as that which is sought.
Some problems are concerned directly with the religious
life. Others arise from secular situations that can have
socalled religious consequences. Sometimes social problems are
translated into religious terms. They are only apparently
religious. Often the seekers of advice are people suffering from
illness who come for spiritual counsel on the recommendation
of a physician or on their own initiative. A large group is
composed of people whose personal problems are of a purely
practical kind occasioned by everyday living conditions.
The Primary Religious Problems
Essentially religious questions can be of a perplexing
diversity, sometimes covering the whole gamut of spiritual experience.
They can be serious and trivial, they can touch the heights and
the depths. They may arise from dissonances in the realm of
the spirit and man’s search for harmony through religion, or
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