The Community of Monteagudo hosts the Novitiate stage of the Provinces of St. Nicholas of Tolentine and St. Thomas of Villanova. In this interview, four novices from different parts of the world share how they came to know the Order and what the novitiate experience has meant for them.
Raúl SolÃs, originally from Asunción (Paraguay), explains that he got to know the Order through a friend and social networks: the Order has a very important presence in this area and carries out very commendable and intense work in social networks. In addition, about her experiences in the novitiate, she points out that it is an enriching experience and one of greater intimacy with God.
All agree that they are experiencing great spiritual growth. In this sense, Adrián, a native of Palmira, in the state of Táchira (Venezuela), explains how important silence and community life are: “I am discovering that silence that we have to look for and that is so important. Every day helps us to find the Truth.
For his part, Patrick Sosmarau, born in the Brazilian city of Espiritu Santo, explains that for him, to speak of the Novitiate is to speak of a gift that God has given him in his life and recalls the phrase of St. Augustine who says that ‘the truth dwells within man’ and points out that he seeks and finds the Truth every day within himself. In addition, Raul reflects on the humanity and warmth of the friars, and highlights friendship and closeness as characteristics of the Augustinian Recollect charism that have captivated him and made him fall in love.
Finally, Leonardo Parra, from Barquisimeto, Lara State (Venezuela) invites all young people to be brave and not to be afraid of the call that God makes to each person. To your call to vocation. In this line Patrick also addresses a few words to the young people: He is looking for you. I can say, I believe and I am certain that there is no better encounter than with that Truth which is God.
At the present time in the Order there are three novitiates: Desierto de la Cabdelaria (Colombia), Antipolo (Philippines) and Monteagudo (Spain) and according to number 205 of the Constitutions of the Order, the novitiate has as purpose that the novices know better the divine vocation and precisely the proper vocation of the Order, experience the way of life of this one, conform their mind and their heart with the spirit of the Order and their intention and suitability can be verified, that is to say, it has to be an “integral initiation to the kind of life that the Son of God assumed and that He proposes to us in the Gospel”.