Allow yourselves to be commanded by God, Pope tells Augustinian Recollects

October 21, 2016

Leaders of the Order of Augustinian Recollects met with Pope Francis on October 20 and listened to him reflect on a prayer of St. Augustine: “All my hope lies in Your great mercy. Command what You will and give what You command.”

The prayer is the theme of the 55th general chapter of the order, which was founded in Spain in the late 16th century.

“To seek renewal and impetus it is necessary to turn to God, and to ask Him, ‘Give what You command,’” Pope Francis said in his Spanish-language remarks in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace, as he encouraged the Augustinian Recollects to see the hand of the Lord in past events.

A grateful remembrance of the past, he continued, “impels us to live the present with passion and with ever greater courage; then we can ask, ‘Command what you will’ … Allowing oneself to be commanded by God means that He is the master of our life and that we have no other; and we know well that if God does not occupy His rightful place, others will do so.”

“Many people are waiting for us to reach out to them and to look at them with the same tenderness we have experienced and received from our encounter with God,” he added, as he called upon the Augustinian Recollects to be “creators of communion.” “This is the power we bring: not our own ideals and projects, but rather the strength of His mercy that transforms and gives life.”

 

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Further information:

• Udienza ai partecipanti al Capitolo Generale dell’Ordine degli Agostiniani Recolletti, 20.10.2016 (Holy See Press Office)
• The Pope to the Augustinian Recollects: be men of hope, 20.10.2016 (Holy See Press Office)