The convent of Our Lady of Valentuñana was the place chosen by the Augustinian Recollects for the celebration of the Day of the Augustinian Recollection. More than 80 religious were present together with Miguel Miró, Prior General, and the four provincials having their seat in Spain: Saint Nicolas of Tolentine, Saint Thomas of Villanova, Saint Joseph and Our Lady of Consolation, which was celebrating its 50 years of history.
Added to them were some Augustinian Recollect bishops: Eusebio Hernández, pastor of the diocese of Tarazona (Zaragoza, Spain), Aníbal Saldaña, of Bocas del Toro (Panamá), José Luis Lacunza, of Chiriquí (Panamá) and Mario Molina, of Quetzaltenango (Guatemala).
New Recollection
The feast started at 11:30 am with the words of Manuel Beaumont, provincial of Our Lady of Consolation, encouraging the Augustinian Recollect family to participate actively in the process of revitalization and restructuring, which the Order is undertaking.
The Augustinian Recollect historian Angel Martinez Cuesta lectured on the origin and history of the Province of Consolation. After which Miguel Miró, Prior General, encouraged those present who manifested their joy for this festive anniversary, to participate in the revitalization of the Augustinian charism at the light of the new constitutions and to live a sincere conversion both at the personal and communitarian level. Miró invited those present to recognize their identity in the Church with the eyes fixed on the “new evangelization” and on the present world following the exigencies of the Gospel, and to search for avenues to enhance the coherent living of a consecrated life, with a firm conviction based on a communion of life and a hope-filled faith capable of giving responses to what contemporary men and women demand.
Madrid
Two days before, December 3, the Augustinian Recollect friars, the Augustinian Recollect Missionary sisters and the Secular Fraternities of Madrid (Spain) had the opportunity of listening to Miguel Miró, prior general. This occasion was celebrated in the Parish of Santa Florentina with a conference of the prior general on the project which the whole Order has taken: “The revitalization and restructuring.”
Miró did not conceal the implications and demands of revitalization, which, at the personal level, is a conversion. It supposes getting out of apathy and weariness; it implies sacrifices and ascesis. “The revitalization is a process, like the same conversion, that must lead to ask myself: What does the Lord want from me now? What am I disposed to change? The revitalization entails being pervious to the Spirit: This is the challenge of the Order; it is necessary to allow the Gospel to flow through us.”
Only from a personal revitalization that the revitalization of the community and the whole Order can be attained. It is only when we know how to say ‘we’, ‘the Order,’ instead of ‘I,’ or ‘my community,’ ‘my province’ . . . revitalization shall have begun to produce effects. Revitalization will bring with itself personal and collective aspiration. Hope shall sprout from revitalization. From the ‘I’ to ‘We.’ The speaker ended his talk establishing it well: “revitalization-restructuring means more prayer, more and better communitarian life, more work: to get out of conformism.”
Granada
Likewise, on the December 3, the convent of Monachil (Granada, Spain) hosted the anticipated celebration of the Day of the Augustinian Recollection with a great number of the lay fraternity, Augustinian Recollect friars and nuns. In the context of the celebration, two books were launched: the Acts of the Second Historical Congress, and the ‘Book of the Province of Saint Thomas of Villanova” published in celebration of its centenary. There were more than 20 friars present.