Campus Ministry is primarily directed to the integral growth of students, faculty, non-teaching personnel, administrators, and others. It aims to promote theological and biblical study and reflection for the formation of Christian values.
Campus Ministry is one of the important ways by which the Church exercises her mission in the field of education. It is concerned in the formation of true and mature Christians who constitute Basic Christian communities. The ministry aims to do this by way of teaching, preaching, witnessing the Word of God, partaking of the sacraments, celebrating and proclaiming the liturgy, along with caring through proper pastoral counseling. But in our contemporary context the ministry in the campuses has no clear awareness on the matter of pastoral counseling. There is no comprehensive program that promotes this aspect.
Taking into consideration the situation in the campus that the main concern is really for education there is only a minimal attention (if none) given to pastoral counseling. So, by the time being the Campus Ministry can offer short term pastoral counseling.
Short term pastoral counseling or the Time Limited Counseling is a non-professional tool that is used to assist people who are attempting to identify and resolve some specific issue. The counselor in this setting is not a therapist and the counseling is not clinical counseling. The counselor is a minister who serves as a guide in helping the persons to develop skills they already possess and to be a sounding board on the way to resolving the defined issue. Some of the issues could be relational such as conflict with parents, teachers, fellow students, friends, and romantic interests. Oftentimes the counselees’ basic need is for someone to listen and to help them put their issues into context. Others may just need an advocate.
In Time Limited Counseling the process involves two primary techniques: identification and emphasis of a focal relational issue (FRP) and the development of a strategy for resolution of the FRP within a pre-determined set of meetings. This may be done through the following procedure:
1) On first contact, the minister spends time simply listening and then gives some feedback to make sure the issue is correctly in focus.
2) Critical information is taken and assessed in order to ascertain and sharpen the presented problem.
3) The issue is then evaluated. Consultation and referrals are made if necessary.
4) Finally, a determination is made as to the number of sessions that will be required, usually between three and six. Expectations are clearly stated at every stage.
5) The focal relational problem (FRP) is then restated and clarified, focusing attention on remedy and progress. The minister keeps attention on the FRP throughout.
The goal of this type of pastoral counseling is to enable the counselees to help themselves. At the end of the process, the counselee is usually ready either to face the issue himself/herself or to move on to a more formal counseling process when referral is made.
Source: Catholic Campus Ministry at Clarion University of Pennsylvania (http://www.ccmcup.com/services/pastoralcounseling.html)
REFLECTION
It is very encouraging to see campus ministry making itself present in the different schools even in non-sectarian and government educational institutions. In the Diocese where I belong, the campus ministry program is attached to the Diocesan Youth Ministy. Our campus ministers are usually the students and some few are young faculty members. The campus ministry is present (although not widespread) in both private and public high schools and colleges. The restraint which I observe is that the activities are only limited to recollections, youth encounters, and liturgical functions in the school. Thus our campus ministry works effectively only within the categories of organizational and educational leaving behind the attention on pastoral, prophetic and counseling levels.
This apparent inattention, I presume, is due to lack of information on the function of Campus ministry as a whole which includes pastoral counseling. In my case, it was only when I take the subject on pastoral counseling that I learn the connection of campus ministry and pastoral counseling. Previously, I suppose the campus ministry program of our diocese is doing fine, but now I notice that there is still a wider opportunity for improvement.
I am convinced that campus ministry is one of the important ways by which the Church exercises her mission in the field of education. Campus ministers can be considered as agents of evangelization. And the Church today stresses integral evangelization which is concerned of “the renewal of society in all its strata through the interplay of Gospel truths and man’s concrete total life (PCP II, 166).” Thus, in the campus the ministers can help in the growth of students and workforce by means of pastoral counseling that utilizes religious sources and psychological understanding.
Now, I hope it would be my commitment to share my learning on pastoral counseling with the faithful active in campus ministry in our local church. I hope also that a continual interest on this subject matter will develop in me to contribute to the growth of campus ministry and to impart to others a renewed appreciation on pastoral counseling.
8/30/07
Liberation Theology on the God Question
If we have to consider the etymological meaning of theology and that from the common dictionary which describes theology as “the study of God and of religious doctrine and matters of divinity,”[1] it would follow that in dealing with liberation theology we would inevitably investigate how this theology treats about the God question. To answer the questions on God is not easy, according to Juan Luis Segundo, since our religious reality is complex.[2] Today, the problem of God’s existence might not be so important than that of the situation when the people were still grappling with polytheism. “In pastoral and theological sense the ‘God question’ becomes not whether there exists some referent to the term ‘God’ but which God is meant.”[3]
How does a liberation theologian see God? Gustavo Gutierréz says that “human beings believe in God in the context of a particular historical situation; after all, believers have their place in a cultural and social fabric.”[4] Thus we can situate the perspective on God at where liberation theology originated, the experience in Latin America. It is discovering God in the signs of the times whereby it is described in one of the text of Medellin documents:
“Let us recall once again that the present moment in the history of our peoples is characterized in the social order, and from an objective point of view, by a situation of underdevelopment. Certain phenomena point an accusing finger at it: marginal existence, alienation, and poverty. In the last analysis it is conditioned by structures of economic, political, and cultural dependence on the great industrialized metropolises, the latter enjoying a monopoly of technology and science (neocolonialism). From the subjective point of view it is characterized by a growing cognizance of this situation. In broad sectors of the Latin American population this growing cognizance provokes attitudes of protest and aspirations for liberation, development, and social justice.”[5]
This situation lets “the poor proclaim a God who liberates and gives life.”[6]
Gutierrez’s treatment on the God problem starts with the action of God in history that is the experience and perspective of liberation in Scriptures more clearly in the Exodus event. In this event God is shown to be a liberator. Also in the New Testament we find God taking side with the oppressed to liberate them. “The good news the Messiah proclaims to the poor is focused on liberation.”[7]
Ronaldo Muñoz describes two periods in the Christian consciousness in Latin America. At the first stage (the late 1960s and early 1970s), the principal biblical referents were the God of the Exodus, the pre-Exilic prophets, and Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. Here, God as such appears especially as the God who delivers from oppression. In the second (the late 1970s and 1980s) the central biblical referent for the renewed experience of God are the prophets of the Exile, the psalms and the apocalypses, and Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem. Here, God appears especially as the God of life amid so many forces of death. In the first stage the crucial task was the arousal of social awareness and of practices of political liberation, hence the focus of reflection was on the “oppression/liberation” antithesis. As the fortitude in suffering and the hope of future liberation become more evident, the focus develops on “death/life” antithesis.[8]
With this concern on the prevailing earthly human situation, liberation theology is sometimes accused of ignoring the transcendence or “beyondness” of God. Jon Sobrino puts a twist on the traditional concept of God’s transcendence.
“God’s preferential love for the poor introduces a tension within human history between what is and what should be. ‘And history that is generated when one attempts to live according to God’s love transcends itself, and is therefore a mediation of God’s transcendence.’ In accordance with the traditional notion, Sobrino says God is always greater than any human realization or even any human ability to conceive. But far from that being a motive for quietism (if God is utterly ‘beyond,’ why bother to act within human history, since it is ultimately insignificant?) it should be a pull toward making love effective within human history.”[9]
Christianity’s most transcendent assertion could be about the Trinity. On this concept, Leonardo Boff outlines various kinds of systematization. That of the Greeks begin with the person of the Father as the source and origin of all divinity and generates the Son as its Word, at the same time as it spirates the Spirit as its Breath. Thus, the persons are “consubstantial” possessing the same nature as the Father, so the persons are but one God. Here there is the risk of subordinationism. The Latins begin with the single divine nature. The person of the Father generates an absolute expression of itself: the Word or Son. In generating the Son, God is revealed as Father. Father and Son love one another so completely that they spirate the Holy Spirit as the expression of their reciprocal love, thus consummating the trinitarian circle. Here there is the risk of modalism. Boff adopts the appropriation of many modern theologians considering the relations among the divine persons. This proposition insists upon a perichoresis among the persons: an “intimate, perfect indwelling of each person in the others,” such that among the persons prevails the unity of one God. The persons are three infinite subjects of a single communion, or three lovers in the same love.[10]
The approach of modern theologians cited by Boff “responds to the deepest needs of the poor, who seek participation, communion, and a more egalitarian coexistence, maintained in respect for differences.” Thus, the holy Trinity is the source of inspiration of the poor and the foundation of the commitment to liberation—a liberation carried out with a vision to social justice, equity, and the construction of a society of sisters and brothers that will be viable in the existing condition. In this sense the trinitarian dynamic enables liberationists to construct a social and ecclesial critique. The capitalist system values individual differences to the detriment of communion while the socialist system tends to constitute a mass rather than a people. But the trinitarian mystery invites social forms that value all relations among persons and institutions in which differences are respected.[11]
Final note:
Liberation theologians assert that the traditional doctrine of God manipulates the divine being such that He appears to favor the capitalistic social structure. Some of them claim that the traditional belief of God depicts Him as static being – distant and remote from human history. This distorted view of a transcendent divine being has yielded a theology that understands God as “out there,” far removed from the affairs of humankind. As a result, many have adopted a passive attitude in the face of oppression and exploitation.
Liberation theologians have thus tried to communicate to their compatriots that God is not impassive. Rather, He is dynamically involved in behalf of the poor and the oppressed. And because God stands against oppression and exploitation, those who follow Him must do likewise.
[1] “Theology,” Webster’s New World Dictionary.
[2] Juan Luis Segundo, Our Idea of God, trans. John Drury (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1974), 3.
[3] Phillip Berryman, Liberation Theology: Essential Facts About the Revolutionary Movement in Latin America – and Beyond (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987), 153.
[4] Gustavo Gutierréz, The God of Life, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Manila, Philippines: St Pauls, 1994), xv.
[5] Medellin, “Lay Movements,” I. (qtd. in Segundo, op. cit., 16.)
[6] Gutierréz, loc. cit.
[7] Ibid., 9.
[8] Ronaldo Moñuz, “God the Father” trans. Robert R. Barr in Systematic Theology: Perspective from Liberation Theology (Readings from Mysterium Liberationis) eds. Jon Sobrino and Ignacio Ellacuría (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 90-95.
[9] Berryman, op. cit., 155.
[10] Leonardo Boff, “Trinity” trans. Robert R. Barr in Systematic Theology: Perspective from Liberation Theology (Readings from Mysterium Liberationis) eds. Jon Sobrino and Ignacio Ellacuría (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 83.
[11] Ibid., 85.
How does a liberation theologian see God? Gustavo Gutierréz says that “human beings believe in God in the context of a particular historical situation; after all, believers have their place in a cultural and social fabric.”[4] Thus we can situate the perspective on God at where liberation theology originated, the experience in Latin America. It is discovering God in the signs of the times whereby it is described in one of the text of Medellin documents:
“Let us recall once again that the present moment in the history of our peoples is characterized in the social order, and from an objective point of view, by a situation of underdevelopment. Certain phenomena point an accusing finger at it: marginal existence, alienation, and poverty. In the last analysis it is conditioned by structures of economic, political, and cultural dependence on the great industrialized metropolises, the latter enjoying a monopoly of technology and science (neocolonialism). From the subjective point of view it is characterized by a growing cognizance of this situation. In broad sectors of the Latin American population this growing cognizance provokes attitudes of protest and aspirations for liberation, development, and social justice.”[5]
This situation lets “the poor proclaim a God who liberates and gives life.”[6]
Gutierrez’s treatment on the God problem starts with the action of God in history that is the experience and perspective of liberation in Scriptures more clearly in the Exodus event. In this event God is shown to be a liberator. Also in the New Testament we find God taking side with the oppressed to liberate them. “The good news the Messiah proclaims to the poor is focused on liberation.”[7]
Ronaldo Muñoz describes two periods in the Christian consciousness in Latin America. At the first stage (the late 1960s and early 1970s), the principal biblical referents were the God of the Exodus, the pre-Exilic prophets, and Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. Here, God as such appears especially as the God who delivers from oppression. In the second (the late 1970s and 1980s) the central biblical referent for the renewed experience of God are the prophets of the Exile, the psalms and the apocalypses, and Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem. Here, God appears especially as the God of life amid so many forces of death. In the first stage the crucial task was the arousal of social awareness and of practices of political liberation, hence the focus of reflection was on the “oppression/liberation” antithesis. As the fortitude in suffering and the hope of future liberation become more evident, the focus develops on “death/life” antithesis.[8]
With this concern on the prevailing earthly human situation, liberation theology is sometimes accused of ignoring the transcendence or “beyondness” of God. Jon Sobrino puts a twist on the traditional concept of God’s transcendence.
“God’s preferential love for the poor introduces a tension within human history between what is and what should be. ‘And history that is generated when one attempts to live according to God’s love transcends itself, and is therefore a mediation of God’s transcendence.’ In accordance with the traditional notion, Sobrino says God is always greater than any human realization or even any human ability to conceive. But far from that being a motive for quietism (if God is utterly ‘beyond,’ why bother to act within human history, since it is ultimately insignificant?) it should be a pull toward making love effective within human history.”[9]
Christianity’s most transcendent assertion could be about the Trinity. On this concept, Leonardo Boff outlines various kinds of systematization. That of the Greeks begin with the person of the Father as the source and origin of all divinity and generates the Son as its Word, at the same time as it spirates the Spirit as its Breath. Thus, the persons are “consubstantial” possessing the same nature as the Father, so the persons are but one God. Here there is the risk of subordinationism. The Latins begin with the single divine nature. The person of the Father generates an absolute expression of itself: the Word or Son. In generating the Son, God is revealed as Father. Father and Son love one another so completely that they spirate the Holy Spirit as the expression of their reciprocal love, thus consummating the trinitarian circle. Here there is the risk of modalism. Boff adopts the appropriation of many modern theologians considering the relations among the divine persons. This proposition insists upon a perichoresis among the persons: an “intimate, perfect indwelling of each person in the others,” such that among the persons prevails the unity of one God. The persons are three infinite subjects of a single communion, or three lovers in the same love.[10]
The approach of modern theologians cited by Boff “responds to the deepest needs of the poor, who seek participation, communion, and a more egalitarian coexistence, maintained in respect for differences.” Thus, the holy Trinity is the source of inspiration of the poor and the foundation of the commitment to liberation—a liberation carried out with a vision to social justice, equity, and the construction of a society of sisters and brothers that will be viable in the existing condition. In this sense the trinitarian dynamic enables liberationists to construct a social and ecclesial critique. The capitalist system values individual differences to the detriment of communion while the socialist system tends to constitute a mass rather than a people. But the trinitarian mystery invites social forms that value all relations among persons and institutions in which differences are respected.[11]
Final note:
Liberation theologians assert that the traditional doctrine of God manipulates the divine being such that He appears to favor the capitalistic social structure. Some of them claim that the traditional belief of God depicts Him as static being – distant and remote from human history. This distorted view of a transcendent divine being has yielded a theology that understands God as “out there,” far removed from the affairs of humankind. As a result, many have adopted a passive attitude in the face of oppression and exploitation.
Liberation theologians have thus tried to communicate to their compatriots that God is not impassive. Rather, He is dynamically involved in behalf of the poor and the oppressed. And because God stands against oppression and exploitation, those who follow Him must do likewise.
[1] “Theology,” Webster’s New World Dictionary.
[2] Juan Luis Segundo, Our Idea of God, trans. John Drury (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1974), 3.
[3] Phillip Berryman, Liberation Theology: Essential Facts About the Revolutionary Movement in Latin America – and Beyond (New York: Pantheon Books, 1987), 153.
[4] Gustavo Gutierréz, The God of Life, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Manila, Philippines: St Pauls, 1994), xv.
[5] Medellin, “Lay Movements,” I. (qtd. in Segundo, op. cit., 16.)
[6] Gutierréz, loc. cit.
[7] Ibid., 9.
[8] Ronaldo Moñuz, “God the Father” trans. Robert R. Barr in Systematic Theology: Perspective from Liberation Theology (Readings from Mysterium Liberationis) eds. Jon Sobrino and Ignacio Ellacuría (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 90-95.
[9] Berryman, op. cit., 155.
[10] Leonardo Boff, “Trinity” trans. Robert R. Barr in Systematic Theology: Perspective from Liberation Theology (Readings from Mysterium Liberationis) eds. Jon Sobrino and Ignacio Ellacuría (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996), 83.
[11] Ibid., 85.
8/13/07
Filipinos are Family-Oriented
The Catechism for Filipino Catholics describes the self-identity of Filipinos as family-oriented.[1] The family as the basic unit of Philippine society is very significant to the Filipino. Filipinos are culturally and emotionally attached to their respective families. The Filipino’s interest and loyalty is demanded by his or her family more than any other institution in the larger society.[2] When referring to families we do not just speak of the immediate nuclear family, but our notion of a family is extended to a wider kin group even if our household is nuclear in form. Most members of the same kin group assist one another in times of need, and they participate in joint family activities even if they do not live together in the same household. This characteristic of the Filipino still prevail despite modernization where society is becoming characterized by more impersonal relationships. The modern Filipino family continues to be closely knit and centered on the family. Relationships among extended kin continue to be marked by reciprocal obligations and privileges even across great geographic distances. We also typically try to make our friendships into family-like relationships that are mutually supportive.
Our parents consider as their duty to provide us the material and educational needs. We their children, in turn, are expected to obey and respect them and to take care of them when they grow old. Also, older children, until they marry and have families of their own, are expected to help younger siblings with school, and to assist them in getting a job after graduation. The family centeredness of us Filipinos, acording the CFC, supplies us a basic sense of belonging, stability, and security.[3] In times of need, the members of the family depend on each other for mutual support. “The mutual support largely spelled in economic terms has earned for the Filipino family the trait, closenes of family ties, a trait that achieves emotional flavor in family gatherings and reunions or in special occasions like Christmas, birthdays, and wedding and death anniversaries, where religious rituals play a significant function.[4] This family centeredness is upheld by the Filipinos as a value in which we can be proud of. But can we consider valuing our families really good at all time?
Vitaliano Gorospe, in his article Understanding The Filipino Value System, stated “that Filipino values are ambivalent in the sense that they are a potential for good or evil, a help or hindrance to personal and national development, depending on how they are understood, practiced or lived. They can be used in a good or evil context.” Therefore, it is just proper to place our family-orientedness in the correct order. For example, if we are too attached to our families that we can no longer recognize the good of other people, then such value has brought us into the quagmire of self-centeredness and selfishness. Some of our politicians have also fallen prey to this somewhat a kind of deception. Their family interests sometimes push them to let more of their kin run in public office. As a result, we have been familiar to the so-called big names in the national as well as local politics.
Another danger of family-centeredness is to make decisions based on family ties. For example, during elections “members of the same family lean towards the same candidates and party affiliations.”[5] They would somehow choose the candidates who are closer to their family or those whom their family or its member is indebted. Why should we not consider the issues and principles first before family matters? “Another influence of the family is seen in the practice of nepotism or favoring of relatives for employment and in applications for business licenses, franchises, and concessions.”[6] To this effect the family has become the starting place of injustice in the society. Can we not put a stop to these corrupt practices? Should we not move on towards freeing ourselves from the dependency of the unhealthy aspect of our cultural system?
As Christians, our cultural values are to be purified by the Gospel values. Thus there could be a dialogue between our culture and our faith. But how far we have grown, as a people, in our faith? Until now we still face the challenge of putting our faith into action. And this would effectively start in the family since “the family has always been a privileged channel for the transmission of the Gospel.”[7] But this would become a difficult task in our culture where family values have not yet resolve its negative aspect. Each of us should confront this matter of transforming our collective psyche into a cultural system that more committed to social justice.
[1] Catechism for Filipino Catholics, 43
[2] Belen T. G. Medina, The Filipino Family (Diliman, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1991), 12.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Dr. Mina Ramirez, Understanding Philippine Social Realities Through The Filipino Family: A Phenomenological Approach (Manila: Social Communications Center, Inc., 1984)
[5] Medina, loc. cit., 53.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Conclusions of the World Theological-Pastoral Congress, Valencia, July 7, 2006 “The Transmission of Faith in the Family,” Familia et Vita, Anno XI, no. 3/2006 – 1/2007 (2007): 460.
Our parents consider as their duty to provide us the material and educational needs. We their children, in turn, are expected to obey and respect them and to take care of them when they grow old. Also, older children, until they marry and have families of their own, are expected to help younger siblings with school, and to assist them in getting a job after graduation. The family centeredness of us Filipinos, acording the CFC, supplies us a basic sense of belonging, stability, and security.[3] In times of need, the members of the family depend on each other for mutual support. “The mutual support largely spelled in economic terms has earned for the Filipino family the trait, closenes of family ties, a trait that achieves emotional flavor in family gatherings and reunions or in special occasions like Christmas, birthdays, and wedding and death anniversaries, where religious rituals play a significant function.[4] This family centeredness is upheld by the Filipinos as a value in which we can be proud of. But can we consider valuing our families really good at all time?
Vitaliano Gorospe, in his article Understanding The Filipino Value System, stated “that Filipino values are ambivalent in the sense that they are a potential for good or evil, a help or hindrance to personal and national development, depending on how they are understood, practiced or lived. They can be used in a good or evil context.” Therefore, it is just proper to place our family-orientedness in the correct order. For example, if we are too attached to our families that we can no longer recognize the good of other people, then such value has brought us into the quagmire of self-centeredness and selfishness. Some of our politicians have also fallen prey to this somewhat a kind of deception. Their family interests sometimes push them to let more of their kin run in public office. As a result, we have been familiar to the so-called big names in the national as well as local politics.
Another danger of family-centeredness is to make decisions based on family ties. For example, during elections “members of the same family lean towards the same candidates and party affiliations.”[5] They would somehow choose the candidates who are closer to their family or those whom their family or its member is indebted. Why should we not consider the issues and principles first before family matters? “Another influence of the family is seen in the practice of nepotism or favoring of relatives for employment and in applications for business licenses, franchises, and concessions.”[6] To this effect the family has become the starting place of injustice in the society. Can we not put a stop to these corrupt practices? Should we not move on towards freeing ourselves from the dependency of the unhealthy aspect of our cultural system?
As Christians, our cultural values are to be purified by the Gospel values. Thus there could be a dialogue between our culture and our faith. But how far we have grown, as a people, in our faith? Until now we still face the challenge of putting our faith into action. And this would effectively start in the family since “the family has always been a privileged channel for the transmission of the Gospel.”[7] But this would become a difficult task in our culture where family values have not yet resolve its negative aspect. Each of us should confront this matter of transforming our collective psyche into a cultural system that more committed to social justice.
[1] Catechism for Filipino Catholics, 43
[2] Belen T. G. Medina, The Filipino Family (Diliman, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1991), 12.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Dr. Mina Ramirez, Understanding Philippine Social Realities Through The Filipino Family: A Phenomenological Approach (Manila: Social Communications Center, Inc., 1984)
[5] Medina, loc. cit., 53.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Conclusions of the World Theological-Pastoral Congress, Valencia, July 7, 2006 “The Transmission of Faith in the Family,” Familia et Vita, Anno XI, no. 3/2006 – 1/2007 (2007): 460.
8/12/07
GROUP COUNSELING AS APPLICABLE TO A PARTICULAR GROUP OF PARISH VOLUNTEER WORKERS
I. Introduction
In our Church today we experience the active involvement and participation of the laity especially in the existing organizations in our parishes. They provide valuable help in the pastoral and ministerial needs of the parish. Through this collaboration, the image of the Church as a community is visible and in a certain way functional. Moreover, the local church in the Philippines is aiming at the development of the Basic Ecclesial Communities in which each member of the church can identify his immediate group where Christian life is nurtured.
Our church then is experiencing this phenomenon where some people formed as small groups have their activity geared towards Christian growth and eventually the growth of the parish. They come together during seminars, assemblies, and meetings. These are of course opportunities for spiritual and organizational formation. But if we think about integral human formation, we must not only concentrate on the spiritual aspects. What can the local church do to cater to the human and emotional development needs of these active workers in the Church? One instrument for this aspect is pastoral counseling in which we use spiritual resources and psychological understanding for growth and healing. Group counseling, in particular, can become one of the means to equip God’s people for work in his service and through which laymen perform their priesthood as members of the Body of Christ. The doctrine of church and ministry reveal the depth nature of a counseling group, and a counseling group can become a means of grace whereby the church is enabled to be the church.
This paper, in this case, utilizes the book of Joseph W. Knowles entitled “Group Counseling” in order to gain information about the features of group counseling. It is desired that this may give a sketch towards the application of group counseling in the local church not just for a therapeutic purpose but more importantly for the building up of relationships within the Christian community.
II. Book Summary
Group Counseling In The Context Of The Church And Its Ministry
Group counseling takes into account the communal aspects of man’s nature and the healing potential within the experiences of community. A person does not become a human being except in the context of community (i.e. family, neighborhood, church) where he discovers his identity and fulfills his potential. The developing person absorbs within himself the feelings, attitudes, and values of other persons significant to him. Members of a family or church at times relate, and are related to, in such a way as to call forth unloving and alienating responses from each other. At this point, they need counseling in order to discover the nature of their personal and relational brokenness and to discover “a more perfect way” of seeing and hearing and communicating and responding.
The group approach to counseling enables the church to serve more persons in less time or to serve a few over a longer period of time. Aside from this quantitative value, in a group counseling, one is given a complex of relationships in which members act out their problems in relation to each other. They experience, help each other to become aware of, and together seek to alter patterns of behavior that are defeating them and others.
The counseling group is different from other social groups. It has a unique climate, covenant, and purpose that distinguish it from other social situations. The climate of acceptance and freedom allows each member to drop his guardedness and censoring of what he feels and thinks. Freedom to be spontaneous comes only as members come to trust each other. Members make a formal covenant to feel confidences; what comes out in the sessions is the “property of the group.” There is also healing of the conflict and guilt within the person and the brokenness and alienation in his relationships with others, including God.
In the individual counseling, the pastor is the only counselor in the situation. In a group, there are as many counselors as there are members, plus the leader. Group members listen, accept, support, clarify, confront and interpret. These are counselor functions. The dependency relationship that is often formed with the pastor in individual counseling is thus transferred from the pastor to the group. Furthermore, other transference reactions toward the counselor are activated. Members tend to express their hostile, angry, ambivalent, jealous, hurt, loving, and appreciative feelings toward one another. To a certain extent, each member is an authority and also gets his share of transference reactions from his peers.
The doctrine of the church provides a model for group counseling; such a process thus become a means by which the nature and being of the church are actualized. The church as a body of the forgiven should be able to mediate love and healing in a purposeful way.
Preparation Of The Church For Counseling Groups
The first stage in launching group counseling may call for a re-examination of the healing mission of the church. Group counseling cannot be successfully conducted unless it is structured as such and unless persons involved are selected and prepared for this procedure. One stumbling block is the fear of exposure to those with whom one has social relationships. They may fear that group confidences will become gossip as well as wonder if they can reveal their true selves to persons. These fears disappear as members learn to trust the covenant with each other
When forming a new group, the pastor may determine group composition and choose persons who will do each other good. This is accomplished primarily through an initial exploratory and screening interview with each potential group member. The counselor begins with immediate concerns of the counselee. These feelings and ideas, when looked into, linked the person with his total life experience – past, present, and anticipated future. The personal history helps identify the style of life, needs and goals, patterns of relationship, models, concept of self.
Suitable candidates:
Shy person. The group gives him a permissive situation in which he cautiously begins to venture forth and gradually to gain confidence and competence in social relating.
The dependent person. In a group, dependency needs are met by one or two members and the person thus undergirded can move more affirmatively toward other members.
The extremely deprived. Group counseling helps to meet needs for attention, recognition, and love, but faces him with the reality that no one person can gratify all his needs.
Those who are out of touch or unaware of emotions and those who tend to repress anger and hostility. The group gives priority to spontaneous expressions of feelings. Members learn it is safe and acceptable to experience and communicate genuine feelings.
Individuals with psychosomatic complaints. They are highly resistive to relinquishing the “beloved symptom” as the explanation of emotional difficulty. They are less threatened by group than by individual counseling.
A person may come into group counseling with the following potential strengths: some capacity to reveal oneself to a group of peers; potential ability to express aggression and tolerate hostility; neither great extreme of dependency or rejection in relation to authority.
At least average intelligence.
Unsuitable candidates:
Those with insufficient contact with reality. A psychosis interferes both with reality orientation and with processes of communication meaningful to others.
Persons whose behavior deviates from the group norm require a group of their own and the services of a specialist.
Sociopathic personalities and those with criminal behavior. They are impulsive, exploitative, seductive, bent on immediate gratifications of their own needs and lacking in usual social restraints and courtesies.
The incessant talker. Members grow hostile and spend their time listening to or resisting the chronic monopolist.
Those with suicidal, homicidal, or infanticidal impulses.
The person in a catastrophic stress situation requires individual counseling or referral because his attention is focused on what is happening to him or within him. He cannot get out of himself enough to relate and be aware of the group situation.
Dynamics and Process Of Counseling Groups
The term process that is used here means the act of proceeding; progress; advance. The counselor can observe the following process:
Socializing and search for an emotionally significant theme or topic—the warm-up.
Rallying around a theme: group direction.
Theme exploration: group interaction.
Theme exhaustion: group satiety.
Search for a new theme.
Like an individual, a group goes through several developmental stages such as:
Getting started: anticipatory anxiety, leader dependency, and goal orientation.
Sharing of information: getting acquainted and testing others.
Sharing feelings: experiencing acceptance and trust.
Confrontation and emotional encounter: emotionally corrective events.
Member autonomy and group interdependence: selfhood-in-community.
The term dynamics refers to forces that are active in a group to facilitate or impede its progress. There are three major categories under which significant dynamism are subsumed. These include the following:
Emotional factors include acceptance, altruism, and transference. Transference is the identification with each other through the common attachment to the leader.
Intellectual factors. Spectator therapy is experiencing vicariously in, through, and with experiences of others. Universalization is the dynamic at work when a person suddenly finds he is not the only person with a problem or that problems of others are very similar to one’s own. Intellectualization gives one an opportunity to rethink or re-evaluate concepts.
Action factors. Reality testing in which a person can test his defenses, relive old family conflicts, live out ego frustrations, and find outlets for aggression. Ventilation provides release of suppressed and repressed emotions, needs, and drives. Interaction facilitates therapy.
The process of termination depends upon whether the group is an “open” group or one where the “end” is predetermined from its beginning. Open groups are those that have no terminal date; periodically one leaves and is replaced by a new member. Decision and responsibility for “setting an end” is left to each person. A member must announce in one session his intention to leave. An example Groups lose members because of geographical mobility: a participant leaves for college or is transferred by his firm to another city. A sudden departure can leave a group with feelings of hostility and/or guilt. Attendance at the next meeting allows for reexamination of the reasons for leaving and readiness to leave.
The termination process is different when the end of sessions for all members is predetermined from the onset. Here, all members are terminated at the same time. Near termination time, counselor exploration unearths feelings of bereavement when groups have existed for six to nine months. Members work through a sense of loss as they express appreciation to one another, comment on positive values they have experienced, and voice regret over disbanding.
III. Personal Reflection
In our Church today we experience the active involvement and participation of the laity especially in the existing organizations in our parishes. They provide valuable help in the pastoral and ministerial needs of the parish. Through this collaboration, the image of the Church as a community is visible and in a certain way functional. Moreover, the local church in the Philippines is aiming at the development of the Basic Ecclesial Communities in which each member of the church can identify his immediate group where Christian life is nurtured.
Our church then is experiencing this phenomenon where some people formed as small groups have their activity geared towards Christian growth and eventually the growth of the parish. They come together during seminars, assemblies, and meetings. These are of course opportunities for spiritual and organizational formation. But if we think about integral human formation, we must not only concentrate on the spiritual aspects. What can the local church do to cater to the human and emotional development needs of these active workers in the Church? One instrument for this aspect is pastoral counseling in which we use spiritual resources and psychological understanding for growth and healing. Group counseling, in particular, can become one of the means to equip God’s people for work in his service and through which laymen perform their priesthood as members of the Body of Christ. The doctrine of church and ministry reveal the depth nature of a counseling group, and a counseling group can become a means of grace whereby the church is enabled to be the church.
This paper, in this case, utilizes the book of Joseph W. Knowles entitled “Group Counseling” in order to gain information about the features of group counseling. It is desired that this may give a sketch towards the application of group counseling in the local church not just for a therapeutic purpose but more importantly for the building up of relationships within the Christian community.
II. Book Summary
Group Counseling In The Context Of The Church And Its Ministry
Group counseling takes into account the communal aspects of man’s nature and the healing potential within the experiences of community. A person does not become a human being except in the context of community (i.e. family, neighborhood, church) where he discovers his identity and fulfills his potential. The developing person absorbs within himself the feelings, attitudes, and values of other persons significant to him. Members of a family or church at times relate, and are related to, in such a way as to call forth unloving and alienating responses from each other. At this point, they need counseling in order to discover the nature of their personal and relational brokenness and to discover “a more perfect way” of seeing and hearing and communicating and responding.
The group approach to counseling enables the church to serve more persons in less time or to serve a few over a longer period of time. Aside from this quantitative value, in a group counseling, one is given a complex of relationships in which members act out their problems in relation to each other. They experience, help each other to become aware of, and together seek to alter patterns of behavior that are defeating them and others.
The counseling group is different from other social groups. It has a unique climate, covenant, and purpose that distinguish it from other social situations. The climate of acceptance and freedom allows each member to drop his guardedness and censoring of what he feels and thinks. Freedom to be spontaneous comes only as members come to trust each other. Members make a formal covenant to feel confidences; what comes out in the sessions is the “property of the group.” There is also healing of the conflict and guilt within the person and the brokenness and alienation in his relationships with others, including God.
In the individual counseling, the pastor is the only counselor in the situation. In a group, there are as many counselors as there are members, plus the leader. Group members listen, accept, support, clarify, confront and interpret. These are counselor functions. The dependency relationship that is often formed with the pastor in individual counseling is thus transferred from the pastor to the group. Furthermore, other transference reactions toward the counselor are activated. Members tend to express their hostile, angry, ambivalent, jealous, hurt, loving, and appreciative feelings toward one another. To a certain extent, each member is an authority and also gets his share of transference reactions from his peers.
The doctrine of the church provides a model for group counseling; such a process thus become a means by which the nature and being of the church are actualized. The church as a body of the forgiven should be able to mediate love and healing in a purposeful way.
Preparation Of The Church For Counseling Groups
The first stage in launching group counseling may call for a re-examination of the healing mission of the church. Group counseling cannot be successfully conducted unless it is structured as such and unless persons involved are selected and prepared for this procedure. One stumbling block is the fear of exposure to those with whom one has social relationships. They may fear that group confidences will become gossip as well as wonder if they can reveal their true selves to persons. These fears disappear as members learn to trust the covenant with each other
When forming a new group, the pastor may determine group composition and choose persons who will do each other good. This is accomplished primarily through an initial exploratory and screening interview with each potential group member. The counselor begins with immediate concerns of the counselee. These feelings and ideas, when looked into, linked the person with his total life experience – past, present, and anticipated future. The personal history helps identify the style of life, needs and goals, patterns of relationship, models, concept of self.
Suitable candidates:
Shy person. The group gives him a permissive situation in which he cautiously begins to venture forth and gradually to gain confidence and competence in social relating.
The dependent person. In a group, dependency needs are met by one or two members and the person thus undergirded can move more affirmatively toward other members.
The extremely deprived. Group counseling helps to meet needs for attention, recognition, and love, but faces him with the reality that no one person can gratify all his needs.
Those who are out of touch or unaware of emotions and those who tend to repress anger and hostility. The group gives priority to spontaneous expressions of feelings. Members learn it is safe and acceptable to experience and communicate genuine feelings.
Individuals with psychosomatic complaints. They are highly resistive to relinquishing the “beloved symptom” as the explanation of emotional difficulty. They are less threatened by group than by individual counseling.
A person may come into group counseling with the following potential strengths: some capacity to reveal oneself to a group of peers; potential ability to express aggression and tolerate hostility; neither great extreme of dependency or rejection in relation to authority.
At least average intelligence.
Unsuitable candidates:
Those with insufficient contact with reality. A psychosis interferes both with reality orientation and with processes of communication meaningful to others.
Persons whose behavior deviates from the group norm require a group of their own and the services of a specialist.
Sociopathic personalities and those with criminal behavior. They are impulsive, exploitative, seductive, bent on immediate gratifications of their own needs and lacking in usual social restraints and courtesies.
The incessant talker. Members grow hostile and spend their time listening to or resisting the chronic monopolist.
Those with suicidal, homicidal, or infanticidal impulses.
The person in a catastrophic stress situation requires individual counseling or referral because his attention is focused on what is happening to him or within him. He cannot get out of himself enough to relate and be aware of the group situation.
Dynamics and Process Of Counseling Groups
The term process that is used here means the act of proceeding; progress; advance. The counselor can observe the following process:
Socializing and search for an emotionally significant theme or topic—the warm-up.
Rallying around a theme: group direction.
Theme exploration: group interaction.
Theme exhaustion: group satiety.
Search for a new theme.
Like an individual, a group goes through several developmental stages such as:
Getting started: anticipatory anxiety, leader dependency, and goal orientation.
Sharing of information: getting acquainted and testing others.
Sharing feelings: experiencing acceptance and trust.
Confrontation and emotional encounter: emotionally corrective events.
Member autonomy and group interdependence: selfhood-in-community.
The term dynamics refers to forces that are active in a group to facilitate or impede its progress. There are three major categories under which significant dynamism are subsumed. These include the following:
Emotional factors include acceptance, altruism, and transference. Transference is the identification with each other through the common attachment to the leader.
Intellectual factors. Spectator therapy is experiencing vicariously in, through, and with experiences of others. Universalization is the dynamic at work when a person suddenly finds he is not the only person with a problem or that problems of others are very similar to one’s own. Intellectualization gives one an opportunity to rethink or re-evaluate concepts.
Action factors. Reality testing in which a person can test his defenses, relive old family conflicts, live out ego frustrations, and find outlets for aggression. Ventilation provides release of suppressed and repressed emotions, needs, and drives. Interaction facilitates therapy.
The process of termination depends upon whether the group is an “open” group or one where the “end” is predetermined from its beginning. Open groups are those that have no terminal date; periodically one leaves and is replaced by a new member. Decision and responsibility for “setting an end” is left to each person. A member must announce in one session his intention to leave. An example Groups lose members because of geographical mobility: a participant leaves for college or is transferred by his firm to another city. A sudden departure can leave a group with feelings of hostility and/or guilt. Attendance at the next meeting allows for reexamination of the reasons for leaving and readiness to leave.
The termination process is different when the end of sessions for all members is predetermined from the onset. Here, all members are terminated at the same time. Near termination time, counselor exploration unearths feelings of bereavement when groups have existed for six to nine months. Members work through a sense of loss as they express appreciation to one another, comment on positive values they have experienced, and voice regret over disbanding.
III. Personal Reflection
Pastoral group counseling is useful in the formation of a person in such a way that it will help him or her develop the ability to relate with others. I have a glimpse of this method when I have undergone the CPE program. One of the benefits of group counseling that I have experienced is the learning to communicate more comfortably and effectively. Bearing in mind my personality as that of an introvert, I had at first the difficulty to open up myself to others. But as the series of sessions progresses, I was able to overcome my introversion because I was able to trust the group. Aside from overcoming my weakness in relating, the group has helped me identify my prevalent feelings in the circumstances that I shared with them. There was an ambience to freely explore my inner feelings. This was facilitated by listening to the various feedbacks from the group. And it placed me in a condition of carefully paying attention to my fellow members in the group. In return I have also learned to give my own feedback to each of them willingly and honestly. With this atmosphere existing in the group, sensitivity has developed within me. I noticed that I have become more perceptive to the ways people communicate. Moreover, it was not only during my turn to be attended that I have gained the benefit of counseling but also when listening to the experiences of others and their complexes. The length of time that we spent for interactions has given us an opportunity to become closer to each other. I was able to understand them, accept them as they are, and eventually consider them as my brothers.
IV. Application
The benefits that I have learned through reading and through my personal experience made me posit to suggest an application of group counseling for some groups that exist in the parish. These could be the formation team of BECs, the core group of renewal movements, or a particular group of parish workers. What I have observed, especially in the parish where I belong, is that these groups have already established bonding between themselves. But even if how committed they are in their apostolate, there still exists a certain shortcoming when it comes to personality or emotional development. Thus, I suggest to employ the method of pastoral group counseling. This scheme can be initiated and be facilitated by the pastor himself or by another person competent in this area can be tapped.
It is important to note that group counseling is conducted not just to address problematic issues but also to enhance the relationship within a group thereby improving the efficiency of every group endeavor. Identifying the prospective participants can be the starting point in organizing a counseling group. Then the group can agree as to the frequency of sessions that are to be conducted. Since the members are already acquainted with each other, the initial goal is to assure acceptance and confidentiality. They will be exploring a new dimension in which they have not yet probably paid attention.
I have been present in a meeting conducted by the BEC formation team in my pastoral area. In that meeting, or in any other similar meetings I suppose, the members speak primarily on the head level that would only address matters impersonally. After the adjournment, there would be a few exchange of pleasantries then each would go back to their respective homes. They have not gone to the heart level of understanding one another at the instance when one of them raised the tone of one’s voice during an intense discussion. If they had only been given the chance to have explored themselves on that level, then the group would function more smoothly.
8/2/07
TR1
Experience
It was already our third pastoral weekend and it was my first time to stay in Panalipan, Catmon for that weekend. I met the selda alagad and talked to her with my foster parent in that place. She told me that they had already their MAKALIPANG last Friday night, so we just decided to go to the neighboring selda to inquire also about their schedule. As our conversation continued I learned that not all of their neighbors belong to a selda. I also found out that they have always been visited by seminarians before and according to them it is a factor that the MAKALIPANG continued. I sensed that they also wished to help organize their neighbors next to their selda, but they show hesitation for according to them they lacked the proper competence for that matter. Our conversation moved my heart and made me ponder for some possible approaches to the circumstances of their community.
Social Analysis
The fact that not all in that neighborhood actively belong to a BEC selda could be attributed to the lack of interest of some people to get involved. The situation could be paralleled to that of religious organizations in the parish. There is only a limited number of membership and most of the baptized distanced themselves perhaps due to the perception that these are elite groups in the Church. Another reason for the lack of participation of the neighborhood in BEC might be the lack of understanding what this structure really is. The weekly Makalipang is sometimes misunderstood as the BEC itself; thus, most people looked at BEC as another church organization like the rest that they have encountered. They have not yet fully grasped the meaning of this way of being Church. Theological Reflection
The Church is indeed a community of faith. The formation of groups expresses the social nature of the person. In a secularized world these groups can help the Christian life in remaining faithful to the demands of the gospel and to the commitment to Church’s mission and apostolate (cf. Christifideles Laici, 29). This perspective has inspired me to commit to the formation of communities. As a matter of fact, we dare to struggle and pray for unity of peoples, for “behold, how good and pleasant it is when brethren dwell in unity (Ps 133:1)!”
Pastoral Action
In order to encourage the people to join in basic ecclesial communities, they must be aware of the basic information of BECs. This awareness can be brought about by personal interactions. Thus, a dialogue of life is to be conducted even if it will be just informal or if the circumstances allow short conferences will be conducted.
It was already our third pastoral weekend and it was my first time to stay in Panalipan, Catmon for that weekend. I met the selda alagad and talked to her with my foster parent in that place. She told me that they had already their MAKALIPANG last Friday night, so we just decided to go to the neighboring selda to inquire also about their schedule. As our conversation continued I learned that not all of their neighbors belong to a selda. I also found out that they have always been visited by seminarians before and according to them it is a factor that the MAKALIPANG continued. I sensed that they also wished to help organize their neighbors next to their selda, but they show hesitation for according to them they lacked the proper competence for that matter. Our conversation moved my heart and made me ponder for some possible approaches to the circumstances of their community.
Social Analysis
The fact that not all in that neighborhood actively belong to a BEC selda could be attributed to the lack of interest of some people to get involved. The situation could be paralleled to that of religious organizations in the parish. There is only a limited number of membership and most of the baptized distanced themselves perhaps due to the perception that these are elite groups in the Church. Another reason for the lack of participation of the neighborhood in BEC might be the lack of understanding what this structure really is. The weekly Makalipang is sometimes misunderstood as the BEC itself; thus, most people looked at BEC as another church organization like the rest that they have encountered. They have not yet fully grasped the meaning of this way of being Church. Theological Reflection
The Church is indeed a community of faith. The formation of groups expresses the social nature of the person. In a secularized world these groups can help the Christian life in remaining faithful to the demands of the gospel and to the commitment to Church’s mission and apostolate (cf. Christifideles Laici, 29). This perspective has inspired me to commit to the formation of communities. As a matter of fact, we dare to struggle and pray for unity of peoples, for “behold, how good and pleasant it is when brethren dwell in unity (Ps 133:1)!”
Pastoral Action
In order to encourage the people to join in basic ecclesial communities, they must be aware of the basic information of BECs. This awareness can be brought about by personal interactions. Thus, a dialogue of life is to be conducted even if it will be just informal or if the circumstances allow short conferences will be conducted.
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