Institute of Spirituality and Religious Formation

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Browsing Institute of Spirituality and Religious Formation by Subject "Authentic Witness as Keeping the Law"

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    Authentic Witness in Religious Life
    (Tangaza University College, 2005-04) Nwankwo, Justine Ndidi
    It is a common saying that the people of today are in search of witnesses rather than teachers, and if teachers are sought, they are not only teachers but witnesses too. Hence, in the midst of men and women of this generation, so immersed in the absolute, we are called be witnesses, not just witnesses but authentic witnesses, witnesses to the invisible in a secularized society, which too often excludes every transcendental Dimension. We must be constant reminders of that destiny, which takes place in time but has eternity as its goal; witnessing by our lives the necessary direction of our existential course. Our vocation as religious which places us as chosen forerunners of humankind must be able to find the model and anticipation of that which it is also called to be in spite of its burdens and its compromises. For an effective and eloquent movement to be an authentic Witness, it is good to search and know what it means and entails to be one The purpose of this work is to describe some of these aspects. This long essay comprises of three chapters. Chapter one deals with the meaning of authentic witness. It covers the understanding of authentic witness in the Old Testament as walking with God, keeping the Law, and doing God's will. Then in the New Testament it treates authentic under Jesus and ST. Paul and also as living the Gospel values. The chapter also coveres the understanding of authentic witness in traditional Africa as a matured person with integrity and living the cultural values. All these subheadings reflect on the meaning of authentic witness as a person with integrity of life, who practices justice, honesty, goodness, uprightness etc. Chapter two deals with the meaning of religious life in the light of authentic witness, as a call to holiness, a life of prayer, a life lived in community, a vowed life, bringing out how religious life can be a way of witnessing authentically and the major challenges facing religious life in the process of witnessing authentically. While chapter three describes how the lifestyle of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as an indigenous congregation has been striving to witness authentically to its congregational Charism.