“Our Recollection was born precisely as a missionary act of the Spirit, an interior impulse that led us to rediscover the heart of the Gospel”. With these words, the Prior General, Friar Miguel Ángel Hernández, opens his message on the occasion of the 437th anniversary of the Augustinian Recollection, commemorated this December 5. And he does so by inviting the entire Augustinian Recollect family—religious men and women, nuns, laity, young ARJ, secular fraternities, Mothers Mónicas—to celebrate this day as a new starting point.
A living history, a charism on the move
Since that foundational retreat in Talavera de la Reina, the Recollection has been “a history of fidelities and searches”, born not to found a new order, but to return to the heart, rediscover God, and live the Gospel radically. That is the essence that continues to inspire the Augustinian family in its various missionary presences today.
The celebration of this anniversary coincides with the closing of the Jubilee of the Church and is part of the Missionary Year that the Order is experiencing. For this reason, the Prior General insists that this date is more than an anniversary: it is “an invitation to rekindle the joy of first love”, to recover that fire that moved the first Recollects to leave everything for Christ.
A sending from the heart
The message reminds us that being a missionary is not just going far away, but letting Christ speak through us. “Each one has their mission space,” says the Prior: from the cloister, the parish, the university, or the family, all are called to announce Christ with their lives. The world needs today:
“passionate witnesses, men and women of deep faith and serene word, who illuminate without imposing and accompany without tiring.”
That testimony is also what has become visible in the 100 years of presence in Lábrea (Brazil) and Argentina, as well as in the centenary concluded last year in Shangqiu (China). Three lands, one evangelizing passion.
New website, same desire: to announce Christ
This message from the Prior General is the first content that inaugurates our new website Recoletos.org, a sign of a charism that does not stop. In the words of the Prior General: “Return to your communities, to your homes, to your missions… but do not return the same”. The Recollection, he says, is not “installed or finished”, but in constant conversion and sending.
Thus, with gratitude for the past and hope for the future, the entire Augustinian Recollect family renews its commitment:
“to announce Christ where we can, because we all can, always and somewhere.”
