Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Harmonius Living!

Friday, September 4, 2009

Harmonius Living!

19th August, 2009, surely will be a day I will live to remember and ponder about during my stay in Ghana, not because I had a picnic just two days after celebrating my birthday, not because it is the first time I touched a crocodile, not because it is the day I visited briefly the land of Burkina Faso after crossing the border with Ghana, but because the foundation of my faith was shaken and broadened.
It was the day I came into real contact with a Roman Catholic religious congregation of Brothers – the Presentation Brothers – sharing the same compound with African Traditional Religion.

My brothers and sisters, what I mean here is this; African Traditional believers having their shrine in a religious and formation house compound! With the unwelcome perceptions we Christians have towards these traditional religious as barbaric, outdated, paganistic, and fetish, I think if my local ordinary was to hear this he may drop dead.
But is there something wrong with this? Absolutely no! This is a practical scenario on how best the two parties have gone with their religious inter-Dialogue, how they have come to understand the underlying message behind difference in their religious beliefs and prayer, that “we are all looking and searching for one thing, one product:; God’s unconditional love and compassion though packed in different containers called Christianity and African Traditional Religion.

In a Christian prospect, I believe these Religious Brothers have, undoubtedly learnt to live far more beyond the law, and in their own way and language are struggling to respond to Jesus’ call “Unless your virtues go beyond those of Scribes and the Pharisees, you will not see the kingdom of heaven” To me this is where the theory of co-existence is magnificently translated into reality! It is possible, the divisions among our religions we can eradicate, and this we can do without turning over each other’s coat, just like these Brothers are enjoying their harmonious living with the other religion. It starts with you and I, lets get out and act even in our small capacities, ‘the seed will grow’ or who shall we wait for? (Nicholas)

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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?”