Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Entry into Novitiate

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Entry into Novitiate

Today marks the day that we will formally start our novitiate year. We have a liturgy this evening to launch our novitiate experience. We have invited about 35 guests to join us to celebrate this day when we take another step on our journey to discover and explore.

We believe that as disciples of Jesus, who enter more deeply into the Mystery of God through our lived experience as brothers in community and mission, we will

be ever open to exploring the mystery of God in all of Creation;
reflect on the Jesus story in the light of our evolving understandings of the cosmos;
build healthy, compassionate communities living a heart-centered spirituality and supporting one another in mission;
open our hearts to the cry of the poor and the earth and to be moved to prophetic action through advocacy and works of justice; and
allow the charism of Blessed Edmund Rice to ‘fly free’ with freshness into finding new expressions.

We hope that as God continues to nourish us by the Word and strengthen us by an unwavering presence you will continue to keep us in your prayers so that the work God has begun through us might come to its completion.

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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?”