Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Missioning of Novices

Monday, January 4, 2010

Missioning of Novices

This evening we had a missioning ceremony for those going on community pastoral experience. It was a pleasant evening which began prayerfully.

We focused on the call to Abram and the on the invitation to Peter to walk the waters with Jesus. In many ways both were called to embark on the unknown and they had to trust implicitly in a beckoning God

and believe that they would be cared for having risked to step out of that which they were familiar and comfortable with.

The missioning liturgy invited us to be adventurous enough to embark on the sacred journey, to be bold enough to risk facing the unknown, and to be open to the invitation to new life remembering

always that in 'our knowing and in our unknowing, we are escorted into tomorrow by Love, who gives us everything we need.'

It remined us that we stand on the edge of our hopes and dreams and ask in trust to be led and supported by a Love and Energy much larger than we can imagine. It called us to walk 'in courage and integrity, as we attempt to discern the voice of God amid the cacophony of our doubt and fear.'

We go knowing and believing in God's assurance - "I will walk with you in places of the heart beyond your wildest imaginings. Dare to be my disciples. In you I am doing something new!”

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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?”