The Augustinian idea of community is assisted by charity, friendship, prayer in common, and humility.
Charity will nourish trust, sincerity and mutual understanding.
It unites persons with Christ through the Holy Spirit, helping them to recognise the examples of the love of God in the events and circumstances of life.
Thus, united in charity, Augustinians are called to show to others the gifts they receive from God, and to share them with others.
The Augustinian community appreciates what is of value and offers it to Christ, from whom all good things come and in whom all things are brought together.
Friendship in Christ not only assists the development of each member of the community but also increases freedom in the community itself.
Openness of mind in community enhances dialogue and permits the enjoyment of the necessary autonomy for the better service of God.
Humility (humilitas) and poverty are the base and sign of community life. They are so closely linked such that Augustine declared that nobody could be called "a poor person in God" without also being a humble person.
By means of poverty and humility a person in Augustinian religious life deems that all he or she possesses, whether spiritual or material, belongs to all because he or she has been gifted with these possessions only for administering them for the benefit of others.
Augustinian religious primarily manifest their offering of themselves to God by the practice of the vows, which in the canon law of the church are identified as poverty, chastity and obedience. (povertas, castitas, obedencia)
It is the mark of love that gives the Augustinian observance of vows its special identity.
This spiritual identity of the Order had two foundations.
The first was the person of Saint Augustine from whom it received its concept of religious life, in particular the importance of the interior search for God and life in community.
The second was the mendicant movement by which the Order of Saint Augustine became an apostolic fraternity. ID0937
Community: ideals