AUGUSTINIAN CHARISM

AUGUSTINIAN CHARISM       

INTRODUCTION

The consecrated (religious) life has come down to man as a gift from God and it has assisted man in this life, for the Consecrated life had its origin as a charismatic, prophetic movement in the church, under the particular inspiration of the Holy Spirit.[1] The religious life is not a mid-way between that clerical and the lay state, as some people may be forced to think. But it is a calling that should be and that is embraced by both lay and cleric. Religious involves the profession of three evangelical vows of poverty, obedience and chastity. Every religious that professes the aforementioned vows, has to belong to an institute, a religious institute. It is to this that we have such religious institutes as the Augustinians, the Benedictines, the Jesuits, the Redemptorists, etc. Our area of concern is the Augustinian life. One might thus ask, what is that which distinguishes us from other religious institutes?

THE AUGUSTINIAN LIFE

The Augustinian life is a life instituted by the church, leading a life in the imitation of Christ as our head, under the spiritual leadership of the person of St Augustine. In other words, we live a heavenly life on earth by seeking to be what we ought to be and that is brothers in and of Christ, bound by a spirit of love. We trace our spirituality to St Augustine and in some ways trace our foundation to him. But the founding of the Order Of The Brothers Of St Augustine was and is the brilliant innovation of mother church who is ever responsive to the needs of her children. As such the Augustinians hold dear to them and obey to the letter, (together with the spirit), the rule of St Augustine, written for the religious communities he founded.

AUGUSITINIAN CHARISM- COMMUNITY

The Augustinian life plays host to three very important areas in her life namely: INTERIORITY, COMMUNITY AND SERVICE TO THE CHURCH. Of these three, that which ranks above all is COMMUNITY, but this does not mean that the other two is of little or no importance. On the contrary, the life of interiority is the engine room of the community, and it is from the fruit of the community that Mother Church is served. It is the interior life that makes up the community. The Augustinian motto reads: ONE MIND AND ONE HEART INTENT UPON GOD. This unity of mind and hearts bespeaks of Oneness in Christ, who is the way to the Father and this unity in Christ, is fundamentally achieved by our unity in the spirit. Thus it is a unity not in the sense that all think or act alike, No; but rather in the sense that there is the one spirit, contained in our different bodies and working in us differently, who binds us all together. Thus it is a spiritual family that shows itself concretely in the physical world. Speaking of Community, Adolar Zumekeller OSA says“…it is rooted in God…it must be a community towards God; God must be the central point and Christ, the soul of the community.”[2] This oneness of heart and mind spoken of outlines what community means to all Augustinians, and it is only achievable via the interior life. Interiority means an inward search for God, a search for God that is only done in and through prayers. St Augustine, very much praised and advocated the interior life, as he stated continually on the need to return to the source, who has made His home in us. He wanted each member of his community to be immersed in God, and immersion that would lead to an opening of one’s heart to God, all through prayer (personal as well as communal). For Augustine, in prayer we speak to God, but in reading, God speaks to us. He thus advocated a scholarly life to aid the attainment of that desired immersion in God. It is in such an immersion that fruits for a better life in the community are achieved. It is in close union with God within that one is able to express this union towards his brother, for indeed this close union with God is only noticed by a corresponding union with our brothers. This union is a union of love, and for st Augustine, true Christian love is found in man’s offering of himself to the community.[3] For the Augustinians, like st Augustine, community is an end and not a means to an end. Community for Him was a goal to be pursued for its own sake, not merely to serve some other end[4]. According to St Augustine, “we are all together His Temple, as each one is by himself, for God deigns to dwell in the community of all men as He does in us one by one.[5]  Thus while we attest to the fact that every religious practices community living, indeed community living is even an integral part in most cultures, particularly that of Africa, we still insist that no religious conceives of community as an end, but a means. This is what distinguishes us from other religious. Quoting St Augustine, Adolar Zumekeller, says, “your life is no longer your personal possession…it belongs to the brethren, just as their lives belongs to you, or better expressed, their lives and yours no longer form a multiple lives, but only one life, which is Christ’s own.[6] St Augustine interpreted the one mind and one heart motto as community life that produces such high degree of harmony that they from one person, having one mind and heart. This point reflects well to the Pauline thought: “though we are many, we are one body in union with Christ.” (Romans 12:5) Adolar Zumekeller perfectly captures this as he states:

It is true that there are forms of monastic living other than Augustine’s which lay stress on living in common. Yet one can find no other legislation in which the notion of community has so consciously and forcefully been made the central point of all monastic living…to be a family of God, to be a community of love, and in that community to strive for perfect realization of the ideals of Christian life-that is the thought at the heart of all that Augustine did in establishing his form of monastic life.[7]

COMMUNITY AS AN END

We might argue that how is it that an end is realizable on earth? Does this mean that the Augustinian life does realize its fullness here on earth? These are plausible argument and yet we must not forget the fact that Augustine shared the same thought when he holds that “that joy will be complete and perfected ‘when this corruptibility is clothed with incorruptibility, this mortality with immortality’ (1Cor. 15:54). Then joy would be complete; then jubilation would be perfected… then love would rule without discord.” We should not forget that we are transitory beings; we are very frail humans who are on a journey to strength, we are very mortal people en route to immortality, we are imperfect individuals on their way to perfection. And all these are realizable in and with God. This can be realization starts fully on earth and without any hiatus continues and is completed in fullness in heaven. The Augustinian motto of “Oneness in mind and heart INTENT on God” captures the issue here. The word that should be noted here is “intent”. The word refers not to a striving (that is a journeying), as in a continued gaze or thirst for God, no. the word is an adjective that having synonyms like absorbed, focused, directed, fixed, rapt etc; it means having one’s attention firmly fixed on something or someone. Such intent entails a non-distraction with respect to him whose attention is fixed. With this motto, the truth of the Augustinian life as an end is revealed. This intent never does end on earth, but continues in heaven. In other words, if we attain to the beatific vision of God which we all long for, we will have our whole being fixed on Him, absorbed in Him, who draws us to Himself, then we will see Him “face to face” (1Cor 13:12), as He truly is. Even if we see but a mirror image of him, we are already fixed on Him, who is our end. We are absorbed not individually but individually as a unit, transcending the reality of our sensible caucus, in Him. Thus the fact is brought thus; we begin our heavenly life on earth, as earthly beings and continue with it in heaven as heavenly beings.

Augustine viewed everything in life via the lens of community. He considered heaven as the community of the triumphant, earth the community of the militant, and purgatory as the community of the suffering. He saw the group of Christ and his apostles as a community, and this community is the ideal to which the first Christians ordered their lives to (Acts 2:43-44, 4:32). Thus community for Augustinians is the life of Christ and his apostles. Community is our end and like every Christian that hopes to enjoy the heavenly life with the saints in heaven, it is also their end.  The community on earth, as already opined is a militant community, a striving one, leading to the end, which is still community, the community of the triumphant, otherwise known as heaven. The Augustinian life of community does not differ and is not excluded from such militancy. But since our end is the heaven, with God in the community of the angels and saints, then community is our end. Thus we can say that COMMUNITY IS THE STRIVING AND THE END. The Augustinian life is a life that is led communally under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which inspires us work/walk intently towards God.

CONCLUSION

In line with Ronald J. Zawilla, no Christian spirituality or charism is original in the sense of being utterly new; rather, each Christian spirituality draws on elements common to the tradition, emphasizing one or another, blending them into a whole that is distinctive.[8] What clearly differentiates the Augustinian order from other religious institutes, should not be punctuated in the capital or italicized in bold, we should know that this communal life that is the life of the Augustinians, is also part of other religious institutes, like the Dominicans; it is something we share with others. And since we are all tailored towards the attainment of our heavenly end, then it should be insisted that the distinguishing point between the Augustinians and other religious, be left to the world of the ideological. Community is our end, but it is also very key to other religious institutes, even if it may not be as forcefully emphasized as the Augustinians do theirs.

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[1] Rev. Fr. Jude Bodo, Canon Law Lecture Notes, for Theology II

[2] Adolar Zumekeller, OSA, Augustine’s Ideal of The Religious life, Fordham University Press, N.Y. 1986,P. 125

[3] Adolar Zumekeller, OSA, Op. Cit., P.126.

[4] Ibid. P. 126

[5] Ibid. P.130

[6] Ibid. P.130

[7] Adolar Zumekeller, OSA, Op. Cit., P.126.

[8] Ronald J. Zawilla, Dominican Spirituality, in The New Dictionary Of Catholic Spirituality, Michael Downey, ed., (theological publications, Bangalore, India, 2003) pp.287-288