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You are here:Home / Family News / NEF 2015 / Family News - 2015 May 14th / Our Formation Houses
May 14, 2015

Our Formation Houses

Master of the novices, a special mission

Our Formation Houses

To finish our tour of the novitiate houses, we asked Fr. Jacky SCJ to speak of the specific role of the master of novices in the formation community, before giving the floor to Serge Arnaud, Landry and Christian, our four young Ivorian novices.

To be the master of novices seems to me to be a rather special situation. Last year in Betharram I saw quite a lot of Father Etchécopar who even as a young disciple was called by St Michael to become a novice master. I imagined the novices living in those early furnished premises in the attic of the monastery, where I have known very basic small cells. And every morning in my prayer near our father’s room, I returned to the same question: «and what do I do with them today, what discovery shall I invite them to experience? «

The novice master is alone with the Holy Spirit in this role of accompanying the novices. He has all the guidance in folders, scholarly books, the very considerable Ratio Formationis, reflections from the Service of Formation, his own experience of life and of formation, prayer and teaching. And it is left to him to create each of the 366 days of the novitiate. Alone, it is his great responsibility to allow these young people to ponder these issues for themselves: the Lord appears to be calling me (illusion or reality ...?), is this calling to a religious life at Bétharram (what does that mean ...?), what I can rely on to sustain my whole life in this way of following Christ? And the Congregation charges him with the power at the end of two years to say, “I sincerely believe that N. should consider being a religious Bétharramite or not. Here are the elements that allow me to say that! “ It is especially important to identify the “secret spring” that remains in our family the “test” for welcoming any novice into the Congregation. And who am I to discern this? I like to say, “it is only in the light of the Holy Spirit that this is possible.”

This is the concern with which it is important to walk every day in the little, sometimes monotonous, moments of ordinary life, offering care in the service of others, diligence and reverence in facing the Lord, through thoughtful gestures towards the orphans of the nursery or towards disabled children of Niño Dios. The evangelical life and the possible choice of a life of following Christ are shaped in all of this.

All that the novices experience is to be linked with them to the confirmation or otherwise of their vocation. You will therefore understand what joy the novice master can experience when in a weekly meeting, the novice shares some progress observed in a personal struggle with conversion, or an awakening to a new way to discover the face of the Lord, or in the recollection of a happy or painful memory that was the basis of a new and vital step forward. So with the novices, it is a matter of picking the fruits of the Spirit, helping them to assess their experiences and to reap the harvest as a valuable one for the future. It is also expected that some will occasionally cling to hidden thorns on the branches of the tree of life.

Another great joy, which is part of every father/son relationship is the trust given and received, giving the relationship a beautiful quality which lives in the heart. And then a precious moment of the day is the Eucharistic sharing of the Word and the Body and Blood of the Lord, bringing a beneficial, convivial atmosphere.

This year, in Bethlehem, (..) leads us to discover people who will become brothers since we are called to be family with them, and, in fact, live alongside people who are the same age as parents or grandparents. Each one carries the story of his own consecrated life. The community therefore becomes a place where fraternity becomes the rule. It is especially at meal times and in the chapel that this becomes a reality, because that’s where everyone goes and there is laughter at the table, or a curious young person raises a question which gives rise to moments of great sharing.

The novice master shares with his assistant, the community superior, various aspects of the lives of the novices, and at community meetings, he communicates what is planned and what is progressing. For a community, it is, I think, a real commitment to host a group of novices and to have their presence all year, knowing that it is for them to see us as witnesses (for each other) to the fact that it is possible to be happy in this way of life that we have. And each person has his own way of being present in the novitiate

Jacky MOURA,scj

Before saying anything, we want to thank the Lord for the opportunity that He has given us to live the canonical year of our novitiate in the Holy Land. This is an opportunity that is not given to everyone who wants it and we are very aware of the privileges that we experience every moment. Our gratitude also goes to the role of the Blessed Mary of Jesus crucified for her intercession; we still remember the Novena called her name that gave us the chance to return the novitiate in the Holy Land. Our gratitude is also for the whole congregation of Bétharram for all their efforts given to this cause.

We are also very happy to live our spiritual experience so close to the realities of the Holy Land, the land of our Lord Jesus Christ. This proximity to the source of our faith helps us to discover progressively a number of things that are useful for our spiritual, human and cultural formation as much as for our intellectual development. The various pilgrimages of the holy places helps to enlighten us about the mystery of the Incarnation that we always proclaim but especially at the Annunciation: The Word became flesh and dwelt HERE among us. We discover with joy and happiness the human dimension of our Lord: his origins, his footsteps, his history, which helps us to approach not only the gospel accounts more closely, but all the Holy Scriptures. We could take Holy Week experienced “directly” in the footsteps of the suffering servant, if we can express it like this. We were with him in the Upper Room for the last supper with his disciples and the washing of their feet and with him in his prayer in Gethsemane and then at the church of St. Peter in Gallicantu for the denial and the confession of Peter, then at the Holy Sepulchre for his scourging, his crucifixion, death and resurrection, and finally on the path to Emmaus with the two disciples. All these great moments proclaimed by the Catholic faith, we have lived and continue to live them more closely. It is really a blessing that we welcome.

The geographical location of our house made us the immediate neighbours of the Carmel of Bethlehem. (...) We are very surprised by the spirit of fraternity that has long reigned between the two religious families. We still keep in memory the warmth of the Carmelite welcome which we received a few days after our arrival. We participate in some of their activities: prayer times, sharing and moments of joy. With the perspective of deepening our knowledge of the doctrine and spirituality of our father Michael Garicoits, we also discover the richness of Carmelite spirituality through the image of the “future saint,” Mariam Baouardy. We use her prayer to the Holy Spirit to open our hearts every day. (...). We are in communion with the Carmel in the preparations for the big celebration, the canonization of Blessed Mariam on 17 May. (...) For this purpose, the prioress of Bethlehem requested that novices compose and record a song with an African rhythm in honor of the future saint.

The Holy Land is a land marked with extreme tensions. We became aware of this the minute we arrived through various exchanges and observations. The many and diverse problems regularly influence the lives of people here. Poverty, high unemployment rates, socio-cultural problems which cause some mothers to abandon their children, some Palestinian Christians unable to tread the soil of the Holy City (Jerusalem), they must await the annual authorization during Holy Week; the migration of young Christians, causing a significant decrease of Christianity in the Holy Land... We all carry these problems in our prayers and try, within the limits of our position, to be present alongside them, as recommended by our father Michael Garicoits. For example, we go in pairs twice a week (on Tuesdays and Thursdays), to carry out the service of the Good Samaritan in two social centres: Serge and Landry at La Crèche, a religious institution, run by the Daughters of Charity, that welcomes children abandoned by their families; Arnaud and Christian at Niño Dios, a shelter for the mentally ill, run by the Religious of the Incarnate Word. We try to be open to cultural realities around us, and we are learning here and there, the Arabic language to aid communication.

The novices

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