Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: My experience of a silent retreat

Thursday, December 24, 2009

My experience of a silent retreat

From December 14th to December 19th we had days of silence and reflection based on Mission, Prayer and Community. The retreat held at TICCS (Tamale Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies) was directed by our three formators Brs. Vivek, Denis and Henry. The tone set by the facilitators, coupled with the beauty of the surroundings, helped every Novice to enter beautifully into the spirit of retreat and discernment.
Our experience included: morning and evening group meditation/prayer, time for personal reflections and daily Eucharist celebration. These experiences helped me to be at home with myself and others, God and nature. Gradually my mind was opened to understand the core values of Community living, Prayer and Mission and also God’s love for humanity and each one of us individually.
I am convinced that our eyes were opened and we discovered God’s presence in nature. One evening I took a walk in the forest area to catch a glimpse of God, and I came to learn about the presence of God and the way the creator decorated the earth and put in place all things.
In a special way, I wish to express my sincere thanks to our team for their energy and time. Together as a team you created a retreat program so helpful to all of us. Not only did it deepen our novitiate commitment but prepared us for Christmas, and in a special way prepared us to leave the novitiate centre to begin a three-month community pastoral placement in different parts of Tamale.
(Cornelius)

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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?”