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The Wisdom of Pastoral Counselor from Henri Nouwen

  • Journal of Counseling and Gospel
  • Abbr : Jocag
  • 2014, 22(1), pp.166-195
  • DOI : 10.17841/jocag.2014.22.1.166
  • Publisher : Korean Evangelical Counseling Society
  • Research Area : Humanities > Christian Theology > Pastoral Counseling
  • Received : April 20, 2014
  • Accepted : May 10, 2014

Oh, Taekyun 1

1총신대학교

Candidate

ABSTRACT

This article deals with Henry Nouwen’s contribution to pastoral care and healing ministry. While pastors view their involvement in faith communities in which they live and work as guiding people toward a life of wholeness and integrity, they realized that they are not well-prepared enough or equipped as pastoral counselors. This paper investigates how pastors can get some helpful wisdom and knowledge from Henry Nouwen. As a Catholic theologian, Henry Nouwen has gained much popularity and respect in Christian circles. Nouwen combined a strong devotion to God with a comforting yet distinctly intellectual style that strikes a strong and sympathetic cord. Many pastors, professors, and lay people are attracted to his deep thinking and insightful healing approach for those who live in post-modern society. This paper explores Henri Nouwen's four representative books among more than fifty published books, 'Wounded healer', 'Reaching out', 'Bread for the journey', and 'Adam' to discover the lessons and insights for helping professionals, especially pastoral counselors. Born in Nijkerk, Holland, Nouwen felt called to the priesthood at a very young age due to his family environment. After ordination as a diocesan priest he studied psychology at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. And then he moved to the United States to study at the Menninger Clinic, in which he equipped himself as professional counselor. He went on to teach at the University of Notre Dame, and the Divinity Schools of Yale and Harvard. For several months during his sabbatical years, Nouwen lived and worked with the Trappist monks in the Abbey of the Genesee, and he had experienced genuine intimacy with God. After realizing his calling from God, he joined L’Arche in France, the first of over 100 communities founded by Jean Vanier where people with developmental disabilities live with assistants. A year later Nouwen came to make his home at L’Arche Daybreak near Toronto, Canada. The above mentioned literatures provide the necessary and essential insights for pastoral counseling in faith community. He describes what he calls the "nuclear man", characterized by historical dislocation, fragmented ideology and the search for immortality. This concept comes close to the common concept of the individualistic, post-modern, social constructionist man. He describes 'tomorrow's generation' as inward, fatherless and convulsive. From that, he derives 'tomorrow's leader', 'minister' or 'healer' as an articulator of inner events (through articulating his own experiences, one can understand and help others recognize the work of God in themselves), a man of compassion (as a base of his authority) and a contemplative man - a man of deep prayer. Weaving keen cultural analysis with his psychological and religious insights, Nouwen has come up with a balanced and creative theology of service that begins with the realization of fundamental wounds in human nature. Emphasizing that which is in humanity common to both minister and believer, this wound can serve as a source of strength and healing when counseling others. It is his contention that ministers are called to recognize the sufferings of their time in their own hearts and make that recognition the starting point of their service. For Nouwen, ministers must be willing to go beyond their professional role and leave themselves open as fellow human beings with the same wounds and suffering -- in the image of Christ. In other words, we heal from our own wounds. For Nouwen, the purpose of pastoral counseling is to deal with guilty feeling, oppression, liberation from wounds and desire that human beings possess. After coming to a concise understanding of the characteristics of a his view of human being, Christian healer, and pastoral counselor, this article suggests two wisdom for the pastoral counselors: spiritually well-equipped pastoral counselor, and concrete understanding of human being.

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