Day 1 – SELF-KNOWLEDGE
Day 1 – SELF-KNOWLEDGE Self-knowledge is the key to spiritual life in Augustine. This is not a mere experience of the self, a narcissistic introspection, and it is the very...
Day 2 – NO SEPARATION BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND SACRED DOCTRINE
Day 2 – NO SPARATION BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY AND SACRED DOCTRINE For Augustine, Christian faith is our philosophy. For him revelation exposes the structure of the self to be image of...
Day 3 – CONVERSION
Day 3 – CONVERSION Confronting a narcissistic culture, what is called the “me” generation, we shall acknowledge that the secular western self has not and will not disappear. The attempts...
Day 4 – PASTORAL
Day 4 – PASTORAL Augustinian spirituality is not authoritarian and hierarchical even in the Church. It will be a spirituality for a church attempting to replace a hierarchical and authoritarian...
Day 5 – FALL and CONVERSION
Day 5 – FALL and CONVERSION Augustinian spirituality is one of fall and conversion, of grace and forgiveness. The human which is without intermediary the mirror of God's Trinitarian life...
Day 6 – MEMORY
Day 6 - MEMORY The culture of our time is a culture of experiences, of facts, of information. We have self-consciously turned against our Augustinian origins, deconstructing the self, in...
Day 7 – CHRIST
Day 7 - CHRIST For Augustine teaching was only possible because of Christ, the LOGOS, and ultimately when Christ became our teacher. For only Christ as God and man spoke...
Day 8 – SACRAMENTS
Day 8 - SACRAMENTS Augustinian interiority is a necessity for the future in respect to liturgy and the sacraments. For Augustine sacraments are effective signs of God's love. To participate...
Day 9 – WILL
Day 9 - WILL Another aspect of the Augustinian spirituality is the will. As he says, the will is all important. Will originates for Augustine in the emergence of thought...
Day 10 – COMMUNITY
Day 10 – COMMUNITY Community is the axis around which Augustinian life turns: a community who live harmoniously together, united by a single soul and a single heart, seeking God...
Day 11 – HUMILTY and POVERTY
Day 11 – HUMILTY and POVERTY Humility and poverty are the foundation of Augustinian common life and spiritual life, and are so closely related that no one can be called...
Day 12 – SEARCH FOR TRUTH
Day 12 – SEARCH FOR TRUTH Veritas is the Latin word for truth and Augustine described his life as a restless search for truth. He was a life-long learner who...
Day 13 – UNITY
Day 13 – UNITY An Augustinian value for education is teaching people how to live together, is unitas, the Latin word for unity. This unity implies a respect for diversity,...
Day 14 – Caritas
Day 14 - Caritas Another Augustinian value is caritas, the Latin word for love. Love accepts everyone for exactly who they are. It is a culture of graciousness, a generous...
Day 15 – PEACE and JUSTICE
Day 15 – PEACE and JUSTICE It would not be Augustinian to condone arbitrary socio-economic inequality and exploitation of one’s brother, or to claim that economics is answerable only to...
Day 16 – Love and the Hierarchy of Values
Day 16 – Love and the Hierarchy of Values Love, for Augustine, is not a static reality but a dynamic force. It is a movement that pulls the person from...
Day 17 – Love for God is verified in one’s love for the neighbour
Day 17 - Love for God is verified in one’s love for the neighbour Augustine has been accused of having spiritualized love, reducing it to a kind of personal intimacy...
Day 18 – Solidarity: Identification through Love
Day 18 - Solidarity: Identification through Love Incarnation is that process whereby God identifies Himself with man through Love. Augustine was moved especially by two biblical texts that illustrate this...
Day 19 – Formation in authenticity
Day 19 - Formation in authenticity Formation in rightly ordered love involves formation in authenticity based on a deep knowledge of self and of one’s place in the design of...
Day 20 – Devotion to Study and the Pursuit of Wisdom
Day 20 - Devotion to Study and the Pursuit of Wisdom The cultivation of the mind is an integral element in Augustinian values formation. But study and learning must not...
Day 21 – Faith and Reason
Day 21 - Faith and Reason “Believe that you may understand,” says Augustine; but he also says, “understand that you may believe.” Belief is “to think with assent.” This is...
Day 22 – Two-Books Doctrine – encountering God
Day 22 – Two-Books Doctrine – encountering God According to this teaching, the Word of God is echoed in two books, the Book of Scriptures and the Book of the...
Day 23 – Freedom
Day 23 - Freedom The concept of freedom is perhaps, like “love”, one of the ideas most affected by philosophical pluralism. Despite the varied and sometimes even divergent explanations of...
Day 24 – “One mind and one heart intent upon God”
Day 24 - “One mind and one heart intent upon God” Augustinian community life is described by a statement comprising of two phrases: “One mind and one heart,” which derives...
Day 25 – Common Good
Day 25 – Common Good “Sharing of goods” is the same as “working for the common good.” By working for the common good, the Augustinian performs his/her duties as service...
Day 26 – Service is love in action
Day 26 - Service is love in action It is not the “service” offered in gas stations for the customers. This latter refers to the added attention given to those...
Day 27 – Work
Day 27 - Work Within the context of service, human work assumes a different meaning. The Augustinians explain their perception of work in the following way: In harmony with Augustine’s...
Day 28 – Leadership
Day 28 - Leadership The idea of “leadership” is derived from the social sciences. Leadership is one of the elements that shape the life of a society. Jesus gave it...
Day 29 – Augustinian idea of leadership
Day 29 – Augustinian idea of leadership There are three ideas in elaborating the Augustinian idea of leadership: (a) The Leader is a Companion; (b) The Leader is an Animator;...
Day 30 – Intellectual
Day 30 - Intellectual Augustinian spirituality is by nature intellectual. Augustine deeply thought about, widely borrowed from, and fundamentally transformed the pagan intellectual heritage in its most comprehensive result. His...
Day 31 – Friendship
Day 31 – Friendship Our Augustinian life of fraternity and community leads us to the careful cultivation of the values of friendship. Friendship begets and nourishes loyalty, trust, sincerity and...
Day 32 – Prayer
Day 32 – Prayer It is not possible to synthesize all that Augustine thinks of prayer in just a few paragraphs. Augustine’s concept of prayer does not substantially differ from...
Day 33 – The Role of Scriptures
Day 33 - The Role of Scriptures The descriptions of prayer that we find in Augustine’s works should not distract us from the idea that prayer is “your speaking with...
Day 34 – Experience and Freedom
Day 34 – Experience and Freedom Augustine knew the emptiness of a libertine’s life. His escapades both in boyhood and young adulthood gave him much to lament on in his...