Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Expanding The Vision!

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Expanding The Vision!

Following our recent Congregation Chapter in Munnar, India we were invited to expand our vision. It is in this context that the document states..."When our ancestors reflected deeply on Mystery in creation, they came to understand that Earth, Air, Fire and Water were at the heart of this great Mystery."

We used these four invitations as our Offertory prayers during the profession ceremony.

Earth: Earth invites us to be grounded in healthy, intimate relationships within community. We are called to live our brotherhood in deepening relationships with men and women who wish to share Edmund’s charism. We pray that we open our hearts and respond to those whose hearts are broken through isolation, sickness and disease, injustice, ignorance, poverty and violence.

Air: Air calls us to wander freely across boundaries of spirituality and culture while anchoring ourselves firmly within our own religious tradition. We pray that we be open to the invitation to deepen our understanding of the Divine Mystery in all of life and creation.

Fire: Fire inspires us to be a passionate and compassionate presence within the wider community. We are inflamed with the Spirit of Jesus and Edmund, daring to be different, ‘to be the change that we wish to see in the world.’ We pray that we risk ventures in community and ministry in a new way.

Water: Water energises us to flow freely in collaboration with others. It invites us into action, to engage in ministry with people at the margins and be open to conversion through the dislocation we experience. We do this through education, care and actions for justice and eco-justice. We pray that we nurture the desire in us to be advocates for the voiceless, especially the young and those being deprived of life by exploitation and systemic injustice.

No comments:

Post a Comment

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?”