I thought a collection of excerpts from Augustine’s Rule would be pertinent to initiating any discussion of Augustinian Spirituality. So I have decided to collect some of the key phrases.

For our part, we read sections of the Rule each week. It becomes a sacred standard, so to speak. It becomes a focus. It becomes a devotion. Some of it is beautifully said, some if it is very human.

1. Before all else, dear brothers, love God and then your neighbor…

3. The main purpose for you having come together is to live harmoniously, intent upon God in oneness of mind and heart.

4. Call nothing your own, but let everything be yours in common…

9. Let all of you then live together in oneness of mind and heart, mutually honoring God in yourselves whose temples you have become.

12. When you pray to God in Psalms and hymns, think over in your hearts the words that come from your lips.

19. There should be nothing about your clothing to attract attention. Besides, you should not seek to please by your apparel, but by a good life.

31. Charity is not self seeking that it places the common good before its own… So whenever you show greater concern for the common good than your own, you may know that you are growing in charity.

46. The superior must not think himself fortunate in his exercise of authority but in his role as one service you in love.

48. The Lord grant that you may observe all these precepts in a spirit of charity as lovers of spiritual beauty giving forth the good odor of Christ in the holiness of your lives; not as slaves living under the law but as men living in freedom under grace.

Intent upon God, One Mind and Heart, Mutually honoring God in Eachother, Everything in Love, Everything in Common, Loving Spiritual Beauty, Freedom under Grace. These things become bases for three focal aspects of Augustinian Spirituality that I will elaborate over the next several weeks.