Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: New Year, New Team, New Novices

Saturday, March 19, 2011

New Year, New Team, New Novices

It is not common that all the formation team in a novitiate are changed at the same time, but various circumstances have conspired to bring this about at Tamale this year. The previous director, Br. Vivek da Silva, has moved to a well-earned sabbatical, Br. Henry McGann is providing his experience to the new novitiate team at Stellenbosch in South Africa, and Br. Denis Vaughan is part of a new community at Yambio in southern Sudan.

In their places have come Br. Tony Shanahan from East Africa, as Director; Br. Kevin Delaney, also from East Africa; and Br. Con Cerejo, well-known in Tamale from his previous role as Principal of the Catholic Mission school at Kanvili.

Following the first profession of the previous group of novices last November, we have welcomed a group of 14 new novices. While most are from Africa (Zambia, Kenya and Sierra Leone), two have come all the way from Papua New Guinea, continuing a tradition that began in Tamale with the very first group of Christian Brother novices in 2001, when three young men from PNG did their novitiate training here.

Below you can read about the formal reception for the new novices on February 19, and you can also meet each of the new novices via the photos and short introductions below and in the Archive section.

3 comments:

Christian Brothers Mater Dei District said...: All the best to the young men and New Team in this sacred time of Discernment and formation.

Sydney; March 19, 2011 at 7:37 PM
Peter Dowling said...: Excellent information on the new novices, and the material and photos are great. Warm appreciation to you for putting everything into the blog. It is well done and of much interest. Many blessings on all at Tamale.

Peter Dowling; March 19, 2011 at 8:37 PM
Martin said...: Cousin Tony,

Thank you for sending through the link to the blog, now well marked and I look forward to watching the community grow in faith through the year.

Best wishes,

Martin (Eastwood, Aust); March 20, 2011 at 9:52 AM

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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?”