Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Technological Advancement in the Novitiate

Monday, July 27, 2009

Technological Advancement in the Novitiate

Over the past week, we have been doing self & program evaluation as well.
One afternoon as I perused through my evaluation sheet, I came across one of the
Questions which read; what in the program have you found frustrating?
Without wasting time, I identified browsing outside the house as a frustration, since most of the computers are slow.
Anyway the internet issue is no longer a frustration as the facility is available at home. The weekends are now lively in the house.
Thumbs up to the formation team for providing this service and indeed we are now living in the real 21st century.

(Otieno)

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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?”