Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Whose footprints are we walking in?

Monday, September 8, 2008

Whose footprints are we walking in?

On the 29th of August we remembered and celebrated the lives of John the Baptist, Blessed Edmund and Br Paul Noonan.

We began our prayer by calling on thier spirits to be amongst us. For many of our men Paul Noonan is only a name and the events of August 2001 a part of forgotten history. Having invited the spirits to be among us by pouring a libation we read the account of Paul's death from the annals of the Novitiate. It was a very moving experience indeed to hear that story again.

The three men... prophet, founder and brother ... reminded each of us what we are called to be in todays world as we are invited and dared to be disciples of Jesus.

Are these the footprints we walking? Are these the shoulders we standing on? Are these the men we have before us as we follow Jesus to the edge, into the deeper and wider dimensions of living that we may discover the God who awaits us?

The testimony of their lives reminds us that...

"That the way to make the most of ourselves is by transcending ourselves…
It means that each of us will become a paradox –
Free, yet constrained by necessity;
Shrewd, yet innocent;
Open to the others, yet self-reliant;
Strong, yet able to yield;
Centered on the highest values, yet able to accept imperfection;
Realistic about the suffering existence imposes on us, yet full of gratitude for life as it is.
When you transcend yourself, the fact will be confirmed by the quality of your life……
A transparency and a radiance of being

Which result from living both within and beyond yourself.”

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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?”