Our Capuchin Franciscan formation is on-going and it makes
one to conform to Christ in a spiritual journey. This spiritual journey of the
candidate is accompanied by the able formators. The formators assist the
candidate to give a strong response to the call of God. The candidate being
accompanied by the formatore is helped to know the ways of Gods grace and
presence in his life. Through all the formation that the candidate receives is
all geared up to know himself, learn and assimilate the spirit of the founder
and capuchin of Order. This process of discoverving himself is on going and
never ending. Our Capuchin provinces all over the world I am quite sure is
giving importance and priority to the initial and on going formation. The
formation of the candidate must prepare him to totally consecrate and surrender
to the Lord whom he is going to serve. During the formation the accompanying
formators should help the candidate to experience God in their journey and
allow them to express that experience in various ways. The candidate with his
availabiity and positive disposition to God and formator opens himself to a
spiritual realm.
Today the Provinces must be extra careful as the candidates
come from various challenged background which we are aware but may not be able
to handle. These backgrounds can be very challenging and sometimes could drain
our energies in gving and forming them according the mind of the Order. The age
old values in the Church and Order are still holding water and will never lose
their importance but the candidates come from society where these values are
compromised. The formators will have to walk an extra mile with the candidates
in re-emphasising on the values. Today we know from experience that those who
come have different intentions altgoether from those of the Order. How best can
we can initiate them to accept the intentions of the Church and the Order? The
candidates should not be forced to do something but taught to love and accept
something self giving and not self centeredness. A second plague that poses
serious challenges to the formation of religious today is the half-baked
education received by candidates who join us. Before now, it was taken for
granted that candidates who aspire to the religious life will be a little above
average in the cognitive domain. Unfortunately, due to the rot in our
educational system, which is caused by bad governance, it has become difficult
to see candidates with good results and being confident enough to defend such
results. In most instances, young men come in with excellent results and yet
are not able to communicate in simple, straightforward English. Instead of formators
spending more time and energy imparting knowledge on the theology of the
religious Life, Evangelical Counsels, Scripture and a few other core courses,
more energy is being expended on secular courses like English Language, which
are supposed to be pre-requisites to these religious courses.
There is need to pay attention to the work of formation because
we are living in very secularized society. In other words, we have to respond
to the signs of time. If a Congregation's new members are allowed to do no more
than inherit the past, then the potency of the founding charism will be
stifled. Finally, the people entrusted
with the work of formation must be men of prayer and integrity, ready to teach
by words and action. They should realize that growth into religious life is a
gradual process. They must also allow themselves to also be continually formed,
since formation is an on-going process.
No comments:
Post a Comment