redemptorists-cebu

As many people journeyed in the Novitiate so as well the description of it. Let me share these two beautiful flowers, as I would call them, in this great Novitiate garden. The first flower is Novitiate as a Holy Vacation. This is a thirteen months of rest in the lap of Jesus and His holy will. For the whole week we wake up before six in the morning. At six o'clock we have our daily community meditation for thirty minutes, followed by our daily Holy Eucharist or Personal prayer to welcome the great day. Then we have our breakfast at seven up to eight in the morning. Then we have our Morning Prayer or Lauds. Monday up to Saturday at eight forty-five up to ten in the morning we have our class, which is followed by an hour of break and personal reflection.

We gather at quarter to twelve for our mid-day prayer, and our lunch at twelve noon up to one in the afternoon. An hour of siesta follows. Monday and Tuesday afternoon we have an hour of class and the rest of the days we have an hour of reflection, jail visit, house cleaning and gardening to be in touched with the beautiful creation. At four in the afternoon we have our Visit to our dear Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, to be followed by community sports, or personal reflection. We will gather again at quarter to seven in the evening for our evening prayer to be followed by dinner. After dinner is either a recreation time or a time of reflection. We gather again at nine in the evening for Consciousness Examine, where in we give account to our loving Lord, how we spend His gift of life for the day, to be followed by Night Prayer to close the day, then we straight to a heavenly rest. During Tuesday, Wednesday (novena to our Mother of Perpetual Help), Thursday and Sunday we attend the Holy Eucharist in the church together with the people of God. Sunday morning we have a hospital visit and music practice to hone our angelic voices hahaha and on the afternoon is our free time and mall hour. We also have classes in Manila for three to five days, once or twice a month except on December. According to the professed priests and brothers this is the time of our formation years that we can sleep, pray, eat, and reflect a lot. We also have an outing at least once every two months. This is how the wheels of our daily lives spin here. A Holy Vacation indeed Brother B _ _ _d
The second flower speaks of Novitiate as Purgatory on Earth. Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori our founder in his book, The Love of God in Practice, chapter seven he says, "Saints had only one end in view- one thing on which their gaze was fixed; they were trying to find out how in everything they did they could give pleasure to God". To know what pleases God and where He is calling us is the greatest aim of our Novitiate and Christian formation. What pleases God is to see man fully alive. To achieve this, man must know and feel deep in his heart the will of God upon his life. To know Gods' will needs an essential prerequisites and these are to know who you are, why you are here, and who is God to and for you. Knowing and loving thy self and God are the only key in this room. All the classes and other parts of the formation program here were a help for us to walk on this path. The road is dim and blurry and when the light of formation starts to shed its radiance you will see your brokenness, darkness and mess. But what is the greatest gift the formation offers is for us to see this dirt always under the overwhelming grace and love of God. A God whose great desire is our healing! Pain is always part of growth and healing, so we are challenged not to run away from it. This year also is a year of purification of our intension why we would like to become a priest or a brother in the Congregation. But according to one of the priest in the Congregation no such thing as a pure motivation but what is important here is that to be clear in our goal and that is loving Christ. The details may fall short into our expectation and others but as long as we have the great and true desire to follow Christ then that is quite enough. To help us, we go through Psychological Processing, classes on Catholic Faith and the history, Constitutions, and Statues, of the Congregation. The long time for prayer and reflection was given considerable attention. We also read Spiritual books concerning our Saints and their life and works. One of the most important tools for our guidance is our constant talk with our Formators, and Spiritual Directors on a monthly basis, and many more. I would like to highlight that Academics, is not the priority here but personal reflection and observance. This is the place where our intensions, motivations and desires pass through the purifying fire of the Holy Spirit. Novitiate indeed is a Purgatory of our intentions Brother J _ _ _.
Today formation for Religious life is a necessity for the good of our church and country. Changes in formation now a day are indeed a good way for answering the current call of our faith. Nevertheless it is necessary that our intensions must be purified, and I feel that this is the heart of our seminary and Christian formation as a whole. These are some of the beautiful flowers in our life here in the Novitiate, the heart and garden of purification in our formation as persons, Christians and Religious men. If incase this information is not enough to quench your thirst to know what is the life inside the Novitiate, then join us and taste and live for yourselves the garden and you will see more the beauty of this garden where God delights himself everyday.



Bro. Joie John G. Baquero