Homily | 15 September 2025

188th General Chapter of the Order of St Augustine
Homily for 15th of September, 2025
Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows

Dear brothers, another week, another day, in this morning Eucharist, when we celebrate the memoria of the Blessed Virgin, under the advocation of Our Lady of Sorrows, we gather to celebrate our faith together, to share our commitment as believers and also, we always celebrate our consecration as Augustinians. These are important days for the Order, other brothers who have preceded me in the previous celebrations have already said so. They are important because they are not just the result of another meeting, and not even just a date with history that has to be fulfilled every six years that our laws stipulate and to which we are convoked: they are as we were told at the beginning of the Chapter, it is a Kairos, it is a time of grace, it is a gift, it is a contribution towards thinking about the path we have trodden and to remain committed to searching more for what unites us than for what separates us, in unity of mind and heart, convinced that we will have advanced more in virtue to the extent to which we become more concerned about what is common, than about what is personal. A moment ago we heard readings that scold us, that make us identify patterns, as the Word of God always does when we read it and reflect on it with open hearts and minds. We have listened to a passage from the Letter to the Hebrews where Christ is presented to us as the obedient Son, the merciful Son who gives himself for the salvation, for the good of humanity, the Christ, the Lord who places his own particular interests at the universal service of the human being. That kenosis, that self-emptying, are the most sublime witness to what God wants for humanity. This christic attitude, if you will allow me to use the expression, cannot be understood perfectly if we don’t pay attention to the fundamental role of Holy Mary, who today, on her memorial, we proclaimed from the hand of the sacred author, John, conscious of this confidentiality between mother and son, the most perfect understanding between them, because each of them knew where they had to get to, they knew the end, and they provided the means. They knew the commitment, and they made their will part of it. This attitude, we can, we must, apply to our own lives., precisely because we are convinced that we don’t value the loss of anything as long as we gain Christ, and gain him forever. We have spent various days reflecting on the core values of our lives, in our Order, in our circumscriptions, also in our communities, and, definitively, in our lives, and it is necessary that they go together. Now, as we draw near to the final strait, having dealt with, revised, studied, shared, discussed, the mechanism that makes our life work, we must risk ourselves with courage and bravery to put it to work, and, therefore, to put in public, all that we have talked about, analysed and shared here. This is to imbue our lives with meaning, our presences and our work at the service of the world, the world of today, with all its vicissitudes, its brokenness, and also its strengths, from the gospel. 188 general chapters are our greatest inheritance. They are 188 opportunities to make visible what God asked of our forebears, and today of us, that the Holy Spirit given to so many of our brothers, predecessors in the faith and perseverant in their consecration, from which we have received a whole inheritance which makes it possible for us to be here today. Perseverance was their greatest characteristic, those who, even though the difficulties were great, the work to overcome them was greater, work born from hope, which today, at this time in history, gathers us together and convokes us to be faithful, to be joyful and grateful for what we have received. Holy Mary is an great example of that. She who shared our condition now helps us, and protects us, in the face of human weakness that can often take over our environment.

Finally, brothers, I would like to share with you that today, exactly 24 years ago, on a day just like this, the 15th of September, having celebrated the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross on the 14th of September, in the monastery of Our Lady of la Vid (of the Vine) and in Burgos (Spain) a group of 5 novices made our profession at 5 in the afternoon in the Order to the recently elected General Fr Robert Prevost, who had been elected in the vote taken at mid-day here in Rome. I don’t believe in coincidence, I believe in Providence, that same providence that has brought me here today to celebrate with you this eucharist on the anniversary of my simple profession. To this same Providence I entrust all of the results of these capitular sessions, and also our lives, our pastoral works, and our communities. This is what I ask of the Lord, and we do it together, in this eucharist that we continue to celebrate. May it be so.
Fr Victor Fernandez Santos OSA