Matola Second year Novices ready for Community experience
Our Constitutions number 101 says, ? With the consent of the Brother Provincial, the Master of Novices can organize one or more periods of apostolic activity outside the Noviciate house.? Looking at the picture of our novices, you can tell that they are inside the Noviciate house at Matola. On this day our novices were saying bye to our community and were ready to go for the experiences in their appointed diverse communities found in Mozambique, Angola, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. The same number of our Constitutions, statutes 2 and 3 read: ? the community receiving the novice understands the objectives of this stage of formation and contributes to them, 3, this stage is made under the direction of the Master of Novices.? I am proud to say that, our Master has plans to visit some of them before they return. In fact he accompanied some of them in a bus and endured the tiresome journey for two days.
The community Superiors were thoroughly consulted and we received one Good News from all of them, which reads, ? They are most welcome to live with us our common Marist Brotherhood.? Yes, we can also say that the basic inspiration is obviously the first Christian community, the fruit of the Risen Lord. Each community permits each of its members to grow in fidelity to the Lord. I have seen that conflicts are inevitable in communities, as it was in the early Christian communities but dialogue is the way out of them.. Conflicts help us to avoid living superficial lives but far from dividing us, they help us to respect differences and practice tolerance. It makes us realize that we are human becomings, always on the journey and we can even claim that we are unfinished products. In this way, forgivingness will indeed have to be a norm and not an exception as Brother Sean , Our Superior General says: ? Look at the way they love one another!? the pagans used to say of the early Christians and our Founder repeated the same words loudly in the Spiritual Testament. A song says, ? By our love they will know we are Christians.? For us we can replace Christian with BROTHERS. I pray that our young men will discover the beauty of following Jesus more closely and that the experience will deepen their desire to commit themselves to him with much enthusiasm. Let Jesus Christ be at the very centre of your lives as you continue with your discernment. We pledge to keep you in our prayers so that you may have a successful and fruitful apostolic and community experience. When you come back, burn us with the Good news that even the Noon Day Devil could not pin you down. Mind you, Jesus will always be with you. May you always enjoy good health so that you can carry out the task of making Jesus known and loved among the young ones. You will be among the loved ones of Jesus, the children. He urged the disciples not to chase them but bring them to him.
A short prayer at the beginning of the lesson period can also help to bring them to Jesus and recommending them to your Jesus during the Mass. Challenge them that it is possible to live the evangelical counsels with the help of Jesus as the angel assured our Good Mother that nothing is impossible with God. Finally let me wish you courage, and good luck. God bless. Estamos sempre juntos.
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Simeon Banda, fms, Matola.