Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Visit from SVD House of Formation

Monday, April 27, 2009

Visit from SVD House of Formation

On April 17th the students from the Divine Word Missionaries(SVD) St Freinademetz Formation House payed us a visit to interact with us through sport and social interaction.

The football match ended as a 2-2

draw but the more significant part of the evening was a to sit down and interact with each other as brothers after the game over some biscuits and soft drinks. It was a wonderful opportunity to share stories and experiences.

In their letter fo

gratitude to us they expressed the desire to see more of these interactions and wished us well in our formation and for our stay here in their country and especially Tamale.

We look forward to meeting with them again.

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?”