Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Meeting the Youth Parish Council

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Meeting the Youth Parish Council

On Sunday the 15th we had the pleasure to host six representatives from the parish youth council in our community. The main agenda of the meeting was to welcome us and give us an idea of the youth year plan so that we could work together. The meeting started at noon and ended at 2.00pm.

The main issue which was highlighted was to encourage one another to take part in youth activities like singing and drama to name but a few.
I was delighted with the positive response from the novices who pledged to work together and ensure that the youth benefit from us and we from them.

To our advantage we have novices who are trained in the youth ministry and have worked with the youths before.
It was resolved that for a start we would have a sports day for the sole purpose of interacting with and knowing each other. The day for the games was to be communicated later. For most

novices it was a great blessing to have this opportunity of meeting the youth leaders in order to discover there ministry.
The meeting was a good start and like good seed holds lot of promise for future growth.
(Chrispinus)

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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?”