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

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Our Novitiate Community at Shekhinah

Salaam aleikuum!!!

Greetings from Paul, Phelix, Belden and Fredrick! We're privileged to have this opportunity to share our lived community experience with you. As we set out to live community we set as our vision:
-To strike a balance between Community Life, Prayer and Ministry.
-To make ministry one of our principal means of Evangelization.
-To initiate new/ extra ministry namely teaching the young pupils both in and around our premises.

To achieve the above mentioned vision is a struggle. We are striving towards achieving these goals by being together in Community, prayer, ministry and having time for one another. Theoretically, it is easy to say 'Community Life' but practically it is a daily struggle. As our Constitutions say, “It is in the daily living that the challenge of community life manifests itself.” Our zeal and enthusiasm as a Community enables us to know each other’s principles, attitudes, behaviors and character.

We integrate our activities as a Community by praying together and our prayer is always centered on our daily experience especially in ministry. This leads us to be in tune with the divine we encounter in the poor. “God is more readily found at the broken edges of our world”

Through Community, we affirm and challenge one another either at community meetings, meals, recreation, or in the sharing of our lived experiences. This is a growth towards living Community Life.

We strive to be in solidarity with the marginalised through the following ministries: Shekhinah out-reach services which include cooking and supplying food to the destitute and mentally challenged on the streets. Working in the Dispensary, helping out in the operation Theatre and, constant visits to the HIV/AIDS patients and those suffering from leprosy. Our own initiative has enabled us to have remedial classes for primary pupils from P1 to P6 in the afternoons and early evenings.

In conclusion, all these wonderful experiences lead us to encounter Christ in our daily life. Indeed Christ ministers to us through the marginalised. We believe we are striving to mirror the Discipleship of Jesus and Bl.Edmund through our lived experiences and our daily encounters.
May Jesus continue to live forever in our hearts.

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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?”