Chronicle: 11 September 2025

Chronicle: 11th September 2025

The day commenced with the celebration of the Holy Mass and Lauds at 7:30 am, presided over by P. Gabriele Pedicino, prior provincial of Italy. In his homily based on the readings of the liturgy, he emphasized the need to rediscover our vocation of being chosen and loved by God as necessary for us to live more tenderly, gently, humbly and able to love without measure as Jesus asks us to, keeping in mind that at the end of our life, we will be judged according to how much we have loved, not according to the circumscription we belonged to or the offices we have held or the academic achievements we have recorded.

After breakfast, at 09:30 the chapter assembly resumed work: a couple of announcements were given and the order of the day presented. Reports were taken from the secretaries of the various linguistic groups on the conversations on economy and the use of temporal goods, held the previous evening.

The reports of the groups centred on encouraging the conversion of friars with regard to the use of temporal goods; the centralization of the resources of circumscriptions; the formation of friars on transparency and accountability; the need for the training and continuous formation of bursars, and to develop some manual to guide their work; the role of trust in the use of community goods: whether we trust the community will provide for us and whether we trust God to provide for us.

Several observations and questions followed the group reports, most of which centred on the need to enthrone transparency, trust, fidelity to our vow of poverty, and get help from professionals in economic and business matters to help friars who are canonically entrusted the care of our temporal goods but often lacking in the necessary competences.

The assembly took a break and returned to the conference hall at 11:15 am. Before proceeding to the group discussions on the theme of community life, apostolic activity and mission, the general appointed members of a special commission to listen attentively to the reports of the groups when we return to the assembly hall.

After the Lunch break, the plenary assembly was resumed at 16:00 pm to take reports of the various groups on community life, apostolic activity and mission. The groups emphasized the need for serious initial and ongoing formation; allowing communities sufficient times for prayers; importance of common life as the fount of our apostolic life and what to do to address difficulties associated with it; the desire to not give in on the missionary character of the Order, despite the difficulty of guaranteeing the continuous presence of friars; the need for the general curia to take the coordination of younger Augustinians seriously; the difficulty of the compatibility between our community life and our pastoral commitments, a tension that may continue to exist because of our very nature as both contemplative and active; the need to establish an effective and robust network of communication in the Order; the need to instil Augustinian identity in our colleges; the need for community days of recollection; the need to transcend the sense of circumscription as geographical or racial, to allow those who are in need of assistance to get it from those who can offer it; the importance of the work of the commissions to ensure that words are turned into actions; the need to create separate parish and school commissions for adequate attention to these two important issues.

Following the reports, a number of observations were taken, in which the brothers emphasized the need for renewal, not by only talking about it but concretely by entrusting responsibilities to young people; the need to develop a specifically Augustinian pedagogy for our colleges and schools; the need to take the courage to undertake an institutional evaluation of the Order.

After a brief coffee break, the assembly resumed. The prior general invited the friars to make observations on themes that may not be in the instrumentum laboris but which may be considered important for conversations, as well as observations on important things to consider when electing the general counsel. There were suggestions to pay attention to what the world around us is saying and requires from us; the need for the counsel to be prophetic; the need to read the signs of time; the need to rethink our notion of circumscriptions and begin to think more around alliances.

The day was concluded with a dramatic recitation of portions of St. Augustine’s City of God in the Auditorium of Augustinianum, to which the chapter members were invited.