Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Workshop with Presentation Brothers' Novices

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Workshop with Presentation Brothers' Novices

From the 14th to the 19th June we had a joint workshop with our fellow Presentation Brothers’ novices. The first phase of the workshop looked at the Prophetic Dimension of Religious Life. The second phase dealt with Sexuality, Celibacy and Intimacy.
As we entered this second phase of our seminar, the following questions seemed to have been permanently glued in my mind. “How is man a sexual being? How is everything done by a human sexual?” These are some of the questions I have asked myself whenever the word sexuality is mentioned.

Initially I thought that sexuality is all about getting a man or a woman of one’s own preference and falling in love, only to realize that it is not as I thought! It is more than just being in the company of the opposite sex.
It was a time of discovery about the forces that drive the human sexuality. I noticed that the same energy is behind one’s human spirituality. There is no way an integrated human being can be active in his or her interactions with others and yet be dormant in his or her spiritual life and relationship with the Divine. One is either active in both or dormant in both. It is out of human sexuality that an individual’s relationship with God can be defined
At the end of the day I came to understand and appreciate how greater saints like St Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross were able to express their love. They did something beautiful for God just as Mother Teresa did when she expressed her love by dedicating her life to the poor of the poorest.
(Otieno Oyugi)

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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?”