INSIDE THE NOVITIATE
Most Blessed Sacrament Friary serves as the novitiate for the entire Community of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal.
What is a novitiate? A novitiate is a religious house where the novices, the new members of a community, receive training and formation in all areas of the life of their community. It is a time and place especially conducive to prayer and study. Thus, this friary which was formerly a monastery of contemplative nuns for over 120 years, is particularly suited for this contemplative experience.
A young man(between 21-35 years old)who is accepted to enter our “postulancy,” the initial stage of formation, lives atSt. Joseph Friary in Harlem for 6 months, beginning in September, and experiences our various ministries with the poor in the Bronx also. In March, with the approval of the Community Servant, he is invested with our habit and a “caperone,” an extra little cape(or large bib of sorts)that distinguishes him as a novice. He then moves here to Newark for his novitiate year.
A typical day in the life of a CFR novice revolves around the schedule of prayer, approximately 4 1/2 hours each day including Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours, and Eucharistic Adoration. Generally they have classes in the morning, mostly in-house courses covering such things as Franciscan history and spirituality, the vows, music, or basic life skills like auto mechanics. The afternoons are typically given over to manual work or ministry. Although the novices don’t have a lot of apostolic responsibilities, they are involved every week in either a local soup kitchen, hospital ministry, or pro-life prayer and counseling. They also help out with our parish missions, youth retreats and other forms of evangelization, including at times simple forms of street evangelization here in our Newark neighborhood. Living in a poor neighborhood is not the classical setting for a novitiate, but it is an essential part of our life and a good “reality check” that keeps the novices interceding for the Lord’s grace and mercy for their neighbors as well as for themselves.
The novitiate year is all about conversion. It may sound like an easy time of retreat, since the novices have more time for prayer and study, but it involves a lot of interior work which is not so easy. In fact the lack of other activities has a time-tested way of “bringing out the worst” in a friar, like the agitator in a washing machine, so that he can see in what ways he needs to change. It is a testing time, to be sure that our life of poverty, chastity, obedience, prayer, fraternity, penance, service to the poor and evangelization is truly what he desires and that he has a capacity and the grace of the call from the Lord to live this way of life joyfully. An intensive community life helps a novice brother to let go of some of his bad habits(vices)and grow into good habits(virtues). He learns to be more reliant on the Lord’s strength rather than his own. Of course he doesn’t finish the novitiate year as a “finished product” but this year helps to provide a strong foundation and hopefully a holy trajectory for the rest of his religious life.