The Augustinian Order
The Aim of the Augustinian Order
The aim of the Augustinian Order (OSA) consists in fraternal union and spiritual friendship, where we seek and praise God and work for the service of His people. In this way, we share in the evangelisation work of the Church so that it can spread the Good News to the whole world so that we can transform it internally. This is our testimony (cf Constitution OSA 13). Thus we become filled with God, filled with light, filled with joy. Like Augustine… Lord we want to keep on seeking you, we want to keep on finding you and knowing you… but above all we want to keep on loving you ever more.
We are called Augustinians.
This name carries with it a wonderful past, a present filled with challenges and a future filled with hope. Saint Augustine’s Order is one of the religious orders dedicated to the service of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our mission as a religious order within the Catholic Church is to bear witness to God’s love for mankind through our living together in communities of brothers built on spiritual friendship and the sharing of the experience of faith. Through our vows of chastity, poverty and obedience we commit ourselves to a consecration for which God has summoned us to serve the Church in the various ministries that we are entrusted with in different times and places.
Our ideal as Augustinians was laid down by Saint Augustine, who, following his conversion, wished to live in communion with others where nobody owned anything and where everything was shared with others, each according to his needs. For this purpose, he set up monasteries for men and women. He also wrote the Rule for these servants of God and in it he gathered the fundamental principles our life so that we can live the Gospel on the lines of the first community of Jerusalem, just as we find in the Acts of the Apostles (2, 4-5)
“All those who believed were united, and they shared everything amongst themselves, selling their wealth and all their possessions and distributing the proceeds amongst themselves, according to the needs of each individual. And every day they used to go to the temple together, break bread in their homes and sharing food with joyful and pure hearts”.
History of the Order
During the 13th Century, a time of great turmoil and great changes in the Church and in society, in the forests of central Italy there lived several hermits, very often in small communities who led a life of penance and contemplation but dedicated to commitment towards the people of God.
These brothers wished to participate more significantly in the work of the Church. Four of them presented their chosen lifestyle to the Pope. In 1244 Pope Innocent IV gathered them together and gave them Saint Augustine’s rule in accordance with their wish. Thus was set up the Order of the Hermit Brothers of Saint Augustine. From the very beginning, together with the contemplative and community spirit, these religious brothers dedicated themselves to scholarship and apostolic work. In 1256 Pope Alexander IV joined various other groups to the original community and wanted that that the Augustinians adopt the way of life of a mendicant order. These mendicant orders based their life on the value of poverty both personal and of the community.
They depended on charity and were organised in a centralised structure. Thus in addition to Saint Augustine’s rule, which is a map upon which we try to live the Gospel, we also embrace the tenets of the Constitutions: life norms that adapt the Augustinian ideal to the different times and cultures in accordance with the traditions of the Order.
From the 13th Century onwards the Order of Saint Augustine continued to grow and spread through the whole world. Today it is found in more than 40 different countries in all continents and numbers around 2,800 religious brothers. Together with these, one needs to add to the great Augustinian family the Augustinian nuns who lead a contemplative life, the Augustinian nuns who lead an active life and the Lay Augustinians who commit themselves to live the Augustinian values and spirituality wherever they live and work.
After our name we carry the initials O.S.A. (Ordinis Sancti Augustini) because our official name is Order of Saint Augustine. The badge of the Order, our symbol, in which is gathered the essential spirit of Saint Augustine, is made up of a flaming heart pierced with an arrow of love on a background of an open book that represents the Word of God. Our religious habit, a symbol of our consecration and belonging to the Order is made up of a black (or white) tunic with a hood and a leather belt.
