The Prior General shared with religious and lay people from all over the world two virtual meetings in which he was asked about poverty in the Augustinian Recollect charism.
Through digital media, the Prior General held last Saturday a virtual meeting with the Augustinian Recollect religious about poverty and the new document ‘Living Poverty: Grace and Challenge’ that was recently published. In two sessions -differentiated by geographical areas-, Miguel Miro presented the paper and answered the questions of the more than 300 attendees. From many countries, in community or individually, the religious and lay people close to the Order listened to the General and talked with him in a pleasant way during one hour.
Miguel Miró received numerous questions related to his own experience of poverty. Asked about concrete examples of living poverty, he stated that he sees “numerous examples of brothers who live with admirable detachment”. “It is not a question of money or a championship over who is deprived of more things,” he said. He asked the same religious to join in common and sustainable projects: “It is not a question of personal works but of common projects”. He also said that the Augustinian Recollects “are not here by proxy”.
He also invited the religious to have “a vision of the Order”. “It is in our Order where the Lord has placed us; we have a shared mission”, he indicated. He also asked to have a project for all the people who come to the ministries, as well as “to rediscover the presence of God”. “If poverty is grace, we must ask the Lord to teach us how to be poor,” he indicated
Regarding the possibilities that the laity have to live poverty and get closer to it, Miró invited the volunteers from ARCORES. He wished that in schools and parishes there be a “constant sensitivity to the poor”. In this sense, from the lay context he assured that poverty is experienced “by living in the family, being grateful for what we have and having gestures with those who need it. “I insist in the document that where we are, as something proper to our charism, this social dimension is manifested,” he said.
The meeting allowed the religious to address the Prior General and ask him questions regarding their own religious life and poverty, a dimension proper to the Augustinian Recollect charism. The experience had an enormous scope and brought Miguel Miró from Rome to all parts of the world.