If the abovementioned is true of any chapter, much more it is true of the coming chapter, which has as one of its principal objectives the in-depth revision of the constitutional text that regulates the Order. It is not merely a matter of juridical readjustments or attuning with the times. The aim is to deepen on the original inspiration, called charism, and to do everything to express it better and to intensely live all its richness.
There are two reference texts which contain the charism of the Augustinian Recollects, the so-called “charismatic texts”: the monastic Rule written by Saint Augustine (354-430) and theForma de vivir(Way of Life)composed in 1589 by the eminent poet fray Luis de León. The spiritual wealth of these venerable texts, already proven, should not be lost; it cannot be left out of the constitutional text, which is what regulates in practice the life of the communities and the friars.
This why, even as the Order discerns the will of God for her in the Church at present, she also returns to the origins by meditating once again on her charismatic texts. These texts are already present since way back in the book of the Constitutions: the Rule at the beginning and the Forma de Vivir at the end. But the latter document was edited carelessly; there are even significant errors. One of the last determinations of the outgoing administration is to replace the text with a more thorough edition, which any religious can easily use.
Recollection in Europe and in America
At the beginning, the Forma de vivir was mandated and approved for the sprout of the Recollection that emerged in the Province of Castile of the Order of Saint Augustine. But it is not the only document of its type. In reality, ways of life were written normally for all reform movements that emerged in different religious orders in the course of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries. And, as there was a recollection movement in Castile, there also arose another in America, specifically in Colombia.
The first Forma de Viviroriginated at the Provincial Chapter of Castile in 1588; the second one, at a regular meeting of the Council of Province of Our Lady of Grace held at the Saint Augustine convent in Bogota on 28 and 29 June 1604. Fruit of this meeting were the Instructions redacted sometime later by the then prior provincial, Fr. Vicente Mallol (1567-1637).
These Instructionshave not had great significancein the history of the Order, partly because they were in vigor for only a short time, the Colombian Recollection had lesser spread and the fact that it was almost exclusively a juridical document and hence, passing. It could be said that these instructions have been totally ignored by the Augustinian Recollects of the past and the present.
Still, they are an expression of the same Recollect ideal of the origins. They almost have no doctrinal or spiritual elements, unlike fray Luis de Leon’s Forma de Vivir, but they regulate a specific way of life, basically the same one that was observed in Castile. In general, they confirm what fray Luis’ texts says, and whenever they differ from it, they clarify it by way of contrast.
For this reason, the edition that we are offering of the document of the Instructions of the Colombian Recollection of the origins has a special interest. All the more so because it is it is joined to a short comparative study with the Castilian Forma de vivir, a study that shows similarities and differences and attempts to deepen on the causes as well as to draw out the opportune consequences.