Whenever I heard of the term “novitiate” many ideas and questions crossed my mind. Finally I would ask myself when my time would come to dwell in the vineyard of the Lord as a novice. Well, it has finally dawned, thanks to God who wants me to do His will in this Sagana community guided by my formators and the people of good will.
The journey to Sagana is a long story that for now is obiter dictum, neither here nor there. My joy is that I arrived safely amidst the vicissitudes that adorned my voyage to tread the paths where many, both Consolata missionaries and good Christians had left their footprints.
Together with 12 others, our year of Novitiate officially began with simple celebration of the word during vespers presided over by the Regional Superior, Fr. Franco Celana on 17th July, 2008 concelebrated by Fr. Albert Kathare our novice master.
The exhortation from the superior to the 13 novices was in the spirit of our founder Bl. Joseph Allamano who always imbued the spirit of Consolata family in the novices during his time at the Mother House. He reminded us, using the words of the founder that the novitiate is the garden of every congregation and for us a foundation of sanctity, so that we may respond to Allamano’s wish and spirit, ‘first saints then missionaries’. He further pointed on humility in acquisition of virtues and deepening of the evangelical counsels.
He then gave us two life styles: contemplation of the Word of God and active pastoral care (evangelization of the glory of God). In the end, we were all happy to join the Consolata Missionary family as the novices, 2008-2009.
Back in the dailies were the challenges any other person meet in the due course of adopting any change, even change that we believe in. The major setback that struck me was the vocational shock let alone the cultural shock. For the latter I had developed a shock absorber during my holidays.
In any vocational journey, there are stages to live in order to grow in maturity and be filled with more zeal towards the desired way of life. For me it is an imperative step from Postulancy, which indeed prepared me, to the novitiate where my blood now has to test Consolata spirit positive.
At this point, the Consolata Seminary life has to be a fundamental stepping stone to the novitiate.
Three days down the line, as we were enjoying our honeymoon into the novitiate lifestyle and nursing our vocational shocks amidst various other challenges, the Consolata family’s eyes were set on Mathari, a small town in Nyeri district, the locus of the new second temporary novitiate in Kenya-Uganda region. On Tuesday 22nd July, we joined the rest of the family in the simple opening ceremony of the Mathari novitiate, our ‘twin brother’.
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