A TIME for HOPE Fundamentals for a Renewal of Augustinian Religious Life After the Coronavirus
INSTITUTE OF AUGUSTINIAN SPIRITUALITY A TIME FOR HOPE Fundamentals for a Renewal of Augustinian Religious Life after the Coronavirus ROME 2020 Come, my friends, 'T is not too late to seek a newer world. […] For my purpose holds/ to sail beyond the sunset. […] We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. (A. Tennyson, Ulysses) We are in a time of crisis, understood in the strongest sense of a terminus (krisis, a separation, a break point at which one must decide), it forces us to think and to discern. In our case it is desirable that it lead us to profound changes, to a conversion based on the Gospel itself. It is enough that some of the pillars upon which we build our small world of daily securities might collapse so that suddenly we might see ourselves confronted by the mystery of who we are. It is somewhat paradoxical that a virus, a microscopic organism that all of sudden emerges, would so shake humanity, setting off such an unimaginable crisis. It is also very significant. The paradigm of the world we know flounders because a virus has overturned a whole way of being and doing. We thought ourselves to be invulnerable, powerful, self-sufficient; we epitomized a euphoric activism and, frequently, overbearing. Covid-19 has upset our projects and our tranquility. Has it taught us anything? Has it made us wiser? Saint Augustine said that “true wisdom is humble and true humility is wise.”1 What has happened to us is, without doubt, a strong affirmation of the humility of our limited human condition and, hopefully, might result in a return to God, an Easter.
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