Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: ... and the dialogue continues!

Monday, July 27, 2009

... and the dialogue continues!

Who said the inter-religions dialogue is an initiative of yesterday? From my experience at TICCS I learnt that in fact Islam and Christianity have been engaged in a productive dialogue right from the birth of Islam, when Waracks Namful a Christian monk first revealed to Mohamed his mission and call from God. Generally for a long time Muslims and Christians have been living together. The Theologians from both sides became the catalysts, responding to every mosquito bite with hammers which to date has led to sharp division among the groups.
Today as we all know we are engaged in tireless inter-religions dialogue, but the question that we ask ourselves as we continue the discourse is - what should we forget for a successful dialogue? Is it
our faith or mission propagation? The answer you and I have it. As noted by our neutral lecturer the competition for mission propagation among religions here in Ghana is more bloodthirsty than the price of cement hence the need for this talks.

From this 75minutes class I realized that not only does this dialogue seek to find amicable solution to their hatred, but also to bring a common understanding of Theology, Spirituality, Scripture and development for the widespread good of everyone.
Having said and done that the big question still remains why are we divided, why is it that Ghana’s different religions cannot live harmoniously under one roof? We are all moving toward one thing, fulfillment with the divine, only that we are traveling in diverse vessels. We all proclaim one product, ‘Love of God’ but in different containers.
Brothers and Sisters we can be shown that we can live together irrespective of our religion, we have been given an orange lets not ask for lemon, rather lets lemonise our selves.
(Nicholas)

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?”