Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: 29th August

Friday, September 4, 2009

29th August

“I’ m going to get stuck into this thing called Religious life or get out of it all together”. Br. Bryan de Paul Noonan said this statement on his 33rdrd Birthday as recorded in the Tribute. What a prophetic statement he made? Indeed he fought a good fight until when he met his death here in Tamale1
On 29th August, a sorrowful wave of wind blew in our midst as we commemorated the Beheading of John the Baptist, and the death anniversaries of Edmund Rice and Paul Noonan.

The trio left a legacy which is still present in the minds of people whose lives have been influenced by what they did and how they lived.
I also realized that the death of John the Baptist is quite similar to the death of Naboth in the Old Testament. While the death of Naboth was organized by Jezebel the wife of Ahab in order to get his vine yard, Herodias also manipulated king Herod through her daughter to have John killed so as to avoid more challenges.

Anyway it is my conviction that the spirits of these three men are much alive in our midst. It is therefore an invitation to each and every one of us to shape our lives to be what we would like to become. (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?”