Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: How can i doubt the resurrection?

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

How can i doubt the resurrection?

I was going to tell you my story

But waves of pain drowned my voice.

I tried to utter a word but my thoughts

Became fragile and shattered like glass.

Even the largest ship can capsize

In the stormy sea of love,

Let alone my feeble boat

Which shattered to pieces leaving me nothing

But a strip of wood to hold on to.

Small and helpless, rising to heaven

On one wave of love and falling with the next

I don’t even know if I am or I am not.

When I think I am, I find myself worthless,

When I think I am not, I find my value.

Like my thoughts, I die and rise again each day

So how can I doubt the resurrection?

Tired of hunting for love in this world,

At last I surrender in the valley of loveAnd become free.

“Rumi: Hidden Music”, translated by Maryam Mafi and Azima Melita Kolin (2001, p98).

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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?”