May 25, 2025 - "The Augustinians"

The Augustinians trace their roots back to the Rule of Saint Augustine, which was composed by him around the year A.D. 400.  Augustine’s Rule emphasized community life, shared possessions, and a commitment to pastoral care. In 1243 the order was formally established when various groups of hermits in Tuscany united under the Rule of St. Augustine, responding to the needs of the urban communities during the mendicant movement of the thirteenth century.  Four major orders of friars emerged during this time.  I’ll list their names and in parentheses include what they were called in medieval England: Franciscans (Greyfriars), Dominicans (Blackfriars), Carmelites (Whitefriars), and Augustinians (Austin friars).

 

Irish Augustinians Fr. Matthew Carr and Fr. Michael Rosseter founded the Province of St. Thomas of Villanova in 1796. Fr. Michael Hurley was the first Augustinian vocation.  Following the deaths of Fathers Carr and Rosseter, Fr. Hurley was the sole Augustinian in the United States.  In the early years of the province the work of the friars was to assist bishops in the large dioceses of the United States.  This made growth of the Province of St. Thomas of Villanova slow and challenging.

 

The first foundation of the Augustinians was the Church of St. Augustine in Philadelphia in 1801. In 1841 the Augustinians purchased 200-acre farm ten miles outside Philadelphia.  Anti-Catholic rioters raised the Church of St. Augustine in May 1844. Along with the church, they destroyed the friary, several adjoining buildings, and the community’s theological library of approximately 3,000 volumes. Villanova College (later University) was born of this tragedy on the farm purchased by the Augustinians, becoming the center of Augustinian life.

 

In 1905, a church and a school dedicated to St. Rita were started in Chicago.  Other foundations were subsequently established in several Midwestern states.  These became the basis of what would become the Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel in 1941.  Pope Leo XIV had been a member of this province as someone who had been born on the south side of Chicago.  

 

Let us continue to pray for Pope Leo XIV and the Augustinians.

 

Until next week,

Fr. John