‘Book of Pastoral Care’

By The Rt Rev’d Jennifer A. Reddall, sixth bishop of Arizona

A group of my bishop colleagues is doing a reading of St. Gregory the Great’s Book of Pastoral Care both to aid in our own ministries of the episcopate and to aid us in our discernment towards selecting our next Presiding Bishop. 

St. Gregory wrote these reflections early in his papacy (590-604) and was concerned about the discernment for ordained ministry in his own time. What were the spiritual marks of mature leadership? What were dangerous characteristics that indicated that someone ought not to seek a pastoral ministry? 

In the section we read for today, the following quote jumped out at me: 

“High pastoral office is a tempest of the mind where the ship of the heart is shaken by hurricanes of thought, driven here and there, and shattered by excess of word and deed as a ship is broken upon the rocks.” (Chapter 9) 

I am so grateful for all those who are finding their call to pastoral ministry to be an experience of turbulence at this time, but who find ways of continuing on through faith in Jesus, love for their neighbor, and a commitment to the Gospel.