Saturday, October 15, 2005

Gregory & penance

Two penance-related questions from students on the reading of Gregory's Pastoral Care, and my answers:
Posted by Grateful to the Dead at 09:29:03 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

How reading Gregory and other classics should change pastoral care

Here's a list from Tom Oden's 1984 Fortress Press book Care of Souls in the Classic Tradition. First, Oden argues modern pastoral care has become hopelessly muddled and weakened by a process of disassociation from its historical, theological roots. It must encounter "the classic tradition"--represented in particular by the book given to all Western bishops for a millennium: Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care. Oden argues that when modern pastoral care encounters this classic tradition, it will realize that it must change in some fundamental ways. And it will gain the resources to effect that change:

Remember as you look at this list that Oden had trained and practiced in both liberal theology and the many faddish techniques of counseling and psychotherapy that were so popular in the 1960s and 1970s. What a wonderful transformation he had experienced through his encounter with what he calls "the classical tradition of pastoral care"—that is, his readings in some of the people we would call "the church fathers":

Posted by Grateful to the Dead at 08:56:51 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

Gregory & the deadliest sin

"Patron Saints" class question on Gregory:

Q:     Did Gregory consider pride to be underlying most other sins (a more serious sin) – was that Church teaching at the time?

A:    The seven deadly sins, also known as the capital vices or cardinal sins, were first introduced when Greek monastic theologian Evagrius of Pontus drew up a list of eight offenses and deadly human passions, the sins as eight "passions", and they were, in order of increasing severity: gluttony, lust, avarice, anger, acedia, vainglory, and pride. Evagrius saw the escalating severity as representing increasing fixation with the self, with pride as the most egregious of the sins. Acedia (from the Greek "akedia," or "not to care") denoted "spiritual sloth."

In the late 6th century, St. Gregory the Great reduced the list to seven items, folding vainglory into pride, acedia into sadness, and adding envy. His ranking of the Sins' seriousness was based on the degree from which they offended against love. It was, from least serious to most: lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy and pride (abbreviated into the mnemonic palegas).

"Capital" here means that these sins stand at the head (Latin caput) of the other sins which proceed from them, e.g. avarice gives rise to theft and lust gives rise to adultery. Later theologians, most notably Thomas Aquinas, would contradict the notion that the seriousness of the sins would be ranked.

Pride (vanity) — A desire to be important or attractive to others or excessive love of self (holding self out of proper position toward God or fellows; Dante's definition was "love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor"). In the Latin lists of the Seven Deadly Sins, pride is referred to as superbia.

Posted by Grateful to the Dead at 08:46:54 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Monday, June 20, 2005

Who was Gregory the Great?

Gregory the Great (ca. 540 - 604): Adapting Pagan practices to win Pagan hearts. A man of undoubted personal piety who gave tirelessly of himself, calling his own position, as Pope, nothing more nor less than "the Servant of the Servants of God," Gregory ministered to his people in many striking and effective ways (see his wisdom on pastoral care). Just one example: soon after launching a monk named Augustine and a team on an evangelistic mission to England, Gregory found himself answering their agonized letters: What do we do about all the Pagan practices and holidays we're running across? Gregory counseled "selective appropriation"—that is, the radical, humanly sensitive practice of giving a cultural make-over to beliefs and practices sanctioned by long tradition.

Posted by Grateful to the Dead at 12:50:22 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |