Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Novices on days of recollection

Monday, December 14, 2009

Novices on days of recollection

Our novices are out at TICCS for this week for their 6 days of recollection. This will be a time for quiet reflection on the year that has been and will provide the opportunity to look ahead prayerfully at the forthcoming three month Community Pastoral Placement.

The 6 days will allow for time to reflect on the prayer, community and ministry dimensions of our lives and discover God waiting to be found in all places. Henry, Vivek and Denis will facilitate two days each. These days will also allow us to prepare ourselves to celebrate

Christmas in a meaningful way, reminding us that we are constantly called to birth Christ to a world that longs to experience peace, love, joy and hope.

We request you to keep our novices in your prayers for this week as they reflect on their lives that they may with wonder and awe recognise the patterns that are being woven on the tapestry of their life by the Master Weaver.

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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?”