In the Augustinian-Recollect Family there are male religious, contemplative nuns, female religious of active life, lay people committed from their adult life and young people with restless hearts. They all have in common a feeling of being attracted by the Augustinian and Recollect values: community, interiority, love of wisdom, solidarity, austerity, service to the Church wherever and whenever she asks for it.
The Congregation firmly established itself in the dual foundation—contemplative and active—of the Order. In 1931, Augustinian Recollect Francisco Javier Ochoa (1889-1976), bishop of Kweiteh (Henan, China), visited several monasteries of the Augustinian Recollect Nuns to find volunteers for managing an orphanage and training young Chinese women for religious life.
Among those who volunteered, with the necessary permissions, three were chosen to go to China: Esperanza Ayerbe (1890-1967), Ángeles García (1905-1980), and Carmela Ruiz (1909-1993).
Considering the existing work and the need for more missionaries, the idea to establish a novitiate in Spain emerged. Despite many challenges, Esperanza and Carmela succeeded in opening it in 1941 in Monteagudo, Navarra, Spain. Although vocations were plentiful, the Second World War impeded the dispatch of missionaries to China. Consequently, they founded communities in Gabia (Granada, Spain, 1943) and Bogotá (Colombia, 1945).
The Congregation received approval on January 18, 1947, from the bishop of Tarazona (Zaragoza), the diocese to which Monteagudo belonged. That same year, eleven religious from Brazil joined—the result of the efforts of three other Recollect sisters who, in 1935, had left the tranquillity of the monastery for the mission in the Amazon region of Labrea, Brazil.
The following years were significant for their development and growth. In 1949, they became part of the Augustinian Recollect Family, and in 1950, their Constitutions were published. In 1955, the Augustinian Tertiaries of Cali, Colombia, with their five houses and eighty religious, merged with them.
The Congregation then expanded to Spain and Colombia, strengthened its presence in Brazil, and established itself in Venezuela, Argentina, and Ecuador. In 1964, they received the initial approval and ratification of their Constitutions by the Congregation for Religious.
In 1985, in Labrea (Amazonas, Brazil), one of their sisters, Sor Cleusa Carolina Rody Coelho (1933-1985), was martyred for charity and justice. She, along with co-foundress Esperanza Ayerbe, is currently being considered for sainthood.
As of mid-2021, there were 167 Augustinian Recollect Missionaries serving in Brazil, China, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Spain, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.
NEXT PAGE: 5. Secular Augustinian Recollect Fraternity (SARF)
TABLE OF CONTENT
Province that Makes a Family
- 1. Province that Makes a Family
- 2. Augustinian Recollect Contemplative Nuns
- 3. Augustinian Recollect Sisters
- 4. Augustinian Recollect Missionaries [Misioneras Agustinas Recoletas]
- 5. Secular Augustinian Recollect Fraternity (SARF)
- 6. Augustinian Recollect Youth (ARY)
- 7. Christian Mothers of Saint Monica
