Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Comings, goings and happenings!!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Comings, goings and happenings!!

The novices left for their community pastoral placement on the 3rd of Jan. Tomorrow Denis and Vivek cross the borders of Ghana. Denis heads off to Lusaka, Zambia for a week long meeting of novitiate formators. Vivek heads across the seas to India for his home leave. Henry will hold fort along with Con Cerejo who is moving to the novitiate for a while.

There are lots of projects planned for this time when the house will be relatively empty. The roof in the new block is beong replaced. The tiles that were used to roof that block proved to be a disaster with extensive leaks during the rainy season. So now we replacing the tiles with metal sheeting. We are also working on refurbishing the kitchen. Work is already underway there. The mosquito netting for two of the three buildings has just been completed.

The harmattan dust has started to blow with a vengence. It had been mild for a while but now we back to the dust and dry air. Looks like it might get worse before it gets better. Wonder what is worse ... 4 inches of snow or dust blowing the whole day!!

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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?”