Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Mother!

Monday, September 8, 2008

Mother!

The day we recall the 'birthday' of the Mary, is a wonderful day to reflect on motherhood and our call to birth God into this world. We remember all our mothers today and mothers all over the world most especially mothers in those areas affected by floods in the Carribean and India, and by famine and drought in Africa.

We pray for mothers who walk miles on end to gather firewood and collect drinking water, who cook in smoke filled kitchens, who wash clothes in rivers and lakes, who have to put up with abusive husbands, who go hungry so that

their children may get a morsel of food, who quietly work 18 hour shifts, who stay up all night with the ailing child, and above all we pray for mothers who shower such love and give us our very first experiences and lessons to share this love with all that we meet!

Reflecting on the words of Meister Eckhart and Edwina Gately I am reminded that we are dared to recognise that we are indeed a seed of God and each called to be mother of God -- that is, to actually give birth to the Holy ourselves. We need to recognise that we all carry the Divine potential. Each and every one of us is a God-bearer!

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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?”