Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Concreting of area outside dining room

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Concreting of area outside dining room

Br. Paul Noonan Formation Centre is one of the Christian Brothers novitiates in Africa which is ever changing and risking to embrace new possibilities. Over the last year or so, a number of changes have taken place ranging from the spiritual aspects to the physical aspect of the property.

The place is ever green and this makes the novitiate unique and different from the other houses around. You should also keep in mind that Tamale is not one of the places in Ghana to see people going around in heavy jumpers or warm clothes! So the fact that the novitiate is ever green is one thing you and I should thank God for.

On the 16th May, 2010 as the day faded away, we all gathered in our newly cemented yard in the Utility block to officially declare the place open and gave thanks to God for this wonderful blessing.

For those who have been here, I believe that you know the yard I am talking about and if you want to prove it, please pay a visit.

Everybody present at the mentioned gathering poured libation around the sacred tree which is exactly in the middle of the yard in honour of our ancestors especially to Br. Paul Noonan who achieved his dreams by doing something good for God even at the expense of his own life. (OTIENO)

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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?”