Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Looking forward to welcoming the New Year

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Looking forward to welcoming the New Year

Ready to enter my life’s journey
Something in me welcomes this visitor,
The hope of bountiful blessings
The joy of a new beginning
The freshness of unclaimed surprises.

Something in me rebuffs this visitor,
The swiftness of the coming
The boldness of the entrance
The challenge of an era’s good bye

Something in me fears this visitor,
The unnamed events of future days
The wisdom needed to walk love well
The demands of giving away and growing.

A new era stands on my doorstep
With fragile caution I move
To open the door for its entrance
My heart leaps with surprise,
Joy jumps in my eyes,
For here beside me at this brand new period
Stands my God with outstretched hand!

God smiles and gently asks of me
Can we walk together?
And I, so overwhelmed with goodness,
Can barely whisper and reply
Welcome in!

(Joyce Rupp)

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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?”