DOMINICAN VOCATIONS
PROVINCE OF THE ASSUMPTION
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DOMINICAN VOCATIONS PROVINCE OF THE ASSUMPTION |
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Novitiate |
Br
Vincent Magat, O.P. |
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News -------------------------- Welcome Benedict XVI Master -------------------------- History Introduction St Dominic's gift Australia --------------------------- Order Discernment Formation Dominican habit Novitiate Studentate --------------------------- Life Introduction Four pillars Apostolate --------------------------- People Dominican saints Our brethren --------------------------- Resources Lectio Divina Links Prayer Reading --------------------------- Site dedication |
The Clothing in the habit and
Profession are two family orientated occasions. It is after all
the time when mothers cry and siblings contemplate life to come without
their brother. Even to the man himself, offering his life wholly
to God and the Church, the upcoming rigours of Novitiate may well seem
to be a time of giving up and leaving behind. The heart, used to
the uniqueness of family love and devotion, may well tremble too. Yet at the Clothing we do not give away our family, nor are we loosened at Profession from the Lord's commandment to honour our father and mother. The private character of the Clothing ceremony allows for a certain intimacy in which the two elements, one's natural family and the Dominican community, take pride of place over the world which is given up, and its need which the novice is not called to answer as yet. "The
.. rigours of the Novitiate
may well seem to be a time of giving up and leaving behind ..
Instead the whole person .. is invited to grow.." Instead, the whole person, nurtured by the family, is invited to grow in two ways: by lovingly embracing the community and indeed the whole Order, and most importantly by learning to rely on the power of prayer and God's gracious ability to touch and transform that, which we cannot directly affect. Prostrated before his superiors and before God, the novice pledges filial obedience to the men charged with his formation, conscious always of the need for God's mercy and the mercy of his superiors, for which he then humbly asks. Thus the habit becomes the sign and a constant reminder of many things; for in being an element of the regular observance of the Order, faithfully maintained for 800 years, the brothers are joined to the Order; to the past and thus the glory of the Order's saints and martyrs; to the present and thus to service of the preachers and teachers; and to the future and thus the hope they and their brothers bring to the Church and the world.  The quiet and often hidden life of the Novitiate reaches its culmination and goal in the public gesture, made on the basis of a year-long rigour of prayer and discenrment, in which the brother binds himself to the Order and into obedience to his superiors, in much the same way as knights took oaths of loyalty before God in the hands of their master. Thus one is bound not only to formation and growth into maturity as before, but also to active service in the marvellous work of saving souls. Yet still, as Jesus honored His mother and father, so too the brother must find time to cherish and love the very family that gave him life. Br Vincent Magat, O.P. is a student for the Province of the Assumption. He successfully completed his Novitiate in 2002, and professed obedience, poverty and chastity for three years in the hands of the Prior Provincial, Fr Thomas Cassidy, O.P., on the Feast of St Thomas Aquinas, friar, Priest and Doctor of the Church, 2003. |
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