Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

298person with intellectual disability to assume a shared God-given status andidentity commensurate with all human beings. This is a status that enables theperson with intellectual disability to link arms with their sister and brotherlocated beyond the confines of institutional walls. It is this understanding thatgives to the institutionalised person with intellectual disability the worth anddignity that institutional living alone takes away.It is the conviction of this pastoral carer, and the author of this extendedreflection, that Immanent Thou-ness, as pointed to through the strong threads ofnarrative analysis, and through the ensuing pastoral, theological exposition, is avalid, bold and necessary pastoral model that gives faithful expression to suchliberating aspirations.7.4 Conclusion: Immanent Thou-ness and Commitment to the OngoingStoryImmanent Thou-ness affords a clarity of vision that invites the pastoralcarer to write new stories. Whether they are stories of those whose stories havebeen told often or not at all, or those described by the pastoral carer, they arestories to be told. Here is a pastoral immanence and posture that invites the carerto see the one near to them with ever-newly discerned nuance and detail, and withever-developing understanding of the nuances that are sacramental orinstitutionalised, ordinary or unique, in detail. This story writing and telling cannever acquire a normative status. There is always more detail. There is alwaysmore to understand. The task of pastoral remodelling must continue.As has been described earlier in this extended reflection, the history ofpeople with intellectual disability who have lived their lives in asylums orinstitutions is of those whose story has not been told, whose voice has been and issilenced, whose identity remains to be authentically detailed. As long as thatremains so it is incumbent upon the carer who exercises committed pastoralministry in institutions to keep writing and telling the stories that come fromdrawing near to the flawed yet forgiven and loved person before them regardedquite rightly as the Thou.The task of liberation, whilst realized through the pastoral nearnessdescribed in this chapter, also remains as aspiration and as call to the pastoral task,as long as there are stories to be told.