Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Being opened to relate

Monday, July 27, 2009

Being opened to relate

When I was thinking of the mentally challenged people I tended to always make grandiose statements of them being hostile.

However, this has been challenged since I started working with the feeding program during my ministry time. Most people will even think negatively of them even before interacting with them. For me it was fear that was making me not to open my heart to them. Now that I am working and interacting with them I am not only happy but my happiness comes from fulfilling the primary purpose of life, that is love all humankind as I have loved you. I have also come to realize through my interaction and eating with the mentally challenged, a happy person has something to do, someone to love, somewhere to call home and something to hope for as Dr. Abdulai has done. Those brothers, sisters and parents may not yet be the happiest or best put together person you know, but for me the Lord hasn’t finished with them yet. All I have to do is to make them full members of our larger community making the world a better place for me and you and the entire universe.
(Constantine)

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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?”