Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: All Souls Day

Saturday, November 21, 2009

All Souls Day

This feast comes immediately after the feast of All Saints. Over the years I have been wondering who the saints are. After all these two big celebrations, I am convinced that there are so many people all over the world who lived their lives genuinely and deserve to be canonized. For one reason or the other, they can’t be declared saints,and it is on these two days that we recall and celebrate the lives of this multitude.

As an individual, this is a big opportunity to remember all my deceased relatives and friends especially my dear mother. Like the Jews who during captivity asked themselves, “But how could we sing a song of the lord in the foreign land?’(Ps137:40). I also found my self asking the same question but in a slightly different way. How could I remember my late mother in this place far away from where she was buried? But I got a great assurance from the community that I am not the only one who has experienced such agony.

Death is a metamorphosis and a spiritual transformation that awaits us but still there is need for consolation. Margaret Ogola in her novel the river and the source said that the dead have no use for the living who eventually have to tear themselves away to continue with the business of life.

I think there is sense in this statement since the living have to continue with their lives keeping their ancestors in mind.

All in all I pray to the compassionate God to grant all the dead eternal rest and shine the perpetual light upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen
(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?”