Slide Show

On last year’s feast of the Epiphany, the General of the Augustinian Recollect Order, Father Javier Guerra, in a letter to the Order’s membership declared 2008 THE AUGUSTINIAN RECOLLECT VOCATION YEAR.

In doing that he was motivated by an act of the last General Chapter as well as by Pope John Paul’s Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, VITA CONSECRATA, which called for religious institutes “to invest their best resources generously in vocational work”.  No doubt the words of St. Augustine (Letter, 157, 4) also acted as a stimulus for this declaration.  There our Holy Father states that he himself had urged others to follow his way of life and had met with some success in doing so.

It was left to each province and section of the Order to find the most appropriate manner to inaugurate in an official way this vocational year.  The Province of St. Augustine opted to mark the start of this renewed vocational effort with ceremonies in both its eastern and western regions.

On the west coast twenty Recollects who had gathered at St. Benedict Church, Montebello, Ca., on February 21, 2008, for  their monthly day of recollection followed a suggestion of the Provincial, Father Charles Huse, and used that occasion to make a formal beginning of the special year.

After the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in the church, the assembly recited mid-day prayer and listened to Matthew’s Gospel on the Beatitudes. At its conclusion the Vicar Provincial, Father Domingos Machado, spoke touchingly on the meaning, importance, and fostering of religious vocations and then proceeded to proclaim the opening of the Augustinian Recollect vocational year for our area. After Father had blessed the handsome vocational cross which had been prominently displayed in the sanctuary, all recited in unison the prayer for vocations composed by Pope John Paul II.

Following a reading of the Province’s Community Commitment to Vocational Promotion, each Recollect signed an illuminated copy of the document, responded to the prayers of the faithful, joined in the recitation of the Our Father and a prayer by Charles de Foucauld.  The hour-long ceremony concluded with benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, the divine praises, and the hymn “Blest Are They”.

The meeting then shifted to the rectory for fraternal mingling and a substantial lunch honoring the birthday of the pastor, Father Joseph Gallardo.

Fr. James McGuire, OAR