News
Celebrating the feast of Saint Augustine as a family
Message from the Superior General
Roma
I return to you after the wonderful experience of Lourdes, where I had the joy of celebrating the Solemnity of the Assumption with other brothers and sisters. This month of August is like a time of recalling for us, because it takes us back to the memory of our sources through celebrations. Today it's Saint Monica, tomorrow it's Saint Augustine. Happy feast day to us all!
This year here in Rome, obviously motivated by the election of Cardinal Prevost as successor to Saint Peter, we'll be celebrating both feasts, that of Saint Monica on August 27 and that of Saint Augustine on August 28, together with the entire Augustinian family, in the Basilica of Saint Augustine in Campo Marzio. As a reminder, it is in this basilica that the remains of Saint Monica are found. She was originally buried in Ostia, but her remains were later transferred to this basilica in Campo Marzio, where some "great Augustinians" in charge of the basilica reside.
A mark of fraternity and family spirit that is being reconstituted at least here in Rome. Last week, I welcomed some Filipino friends to our Due Pini community, all members of the great Augustinian family. There were eight of us, from four different Augustinian congregations. We just wanted to spend some time together. But in the meantime, we had the desire to do something together in the near future. What unites us in the Augustinian family is above all love of God and neighbor. Living together and fraternity are concrete expressions of this. It is undoubtedly the Spirit who invites us to preach first by example: to begin with a true internal fraternity. And those who see us living like this will say: Look how they love each other. Is this not living the new commandment? "By this all will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another." (John 13:35)
In an address to the participants in the Augustinian Family Symposium during the private audience of November 14, 1987, Pope John Paul II said: "All of us in the Church (...) feel ourselves to be disciples and sons of Saint Augustine through the profound influence he has exerted on successive generations over the centuries. For this reason, I have exhorted the religious institutes, both male and female, which bear his name and live under his protection, or which in any way follow his rule, to deepen their studies of him and to spread knowledge and devotion to him."
As spiritual heirs of this incomparable man, in the words of the same Saint John Paul II, let us pray that this desire to draw closer to our brothers and sisters will prevail over all other desires. At the Assumption we are already experiencing a certain solidarity that we must recognize and give thanks for. But recently, Brother Didier Remiot, who is in charge of the Office of Development and Solidarity (BDS), shared with me a concern: returns from the 2025 solidarity campaign are remarkably meager at this point. Spreading knowledge and devotion to Saint Augustine is also a matter of concrete gestures. So we're still waiting to hear back from the communities. Allow me also to remind you of the gestures of hope to be discerned by each community (Mobilization for a gesture of hope to mark the Jubilee Year. Letter dated January 2, 2025).
Happy feast day once again to us all! May these celebrations be occasions of fellowship, but also of reminder for all of us, religious and lay, who share this heritage of which we are so proud.
Happy feast day!
P. Ngoa Ya Tshihemba, a.a, Supérieur Général