V. PASTORAL CARE
46.
The problems the Commission has been given to deal with are theological
problems and have been dealt with theologically; but the concern
of the Commission is also a practical, that is, a pastoral one.
The Commission has dealt with the question of the sacramental aspects
and the lifelong character of the marriage of one man and one woman
of whatever Church, and with what our Churches can say and do in
the immediate situation in which we live to enable that man and
woman to live together in marriage under the Lordship of Christ.
47.
The Church has always been acutely aware that it does not live in
an ideal world, and over the years the different communions have
developed their own ways of preparing people for marriage. Generally
these provisions for pastoral care have been worked out by the Churches
in isolation from each other, and even in opposition to each other.
However, the crisis the Churches face today in a world that has
to a considerable extent rejected the Christian faith lays upon
all Churches the common task of exercising a stronger prophetic
and pastoral mission. needless to say, the pastoral mission should
not be concerned exclusively with the casualties of marriage but
should aim to play a constructive role in building up individual
marriage and in the realization and fulfilment of our human potentialities.
Moreover, the mission could be more effectively carried out, it
is believed, if it could be regarded as a common task to be dealt
with by the Churches working together in concrete situations, such
as a common approach to mixed marriages and even common celebrations
of the marriage rite through the use of common liturgical elements.
48.
Although it is aware that it is working in a constantly changing
situation and that the need for pastoral care in relation to marriage
can never be precisely anticipated, the Commission has identified
a number of areas where special attention must be given to the nature
of the pastoral care likely to be required.
1.
The nature of pastoral care
49.
In the first place the Church must give attention to what it will
mean by pastoral care, assisting both pastor and people to come
to a deeper understanding. The Commission recognizes the broad dimensions
of this pastoral task. It is persuaded that marriage counseling
as generally conceived is only a part of the pastoral responsibilities
of the Church and, in fact, cannot be done apart from the larger
job. It is persuaded also that the care for the needs of individuals
and families is not the task of the pastor alone but is the responsibility
of the whole Church. Members of the Church have by virtue of their
vocation an obligation of mutual care for one another, of providing
insofar as they are able a community of grace in which everyone
may find comfort and strength and in which everyone may extend comfort
and support to his neighbor. Some Churches have come to regard pastoral
care as including social and political action in the community,
thinking of it as whatever the organized Church as individuals and
groups may do in the name of the Church to improve the conditions
in which people live.
50.
It will be the pastor's task to assist members of his congregation
in understanding their calling and in equipping themselves to enter
into it faithfully. Obviously he will do this through a wide variety
of activities - in his preaching from the pulpit, in the teaching
in the school of the Church, in his special classes for parents,
in his own relationship with the children and young people of the
congregation, in vocational groups, and in other groups organized
to meet particular needs of the larger community. In effect, the
Church provides pastoral care for its members and equips them for
marriage by drawing them into a worshiping, studying, witnessing
community where they may know themselves to be a part of the ongoing
people of God who have been called to live together under the Lordship
of Christ and to minister to the needs of the world.
2.
The preparation of the pastor for pastoral care
51.
The second task of the Church in its work of pastoral care will
be the preparation of the pastor for his responsibility of equipping
individuals and families for life and therefore for marriage. This
will include but will not be limited to couples who will enter mixed
marriages or who have already done so, and will thus require of
them a new way of looking at Church regulations. Time is running
out to save Christian marriages of the future and it is urgent that
the Church interpret its rules as an expression of God's love and
concern for human nature as he made it and therefore as written
for our good and for our happiness.
52.
It will be no easy task to overcome the limitations of the traditional
approaches to marriage. But fortunately seminaries are awakening
to the need for providing a broader course of study for their ministerial
students, going beyond the traditional biblical, theological and
historical studies and including pastoral studies and even apprenticeships
in pastorates under capable and experienced pastors. The recent
Apostolic Letter issued by Pope Paul VI in 1970 on Mixed Marriages
opens new possibilities of understanding the nature of the regulations
of the Roman Catholic Church. This letter shows Canon Law as is
no doubt intended as an expression of Christ's loving care for his
people, and the Church's attempt to carry out the love in the daily
circumstances of life. Students who hope to enter the pastoral ministry
should be encouraged to interpret Canon Law from this point of view,
and to work with pastors of other Churches to enable the couple
to overcome the difficulties inherent in a mixed marriage.
53.
The nature of pastoral care of mixed marriages presents the Churches
with an urgent challenge to provide joint pastoral preparation and
continuing pastoral care. It presupposes the training of our pastors
on the special nature of mixed marriages (Norm 14 of Matrimonia
Mixta), as to the new approach to presenting rules, in a manner
to which married people can relate, and taking into account the
vast growth of knowledge and understanding which was not available
when many church norms were formulated.
3.
The pastoral care of the congregation as a whole
54.
A third situation which calls for pastoral care on the part of the
Church is the crucial need of all its people in relation to marriage
and family life in this period of stress and change. It is clear
to the Commission that in marriage as in all areas of life Christ
creates a crisis. His presence at one and the same time brings to
the world forgiveness and new life and calls into question all accepted
values. The Churches, then, have with regard to marriage, and especially
mixed marriages, a two-fold responsibility. The first is to teach
all of its people a strongly theological view of marriage as rooted
in the covenant of God with his people and of the Christian family
as a community of love and a fellowship of faith. The second is
to mediate the liberating grace which will assist the members of
the Church not only to live their own marriage under the Lordship
of Christ but to become a supporting, sustaining community for the
mutual strengthening of one another.
4.
The pastoral care of individuals
55.
In addition to the provisions it makes for the congregation as a
whole the Church through pastor and congregation must provide pastoral
care for individuals as they move through life.
a)
Pastoral care of children
56.
Preparation for marriage like preparation for all of life should
begin at an early stage. The child of a Christian marriage comes
into the world as an expression of the couple's love for one another,
and knows himself to be the beloved creature of God through the
full creative love of his parents. Thus the child's preparation
for life and for marriage will not begin with verbal admonitions
but he will know the love of God from the experience of living in
a community of love and grace from the moment of birth. To assist
parents in receiving the grace of God so that their household may
become a community of grace is the Church's first task in the pastoral
care of the child. Knowing from the beginning the meaning of God's
grace by living with parents who have themselves experienced God's
grace, who have dealt with their own sin and its attendant problems
and deficiencies and are able to assist the child in dealing with
his-hers, the person may approach marriage with confidence and clear
intent, having been set free to enter into a covenant with his marriage
partner and having the assurance that in this covenant Christ already
awaits them.
57.
Should persons, whose development has occurred in a family and community
of grace, love and security, contract a mixed marriage, they will
be prepared to enter into it in the love of Christ, the foundation
of the grace and faith they know they share. Such a marriage, like
any other marriage between Christians will bear witness to the grace
of God in Christ.
b)
Pastoral care of adolescents
58.
Present-day adolescents, who increasingly reject the institutional
Churches and their rules, in which they claim not to find Christ,
will nonetheless rise to a challenge and an ideal, and it is in
this context that the Churches must strive to present the theology
of marriage and their regulations, in relation to God's plan for
those he has created and loves. Marriage must also be presented
in relation to the Church and secular community.
c)
Pre-marriage counseling
59.
This will lead naturally to actual pre-marriage training. Sex education
should from the beginning be linked to love, which, in marriage,
God has made the symbol of the Covenant, seen in the Bible. Training
must include factors common to all marriage, but which assume even
greater importance in the context of mixed marriage. The pastor
must be able to give information about the different Churches, particularly
the Churches of the two partners. The couple will need to know,
for example, not only the differences in doctrinal belief in the
two Churches, but also their different regulations regarding the
marriage ceremony. They must be clear about the expectations the
Churches may have with regard to children. These regulations and
expectations are set forth in Chapter VI of this report. A major
concern of such intending couples will be to decide on the best
way to bring up their children, in the knowledge, love and service
of God in the light of these regulations and expectations. This
demands mutual understanding of the possible consequences of different
theological and practical interpretations of the faith they share,
not only in the chosen form of religious instruction, but also on
such basic matters as family planning and abortion.
60.
The Commission lays great emphasis on the need for joint pastoral
support for the partners of broken marriages, including cases where
there has been a civil divorce, and on a permanent concern for those
whose marriages are performed and lived outside the Church.
61.
We would refer to the valuable guidelines on joint pastoral care,
contained in paras. 73-76 of the final report of the Anglican-Roman
Catholic Commission on the same subject as that of the present commission.
Examples include the wide diversities between national temperaments
and socio-cultural patterns, to which pastoral care must be related
and the various experiments in this connection which have been made
in different parts of the world. It is stressed that the clergy
have a duty to exercise a high degree of mutual understanding and
trust, which will help better joint pastoral preparation and support
for mixed marriage. Furthermore, there is the need to realize that
the solution of delicate personal problems involved in mixed marriages,
of which no two are alike, is to be found in the maturing and sensitive
growing together of the family itself. This sensitiveness must be
matched by any source of outside assistance from which, if joint
pastoral care is assumed, all hints of competitiveness, suspicion
or possessiveness must be banished, since these would inhibit the
necessary sensitiveness from the start.
62.
The Commission has been heartened by the new insights which have
come to it through its work together and which hold out to it the
hope of even greater understanding of the nature of marriage under
the Lordship of Christ. It is the hope of the Commission that through
its work this gift of understanding may be reflected day by day
in the Churches' pastoral care of the People of God. The Commission
also hopes that through the common work of the pastors of the various
Churches, the Churches themselves may be brought into a closer fellowship
with one another. As the Churches make joint provision for training
their pastors, as pastors work together across denominational lines
in the case of particular couples and particular families who are
involved in mixed marriages, it may be that these instances can
point us towards oneness which is God's will for his Church. Already
little ecumenical groups are emerging in places where pastors are
discovering that they are already one in understanding the sacramental
and life-long character of marriage and one in the call they have
from God to minister to his people as they attempt to live out their
lives under his Lordship. It may be that the consequences of our
work as a commission may bring healing to individuals and families
but may also seem in some measure to bring our Churches into a unity
that is visible to the world.
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