Leon XIV, a Augustinian pope, member of a large religious family

It all starts with Augustin de Hippone. In the 4th century AD, this young Roman from current Maghreb, will become a renowned bishop, a appreciated speaker and a prolix theologian who will mark Western Christian thought for centuries. But man was also capable of introspection, curious to understand the action of God in his life. In his famous Confessions, Written at the age of 45, he thus wondered about his personal and spiritual journey, from childhood to maturity. No doubt the very first spiritual autobiography of history.

Become bishop, he writes a rule which fixes the fundamentals of a community life for the priests with whom he works, like the first Christian community told in the acts of the apostles.

This rule has become the red thread of the many congregations of so -called “Augustinian” men and women, who will be born over the following centuries. The originality of this large family? Food for Augustin’s spiritual intuitions: initiation to interiority, an important place of prayer, concern for the common good, and above all proximity and central place of Christ which reveals to all the free love of God.

Since Augustine was a diocesan bishop concerned about the spiritual life of his priests, the rule he wrote has often served, through the centuries, to reform dioceses in difficulty or to instill a renewed spiritual dynamic for priests. This is the case, for example, in the High Middle Ages which sees the figure of “regular canons” emerge within this order. In other words, diocesan priests who decide to follow this rule of life together, often by grouping around a spiritual sanctuary which they animate. The canons of Grand-Saint-Bernard, in France, are a good example.

It is the reform of religious life requested by the fourth Lateran council, in 1215, which will relaunch interest in the rule of Saint Augustine. Because, until then, it is above all the traditional monastic rules (of Saint Pacôme, Saint Basile, Saint Benedict …) which served as canonical text for the life of monks and nuns. But in the 13th century, the emergence of cities and a new economic and social life pushed to create religious orders of another genre, itinerant and beggar. The Council asks the members of these new orders to choose, too a rule of life: it will very often be that of Saint Augustine, more suited to their dynamics. Dominican religious will make this choice, adding their own complementary statutes.

Forty years after this council, the regrouping of several groups of Italian hermits gives birth to a new congregation which, too, adopts the Augustinian rule. First called “Order of the Hermits of Saint Augustine”, then later renamed “Order of Saint Augustine (OSA)”, it is the very congregation from which the new elected pope, Leon XIV.

Other Surgeons will follow. Born from a Portuguese reformed branch, “big Augustins” will take shape, especially in Paris, identifiable by walking barefoot. They will be called the “unhealthy augustins”, but also “small fathers”. Supported by the royal authorities of the time, they will spread some time. They will soften their practices a little later during a new reform which also announces their future decline.

The AGUSTINS Récollets, themselves, were born in Spain in the 16th century. Later, still, in Nîmes, the young Vicar General Emmanuel d’Alzon will found a congregation in 1845 that he too will place under the Augustinian rule. These “Augustins of the Assumption”, so -called also assumption, continue their mission in particular in the press, through the Bayard group which they founded at the end of the 19th century.

Female branches

Around these male branches, many female branches will be born through Europe. Brigittines, Ursulines, Visitandines are part of it. These augustines worked, for example, at the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris.

In the 19th century, in connection with the assumptionist religious, four female branches expanded the family: educators, the nuns of the Assumption (RA); missionary women, the Oblates of Assumption (OA); The Small Sisters of Assumption (PSA), engaged in social work; And finally, contemplatives, the orants of the Assumption (ORA).

As we will have understood, the family of Augustinian inspiration is a nebula of congregations, large and small, which have arisen over the centuries. All bear witness to the interest and vitality of the Saint Augustine rule over time. At the heart of these community and fraternal lives, the same red thread: the desire to testify to a gospel that is both accessible and steeped in charity.