Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Prince and Titus

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Prince and Titus - daring to be disciples in Africa!

This last week we had Titus here doing a week's workshop with our novices on the Sprituality of African Traditional Reconciliation. It was a very enriching workshop and generated a lot of discussion that spilled over to the meals table!!

At the end of the week we took the opportunity to wish Prince and Titus the very best as they enbark on a whole new journey in the Christian Brothers by professing their Final Vows.

We celebrated their decision to "dare to be disciples" in Africa where they "risk being different."

During our prayer celebrating their commitment we reflected on the theme of discipleship.

"Discipleship is the first entering into relationship with God that Jesus had. It is experiencing God as Jesus experienced God. “I have shared with you everything I have learnt from the Father”

"The disciple then is a person who listens attentively for the God of Jesus in his life, whose heart is open to the word of this God, and whose delight is to proclaim this word with compassion and commitment."
"To be a disciple of Jesus and take part in the mission of Jesus is to be so caught up in the experience that Jesus had of God, that our lives reflect that Divine encounter. This is what happened to Blessed Edmund Rice."

We wish Titus and Prince well as they profess their vows on the 19th of July in Bo, Sierra Leone. We request you to keep them and their families, especially their parents, in your prayers over the next few days and join us in thanking god for such wonderful men!!!

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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?”