Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: A remarkable week at TICCS

Monday, July 27, 2009

A remarkable week at TICCS

The week starting the 14th June was a remarkable one with numerous events packed into it:
Friday evening was an emotional day for most Novices including myself knowing that it would be the last night sleeping at TICCS. As we received our certificates of attendance, novices begun to realize that soon we would no longer be here. Dinner was great, a buffet with as many as 20 different Ghanaian dishes .

It was amazing how attached we became to the immersion and cross-cultural study and people we encountered in just a short amount of time. On Saturday we said our emotional goodbyes as the TICCS Director drove us back. Everyone in the bus was quiet as if upset with the leaving. I believe every novice is the richer having entered into this cross-cultural experience. That evening we had a welcome back to the community party.

At least the course has and will help us to have a greater understanding of the indigenous people and a tool in our ministries and community peace building.
On Monday the 22nd, we had the evaluation as the community and my conclusion was “Crossing over to another culture is probably the most difficult, albeit the most satisfying thing that an individual can possibly do.” As the globe shrinks there is an ever increasing need to cross these illusive barriers. The feelings of uneasiness and excitement were not left out of these moments of discovery and I quote Br. Phillip Pinto;
“We have been on this journey for years, the danger with this is that many of us we feel that now we are in a comfortable relationship with God, that the God we have known all these years is all there is to know. We get upset with people who question this understanding of God, who question the church, who challenge long held beliefs and belittle the devotional practices we were brought up on”
The ultimate purpose of the Cross-Cultural training is to assist us (other people) to participate fully, effectively and joyfully in the local culture as we share the love of God and his will for all of the cosmos.
(Sydney)

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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?”