Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: OCEANIA COMES CALLING

Monday, October 21, 2013

OCEANIA COMES CALLING

One of the challenges of life in a place for those of us who are not Ghanaian, which is all of us, is the isolation. Tamale is not on any tourist trails and travel within Africa is expensive, if you come by air, or slow and uncertain if you choose any other means of transport. So we very much appreciate here the number of visitors we have from the other Districts within Africa, and from other Provinces beyond Africa. There is something in face-to-face interaction and having someone living with you for a while that email, Facebook and phone-calls can’t match.

We were especially delighted earlier this year to have Br. Vince Duggan, the Province Leader of Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste and the Philippines), with us for nearly two weeks. The fact that we have had two novices from Oceania in 2011-12, and again this year (Desmond and Francis from Papua New Guinea), is the main reason that Vince has given priority to visiting us.

We have not only benefited from Vince’s willingness to take some classes (some very colourful excursions into Church History), but even more from his presence. Despite his responsible position and status in the congregation, his warm and humble (check out the photo below at the wash-up!) way of being among us underlined what brotherhood and leadership mean for us Christian Brothers.

Vince shows that he hasn’t forgotten what to do at a wash-up

Vince and the three natives of Oceania – novices Desmond and Francis, and Br. Tony.

Vince (far right) with almost all the novices and Team. Can you pick which novice is not there?

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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?”