Br Paul Noonan Formation Centre, Tamale: Season of Workshops

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Season of Workshops

Since the official start of the novitiate, about seven weeks ago, three workshops have been a prominent part of life here at Br. Paul Noonan Formation Centre.

Immediately after the Reception, Fr. Mike Heap of the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers) led us in Basic Communication Skills, an appropriate way to begin our learning programme. Listening skills received much attention, and his descriptions of the way certain “types” of person don’t listen and hinder effective communication seemed to echo with the experience of many of us.

A few weeks later we were at the Tamale Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies (TICCS), conducted by the Divine Word Missionaries, having a week of Cultural Orientation. A variety of interesting presentations on Ghanaian life and culture were complemented by excursions. These included visiting the local chief; seeing the characteristic garment of the Dagomba people (the smock) being woven; sharing a meal with a local family in a village compound near Tamale; and sampling the local brew (‘pito’). There was much comparing and contrasting with the novices’ own cultures in matters of food, hospitality, welcoming and other customs.

Pito Brewer Distributing Pito Brew

Having a taste of the Traditional Brew - Pito

Cephas, Emmanuel and Paul look on as young apprentices
demonstrate how to weave a Smock.

A Visit to the Chief

Final Day at TICCS and Ghanaian Ladies from Tamale

putting out a Traditional Dance.

In Easter week we joined Divine Word seminarians, Presentation and FIC Brother novices, and FMM and MSOLA Sister postulants, for a workshop on Psycho-sexual Development. This was presented by a Ghanaian, Sister Rejoice. She was able to open up an area of life that is so important but often not much openly talked about. She gave us a ‘vocabulary’ for talking about sexuality, and provided information and raised questions that have ensured that the discussions continued long after the workshop finished.

The workshops were each quite different, but all were rich and valuable and helped provide a foundation for what we will be doing during this two year journey of novitiate.

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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?”