The last General Chapter marked the beginning of the restructuring of the Order with a new configuration of provinces. Specifically, San Ezequiel Moreno Province, with communities in Sierra Leone (Africa), Taiwan, China and the Philippines, pledged to look for potential areas to expand its presence in other Asian countries. This will be discussed in the next provincial chapter of January 2018.
The novitiate stage which these 11 Filipino youngsters have just completed is intended to make novices better acquainted with the Divine vocation and precisely that of the Order, to experience the way of life of the Order, to conform their minds and hearts to the spirit of The Order and its intention and suitability can be verified, that is to say, it must be an “integral initiation to the sort of life that the Son of God assumed and that He proposes to us in the gospel”. (OAR Constitutions, 205).
The novitiate, as the Constitutions of the Order indicate, must be carried out in such a way that this stage of immediate preparation for religious life penetrates deep into the conscience of the novice and is capable of marking its existence. The formators, especially the novice master, take care to instruct the candidates “mainly in the love and charity of God and of the neighbor, and in the certain way of it, which is the mortification of the affections and the lack of everything”.
There are currently three novitiates for the entire Order, one in Colombia (Desert of Candelaria), one in Spain (Monteagudo) and another in the Philippines (Antipolo City), where novices from various countries are preparing to begin their commitment as Augustinian Recollects.
