Community: preface

To explain a way of life is never simple. The following is one attempt to detail Augustinian community living. ...

 

An Augustinian community is basically a Christian community, living, reflecting on and proclaiming the message of Jesus. The life of the community is characterised by reflection, prayer and mission.

 

The spirituality (spiritual tradition - in Italian, spiritualità) of Saint Augustine offers some attitudes for this life: a spirit characterised by friendship, interiority, the search for truth, community experience, sensitivity towards the disadvantaged, valuing and respecting the dignity of all human beings and loving service.

 

The interior self was one of the most important discoveries of  Augustine for his own benefit.

 

He chose the way of interiority in order to know God, know himself and contemplate reality.

 

 

He found that we meet God at the centre of our beings, and in that encounter we come to know ourselves also.

 

It had never occurred to him to begin and end with the inner self in order to be happy, and in this way, to achieve a satisfaction based on spiritual realities more than on realities of this earth.

 

Augustine emphasised the importance of the interior disposition.

 

He said, 'When you pray to God in psalms and songs, the words spoken by your lips should be alive in your hearts.'

 

Augustinian Spirituality (spiritual tradition - in Italian, spiritualità) encourages the individual to search for God inside of the self, to 'separate ourselves from ourselves' and from excess things of this world, to question oneself, and by so doing, to discover oneself and be renewed in the spiritual life.

 

And in finding oneself, to find God, the Maker of all.