Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: How am I waiting this Advent?

Saturday, December 5, 2009

How am I waiting this Advent?

On the feast of Christ the King; a king of truth, justice, peace, reconciliation and of the cosmos was born. I joined the local parish where the singing was vigorous, and the tempo moved many gifted parishioners to move to the rhythm.
In the opening word, the celebrant who preached eloquently not on Christ the Universal King but on vocations, urged the youths to be open to the call to partner with God in the work of creating the world, of redeeming and renewing the people and becoming instruments to spread the gospel wherever we are.
The liturgy went on beautifully until that loathed time for announcements when a steady stream of people moved forward to

explain notices which can be done by the announcer in few words and minutes. The thing I hate is waiting. And the nastiest thing about waiting that I always curse is the further waiting for some inexplicable reason I have to endure and have no control over. I feel like my precious time is being wasted.

Little did I comprehend that as the year ends, we begin Advent which has the same concept of waiting, a time of awareness of the three-fold coming of Christ; who came at Bethlehem, who constantly knocks at the door of our hearts and who is to come in glory.
For most of our lives we are waiting.
The Gospels have many instances where waiting occurs. The Jews waited for many ages for the coming of the Saviour. The disciples waited in the upper room afraid and apprehensive. When Jesus ascended into the heavens he instructed his faithful to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Jesus never told his followers how to fill in that period of waiting. But we know we have to be prepared. Our lamps have to be ready well before waiting occurs.

During waiting the lamps need to be glowing and topped up. For many of us our period of waiting looks wasteful. Sadly we do not know how to wait.
Waiting can be a very rewarding and rich experience.
My wish is that this Advent, in our waiting, we will let the power of God overshadow us as mist covers the mountains. Let it be an invitation to letting impossibilities become possible and may we have a blessed time of waiting.
(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?”