The two Augustinian Recollect communities of the Vicariate of the United States on the northeast coast of the country, Suffern in New York and Union City in New Jersey, gathered in the latter city to experience the annual spiritual exercises from November 21 to 25.
The motto chosen for the 2023-2024 pastoral course by the Augustinian Recollect Family, “Do you aspire to the great? Start with the small,” has once again been reflected upon and meditated upon by the Augustinian Recollect religious of the northeast of the United States. Five of them, along with three others from California, have participated in the 2024 edition of the Spiritual Retreat offered in Spanish.
The proper service to the faithful required that a religious remain on guard in each ministry during these days for the continuity of the parish tasks, although in both communities there was a climate of interiority and silence in communion with those who gathered to rekindle their passion for Christ and for His people.
There was a true family atmosphere, in which the teachings of the Psalms were revealed day by day, helped by the Augustinian Recollect Sergio Sánchez, president of the Secretariat of Spirituality and Ongoing Formation of the Province of Saint Nicholas of Tolentine.
The director of the Retreat sought at all times to encourage the retreatants to live the greatness of their belonging to a religious family within the consecrated life, with its own spirituality and its charismatic proposals; to feel each one the co-responsibility of all so that fraternal life in community is authentic; and to always express joy at the mission entrusted to each one under the care of Christ the Good Shepherd.
In Union City, the Province of St. Nicholas of Tolentine of the Augustinian Recollects serves the parishes of St. Augustine and the Holy Family, both with a predominantly Latino parishioners. The retreat coincided with the novena to the Lord of Miracles, especially revered by the Peruvian community, whose feast culminated on Sunday, October 27 with a solemn procession full of popular piety and nostalgia for distant lands.
These were also days of political rallies, of propaganda for the candidates in the streets and of many conversations among the faithful in the face of the uncertainty of the presidential elections that took place “the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November.”
In Union City there are two sections of the Augustinian-Recollect Secular Fraternity, one English-speaking and the other with Spanish as the vehicular language. For this second event, the stay of Sergio Sánchez, who is also the provincial head of the care of the Secular Fraternities, was used to organize a one-day retreat on Saturday, October 26..
