Why Am I a Secular Augustinian Recollect?

Over the past twenty-five years I've been asked several times, "Why do you belong to the Third Order?" and, "What is a Third Order?" And there have been such gibes as, "I guess you'll be a super-Catholic," as well as an occasional skeptical glance about my motives. I always had my stock answer ready, but somehow that had a ring of hollowness, of vagueness, of uncertain conviction. I could have walked away from the Third Order, but then I would be accepting an ever-changing, fickle world that denies its own mortality. It is only in retrospect that I have seen what a gap there would have been in my life if I chose to ignore my commitment to the Secular Augustinian Recollects. St. Augustine's Confessions and his commentaries on the Psalms and the Gospels would not be a part of my makeup. My spiritual growth would have been stunted.

St. Augustine was able to articulate the ultimate reality in his prayer, "My heart is restless until it rests in you." Through St. Augustine I've come to see that the soul transcends the intellect, that one's soul, one's essence, one's very being recognizes the love of God. I've become the child who wants every ounce of love that the parent has to offer, and I cuddle into His lap.

Within the SAR community individual integrity is deeply respected. It is the glory of our community that we pray and rejoice and mourn together and encourage and console one another. For a time we become the family that God intends us to be.

What I am trying to say as briefly and simply as possible is that being a Secular Augustinian Recollect is being totally human in seeking the divine.

J. G., SAR

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