Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

198The Basis of Union speaks of the Incarnate Christ in terms of the “Jesusof Nazareth (who) announced the sovereign grace of God whereby the poor inspirit could receive the Father’s love.” 524 Whilst the emphasis here is on povertyof spirit, the principle is the same. The kingdom of God is accessed throughpoverty, through that life and spiritual perspective that strips one bare of material,socio-economic and philosophical understandings that separate one from God.This God is understood through the incarnate Jesus of Nazareth who modelled acommitment to the poor, and poor in spirit, through his earthly life.It is this impoverished perspective that enables us to understand the pooras oppressed and marginalised, as an historically identifiable people who canvalidate their struggle to overthrow oppression and claim liberation. As CatholicThird World liberation theologians Leonardo and Clodovis Boff state,A preferential option for the poor enables us to pursue a rereadingof history from the standpoint of ... marginalized groups ... Thepurpose of this endeavour is to give ... (oppressed people) ... agenuine historical consciousness, without which they will remainrootless and deprived of the support needed to nourish theirstruggle for liberation. 525Such historical identification and awareness is given credence through theearthly life of Jesus. As theologians Michele Taylor and Roy McCloughry state inrelation to the historically-situated Jesus who they describe as the Disabled Christ,"the solidarity is there in the events of the Incarnation, the Crucifixion and theResurrection. 526It is to be asserted that those with intellectual disability accommodated ininstitutions are an historically-situated oppressed people by dint of theirinstitutional circumstances. Furthermore, it is Jesus of Nazareth who lays fullclaim to these marginalised, impoverished people, through his incarnate life,death and resurrection. The oppressed have an ally in the historically-situatedJesus.Furthermore, whilst Jesus is regarded as coming to an oppressed,marginalised people, the nature of his life, death and resurrection is such that God524 Uniting Church in Australia, Constitution and Regulations, pars. 3, 10.Bracketed word that of thesis author.525 Boff and Boff, Salvation and Liberation, 29.Bracketed words are those of thesis author.526 Taylor, Michele, and Roy McCloughry. A Disabled God? (October) Third Way, 1998[cited 18/2/2008]. Previously available from http://www.thirdway.org.uk/, par.21.