This year, school for the seminarians starts at the beginning of November. That gave me an opportunity to visit our parishes in Butiama and Buhemba. In addition to some administrative tasks, I had the joy of visiting with Fr. Andrzej Duda and the novices who live in Buhemba.
I enjoyed lunch with the novices on my first day. Pictured here (going around the table from left to right) are Edison, Robert, Emmanuel, Livinus, Linus, Polycarp, Desdery, Luis, and Hilary. I remember that meals were an important part of the day in novitiate. There are not very many outside distractions, as most of the day is spent in prayer and in study about the history and spirituality of the Congregation of the Resurrection. Each novice also has some “house job” for which he is responsible. But they also have some bigger manual work where they planted some crops, looking forward to a good harvest in the future.
After lunch, we watched a video about the Roman Renewal that Fr. Toby made when we were in Rome together. He had many images of the Generalate House and the Resurrection Sisters’ House. There were also sites of our first parish church, the church from where our Founder Bogdan Janski was buried, where the first Resurrectionists lived in Rome, and other historical sites such as the Shrine of Our Lady of Mentorella. The video also captured our renewal of vows in the Catacombs of San Sabastian and some of the settings for our discussions during the renewal program. Of course, there were many images of the camaraderie and prayer that we shared together in Rome. All these images provoked many questions and a good discussion about being a Resurrectionist.
One happy coincidence was that it was the name’s day of Edison. There is no “Saint Edison,” so he chose St. John Paul II as his name’s day saint. He explained how much he admired him and was able to name many of the encyclicals that he wrote!
As is our custom for the celebration of a name’s day or a birthday, we provide a small gift and ice cream! By the way, I am glad that I live in Morogoro. Ice cream is almost always available, but it is much harder to find in Musoma, the town closest to the novitiate. Fortunately, Fr. Andrzej was able to find some ice cream and was able to transport it about 45 minutes without major melting!
I was selected to present Edison with his gift…a new pair of pants.
Everyone was happy to celebrate with Edison, including Emmanuel, as well as Polycarp and Linus.
Livinus and Robert also wanted to show their support for their fellow novice!
And on drums…we have Luis! I think Edison is wondering when we get to eat the ice cream and cake!
This next photo was taken by Fr. Andrzej. I think he wanted to be more creative with the photos that I post. If you look sideways, everyone comes into focus!
I mentioned that the novitiate is located in Buhemba. The structure is next to the parish rectory. There is also the parish church, a pre-primary school, a primary school, and a new secondary school. This creates a good deal of traffic and noise. The space is also fairly cramped. The room in which most of these photos are taken is the only common space for the novitiate. So it serves many functions as a dining room, a classroom, a meeting room, and a recreation room.
We have made initial fundraising steps to build a new novitiate in Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania. We have bought the property and have begun some fundraising. I will share more information about this development in the future.
More to come on www.resurrectionists.ca
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