From youthful enthusiasm to the maturity of a committed lay vocation. Eduarda, a member of the Secular Augustinian Recollect Fraternity in Brazil, joyfully narrates how her journey began in the JAR Movement and today continues with new responsibilities and a strong community experience. Her testimony is an echo of the Augustinian charism that continues to enkindle hearts.
The natural step of a growing vocation
Eduarda was 15 years old when she joined the JAR. There she discovered a love for prayer, community and service. Years later, with more experience and a deeper faith, she understood that her story with the Augustinian Recollects could not remain only in the youth stage. “I understood that I needed to find my place within the Order,” he says. That place was the Secular Fraternitywhere this year she made her promises as a lay Augustinian Recollect.
Community as a key to loyalty
“What made me understand that I had to follow this path was the community.“she says with conviction. For her, the charism is not lived in solitude, but in relationship with others who also seek God with a restless heart. Her local fraternity meets monthly and already has more than 40 members, seven of them former members of the RAY.
This data reveals the fruit of youth ministry when it offers a clear and experiential continuity towards adult life in the Church and in the Order.
A Fraternity without borders
In international meetings, Eduarda has experienced the richness of universality: “Our Order is worldwide. It is the same all over the world, but each place has its own particularity.”. This sharing has helped her to live the charism more deeply and to work, together with others, on the revision of the new statutes of the Secular Fraternity. statutes of the Secular Fraternity.
Conversation in the Spirit and the desire to live synodality are not just words, but real paths that are marking the life of the fraternities.
A testimony of hope
Eduarda represents so many lay people who, after their journey in the Augustinian Recollect Youth, wish to continue living the charism of St. Augustine in community, with commitment and prayer. Her passage from youth ministry to the Secular Fraternity is a sign that the Augustinian Recollect life offers a complete vocational path. Augustinian Recollect life offers a complete and exciting vocational path..
From their testimony, the invitation to live with joy and truth the following of Christ as lay people in the heart of the Church resounds.