To Be A Novice

All of the novices in the Inter Community Novitiate (ICN) recently came together to participate in the planning and preparation for a mass celebrated during one of our meetings. The entire process was mainly devoted to celebrating our cultural diversity, and we had an explosion of willingness to share and to learn from each other, especially as we discerned how to pray within our preferred worshiping styles. I must admit that we even surprised ourselves with how well we came together since most of the preparation was done separately then brought together in a single hour, which certainly required trust among all of us. We brought items (cloths, statues, flags, etc.) that represented our culture, using it to create the environment in front of the altar. We sang the Gloria in Bemba, the language of indigenous people of Zambia. We represented seven different languages (English, Spanish, Vietnamese, French, Tonga, Mandarin, and Tagalog) in the readings and intercessions. We celebrated through dance during the offertory with a song in Swahili. We did all this in a spirit of prayer, of ministry, and of joy. It truly was an intercultural image of being Church – in fact, it was our own way of being a witness to the mission of God.

Every time we gather for the ICN, we take part in a shared path of formation through a spirit of community and of study. We share our charism as the novices from each congregation in the ICN are given an opportunity to present their congregational history and mission. We share at table with good food, good company, fun conversations, and much laughter. We share our stories and experiences as we engage in discussion on the topics of personal and communal discernment, Enneagram types, transition and the movement to our true self, communication skills in community and in our congregational charism, communal theological reflection in a parabolic mode (using the lens of the parables), and the journey to interculturality for Jesus, for us, and for our congregations. Each topic has challenged us and encouraged us as we walk this sacred journey to personal and communal growth. Yes, our ICN days are quite full, and there are more topics to come that will continue to challenge us (and hopefully encourage us) to go even deeper into awareness, freedom, and growth.

I am blessed to belong to this company of novices. We are novices still discovering our identities in religious life and in our own congregations – still discovering how to live our call to religious life and how to do so through our congregational charism and mission. With so much work ahead of us, at least we have discovered each other as companions on this formation journey. We have discovered the blessing of cultural diversity, the value of collaboration, and the support of friendship in the family of religious women and men.

Until next time, please pray for us and all novices around the world.