Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Our Novitiate Community at Gurugu Jalapa

Monday, March 17, 2008

Our Novitiate Community at Gurugu Jalapa

Since the 15th of January we (Casimir, Julias, Jackson, Sonny) have been experiencing what it is to live in a Christian Brother community here in Gurugu Jalapa. Two months have passed and we have come to the realization that the objectives we had set ourselves though not easy are attainable as long as we, as each individual and then as a community, strive towards them and work together.

Our pre-set mission goals included:
*trying to be responsible for one another
*deepening the relationship among the four members of our community and the outside community.
*seeking to balance our prayer, community life, ministry and extra community activities.

We may be yet far from realising these goals to their full potential. Nevertheless, we are satisfied to have developed good dispositions toward them. It is worth having such an experience away from the novitiate house and the formators. In their absence we have realized what each of us is capable of on the one hand, and on the other we have been learning from one another.

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What do we want this novitiate to be?

There is a saying that goes something like this: “If we don’t do what we believe in, then we’ll end up believing in what we do”. Without a vision that is authentic and alive to guide our actions, then we can settle for rationalizing the status quo or what is convenient and comfortable.
One of the first things the new team in Tamale did was to spend time beginning to articulate its vision of a novitiate beyond the basics laid down in our Constitutions. Here are some elements of what we came up with:
Novitiate is a journey, a process that involves KNOWING, EXPERIENCING and CHOOSING.
It is an INITIATION into Christian Brother religious life, so a “rite of passage” into a new identity, a time of learning and testing.
Novitiate confronts the novices with the Brother’s vocation as a call to brotherly solidarity and community, not to privilege, status and security.
It involves exploration of the basic values of faith and vocation, and the challenge to embrace these out of personal conviction and free choice.
Novitiate means understanding that a religious vocation makes a claim on the whole of the person and his life, including his inner life, his relationships and his professional activity (ministry). Furthermore, it challenges the novice to see the dynamic inter-relationship of these areas and to learn what their integration means.
Novitiate is a time of DISCERNMENT. The novice learns more deeply who he is, and what this Christian Brother life is. There is a constant back-and-forth movement between these two poles as an answer is sought to the question, “Is this where I am meant to be? Is this the life that will enable me to find my true self in God?”