| MSC Novitiate in South Africa |
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The Novitiate is located in Chevalier House, in Midrand, half-way between Pretoria and Johannesburg in South Africa. Despite the global financial crisis there is a mass of road expansion and industrial development all around. Day and night the preparations continue for the World Cup due in June 2010. South Africa is only 15 years out of its former Apartheid regime. This “Rainbow Nation” of many races also has multiple contrasts; of some super-rich and an enormous number of super-poor. Criminality is the order of the day. The security companies are numerous and even security checks, high walls and electric fences surrounding homes are not enough to guarantee the security everyone longs for. We are in an environment that is about 80% Christian from various churches. This however does not stop the many problems we face. What a challenge! A few months ago we visited the famous paleo-anthropological site called ‘the cradle of Humankind’, 100 km north west, from our house. The gold mine searchers in the 1930s discovered the caves habited by hominid fossils – ‘Australopithecus africanus’ – that have been dated to be 2.4 million years old. In descending in these ‘prehistoric’ caves, the gold searchers discovered something great and unexpected! This is for me like an image of a novitiate experience!
As Peter Ng’ang’a from Kenya says, “For me, the novitiate experience is an encounter with my self, the other and God. I am discovering my call, my vocation with each passing day. I am learning to keep silent for a longer time, do some spiritual reading. The courses and other novitiate activities teach me to work contemplatively and make work part of my prayer. The pastoral work at the nearby hospice caring for HIV/Aids patients, sponsored by the MSC’s and other interest groups, not only exposes me to the needs of the community, but also to a respect and love of life, amidst the suffering of the terminally ill patients. I pray that I will grow to be a witness of the love of the Sacred Heart as an MSC”. For Wahendi Rech, of Congo Brazaville, “Novitiate is a stage to profoundly deepen and solidify the base of intimacy with God through his word. It is a time that is making me grow in union, heart to heart with Christ in the ‘great silence’. For me the silence of the Novitiate signifies paying an attention to the presence of God”. Solitude, for Joel Ngah from Cameroon, is far from ‘boring’ it is essential in the experience of novitiate. “It is an expression of emptiness that opens me to communication with God and my brothers. In solitude I have a feeling of God’s mark in my daily life. Nature plays an important role for me, by its bounty, beauty and diversity, ready to offer itself to the unknown! Nature talks to me of God and with His open hands. It is one of the sources of my inspiration in building a community based on respect of difference, love, justice and compassion”.
“The novitiate and its environment helps me to interiorize, deepen and focus my attention on the vocation and mission that is revealed to me by the pierced Heart of Jesus. The journey into the heart is for me a beautiful discovery that gives me the audacity to confront the mystery that I am” (Jules Silvain Eloundou, Cameroon). As for me, Fr Karl Hofer MSC, I accompany this ‘interior journey’ of my young brothers in the descent into the centre of their lives, in their secret meeting place with God, in the heart of the night illumined by the presence of God, where silence becomes adoration and profound communication. God makes himself felt. Each person’s life-project is honed through this intimate dialogue. Soon we will travel to the Pastoral Centre of Tzaneen Diocese in the northern Limpopo Province to begin the 30 day retreat. Please do keep all of us in your prayers, especially the young men discerning their MSC vocation.
Fr. Karl Hofer MSC, |
On the 14th Aug. 2009 the 2009-2010 African MSC Novitiate opened with 5 candidates and their 2 formators from six different countries. Now the Novitiate is a little over half way through and the Novices are about to begin their 30 day silent retreat following the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola.
After 6 months: discovery, light, the inspiration sources ……
Sylvain Mbunsu from Congo DRC, says, “The richness of our times of adoration, exceptional moments of love, are some of the most beautiful discoveries for me. There, I journey into my inner most being and meet face to face with my Lord incarnate in a simple and frank language. My apostolate among the poor also helps me to meet Christ. My desire to become an MSC, a missionary and a witness of the loving heart of Jesus is being clarified and fortified”.