The "chante love" of contemplation, the "ordered love" of community life, and the "diffusive love" of the apostolate are the essential elements of the Augustinian Recollect Charism.
contemplation: in St. Augustine, is communitarian and apostolic. By dint of being ordered toward God, the human being is essentially contemplative. By means of a process of interiorization and transcendence, man's and will encounter God, who is the highest Truth and the greatest Good. The Augustinian person feels totally dependent upon God in his or her origin, and ordered toward him is destiny. He is from God and for God. He loves God disinterestedly and without measure. The is the amor castus of Augustinian contemplation.
community: a second love plays its essential part in the communitarian aspect of the charism. It is the "ordered love" through which we "use" material things, and "rejoice" in God and in rational creatures. The vow of poverty is the communitarian vow par excellence.
apostolate: the "chaste love" of contemplation, besides being a force for union, also is a force for diffusion, and is thus apostolic. The Augustinian person commits himself to service of all. He is available to dent to the needs of the Church.
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