Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Prepartions

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Prepartions

As we await the arrival of the new set of novices on the 30th of January the Formation Team has been busy with meetings planning the new year. We have met a couple of times already and a few more are in the offing.
Tomorrow we begin three days of Team building with Fr Michael Taggart and Sr Mary Anne Hoope. This will give us an oportunity to look at how we relate and work together as a Team. Our experience of working as a Team has been good but like most things we are not perfect and there are areas that we need to look at and see how we can work on them.
On the 28th Prince and Vivek will travel down to Accra to welcome the new group of Novices who are due to arrive on the 30th of January. Hopefully all will arrive on that day. The only thing certain about travelling in Africa is its uncertainty! We intend to drive up to Tamale on the 31st morning leaving Accra well before dawn to arrive Tamale in the early afternoon.
Of the 15 novices listed below you will notice that six are from Kenya, four from Zambia, three from Sierra Leone and one each from Ghana and Namibia.
Paul Mutuku Mbithi (Kenya),Constantine Sunday Otieno (Kenya), Chrispinus Munialo Okumi (Kenya), David Otieno Oyugi (Kenya), Peter Muthini Ndivo (Kenya), Nicholas Odhiambo Minandi (Kenya), Sydney Muponda (Zambia), Kashewka Brian Chipango (Zambia), Likisi Innocent Mubanga (Zambia), James Janeiro Malunga (Zambia), Cornelius Pengnyin (Ghana), Bainda John Foday (Sierra Leone), Peter Amara Kabia (Sierra Leone), Frank Jr Borbor (Sierra Leone), Jordaan Sagarias Rikambura (Namibia).

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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?”