Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Eucharistic Circle Challenged!

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Eucharistic Circle Challenged!

I believe one of the central aspects of the Eucharist is identifying each person as the embodiment of God. On deeper reflection, the Eucharist calls me to acknowledge my fragility.

One evening during our Community experience in Shekinah, at the climax of the Eucharist, a mentally challenged Muslim woman walked right into our midst and quietly sat on the floor just behind us without intending to cause any disturbance. However, she drew more attention as everyone keenly anticipated her next move. Then one of us got up and offered her a chair in our little Eucharistic circle. She completed our circle. Never once did she draw attention to herself or disrespect the occasion. Even when the bread and wine bypassed her, she never showed any negative reaction. She observed keenly. Didn’t we all?
I realized that as we accepted this woman in our midst, we welcomed the Divine. God surprises us in ways that we do not expect. The ways of providence are by nature surprising.
This woman brought me to a more holistic understanding of the Eucharist. The presence of this woman shed beams of light on my path to deepening the meaning of the Eucharist for me. Truly each person is an embodiment of God.”

Fredrick

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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?”