"Your best servants are
those who look not so much to hear from you what they want to hear,
but rather to want what they hear from you." -- St. Augustine's prayer in
Confessions 10.26.37
The Holy Rule of St. Augustine
The Constitution of the Society of St. Augustine
The Constitution of the Oblates of St. Augustine
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Every religious community or movement in the Church has its own particular charism, that special spirit left it by its holy founder, that special aspect of the Christian message which the community seeks to emphasize, and put in sharper focus, to the extent that it more easily attracts and influences those who come in contact with it. There is no question that it serves the best interests of the universal Church that this special charism and purpose be emphasized in each religious family (cf. Perf. car. 2b), for it is only in this manner that the many faced beauty of the Christian ideal, as well as its essential unity, can be properly expressed, for in the Church of Christ, "There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit," (1 Cor. 12). How are we different from other religious Orders?
Our spiritual Father, St. Augustine, offered no systematic presentation of his spirituality, but, as anyone who reads him extensively realizes, he does indeed offer consistent and continuous themes, principles, ideals that, when taken together, express what may be called "Augustinian spirituality."
What
constitutes this spirituality? This great spiritual heritage is expressed
in the Holy Rule Of Saint Augustine and the General Statues of our Community
(see links below). It is best described it as an
intense emphasis on genuine common
life to the extent that the minds and hearts of those
who live together are fused into one through charity and become
centred upon God. According
to St. Augustine’s Rule of life,
this is the primary purpose for which the brethren have come together:
"one
mind and one heart intent upon God" (cf. Rule,
ch.1.). This also constitutes the very type of common life, or Christian
brotherhood, which reflects Christ’s own desire for his Church
"that
all may be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you," (Jn.
17,21).
"Unity
in charity" is the very heart of Augustinian life, and constitutes the
ultimate sign value of our Augustinian life. When
"unity in charity" becomes
a reality, we as "Oblates of St. Augustine" become a clear sign
of unity in the Christian Church, a sign of the possibility of realizing here on
earth true brotherhood, and likewise a sign of the power of Christ’s grace,
which alone can fully overcome the natural obstacles to such unity. Our
Holy Father Augustine tells us: "God
looks more to unity of heart than to unity of place." Our
first "apostolate" within the Church is making the "community of
love" a living reality. The Augustinian Scholar, Fr.
Tarcisus Van Bavel writes: "And this is a real
apostolate, in the sense that it is one of the interpretations of the message of
Christ... Work which regards what is outside, a more
external apostolate, can never oppose this fundamental inspiration. We have
nothing to gain in searching for an alibi. The community does not necessarily
have to borrow its meaning from something outside itself. It carries within
itself its own meaning" (T
Van Bavel, O.S.A.: "La Espiritualidad de la Regla de San Agustín," Augustinus
12 [1967] 447).
