Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Our New Vehicle

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Our New Vehicle

Henry and myself drove down yesterday to Kumasi to pick up our new vehicle. Our old mini bus is now 10 years old and and has taken its fair share of battering over the years.

We booked for this new Toyota Hiace in early November. And on Tuesday I got the call to say that the vehicle was ready for delivery.

We finalised all the paper work and got the mini bus registerd. Work is still in prgress with regard the transfer of ownership, and we still need to get the insurance done. I drove it back this morning. Its a good 'machine' and moves well. It is a lot more comfortable than the older one.

And I am sure it will serve the new set of novices well. Its first official "job" will be to drive the new group of novices from Accra to Tamale on the 31st of January 2009.

(My next blog entry will probably be from South Africa where I am travelling to tomorrow! I will be back in Tamale on the morning of 6th of January. Henry is holding fort all by himself until then.)

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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?”