Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Community pastoral placement evaluations

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Community pastoral placement evaluations

‘Life not reflected upon is not worth living’.

April 12th to 22nd, 2010, what a remarkable time in our discernment process! After three months Community pastoral Placement we came together to share the fruits of the experience. I am grateful to Sr. Alice- Msola and Br. Raphael-Presentation Brothers, for the effort and time they invested in the first week of evaluations.

The first week consisted of Community reports and financial statements, role-plays and reviews of the CPP process itself.

‘It is not easy to go to the margins and not be challenged or touched by the enormity of suffering and hardship of people living in such conditions.’ Our Constitution states “it is in daily living that the challenge of community life manifests itself. We grow as persons as we come to accept the difficult task of living for others and as we become aware of our gifts and limitations in our human interactions…”

These statements were revealed in the 2nd week of evaluations. It was evident that the exercise had achieved its intended purpose as we shared how growth had taken place in our lives. We listened to each others individual reports. During the peer evaluation we affirmed and challenged each other bringing to awareness our gifts and concerns. During this learning process we were also privileged to share with the team members and our individual accompaniers. At the end the team gave a feedback of how they felt and saw the experience to be.

The whole CPP and evaluations stimulated and left many with questions on the Christian Brothers way of life and what Religious life is all about today.

I thank God, the team, my fellow Novices, the people who offered us time and space for learning and growth, the staff at various ministry sites and a million thanks to the people we ministered to and who in turn did the same for us.
(Sydney)

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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?”