Dear Fr. Provincial and Brothers:

Fr. Tony and I want to thank you for your service to the Church and to the Order. Two services that are united and which each of you has tried to perform until now. We would like to thank you for your service as a Province to the Order: in addition to the beloved Fr. Eusebio with whom I coincided as General Councilor for 6 years, also with Fr. Rommel another 6 years. There are now in Rome several brothers, in addition to the students: Fr. Efren in the Curia, Fr. Giovanni in the Pontifical Sacristy, Fr. Michael in Santa Monica, etc. and many other brothers collaborating with other circumscriptions. Thank you very much.

I think that the development of the Chapter is good: with the moments of liturgical celebration,
coexistence, and participation. You have worked and are working hard to carry out a program
that will lead to the fulfillment of the mission and the proclamation of the Gospel.

That is why Fr. Tony and I would like to thank each one personally for your participation, your
listening, your prayer and your fraternity.

Throughout these 40 years, the Province has grown a lot in every way. We congratulate you and
thank God for all this.

We cannot, however, forget that the apostolate and mission are born of a strong community life
and a strong spiritual life.

The Dominican brothers, who have our same Rule, decided years ago not to have communities
of less than 5 members in many of the places where they are present. They had to close
communities, homes, but their lives were enriched, and the number of vocations increased. A
danger in our already small communities is individualism. In general, we all like to have
personal moments in which to be alone and live our privacy and that is good, but we have to
strengthen much more common decisions, local chapters, common discernment. We have too
many individual apostolates, sometimes out of a desire to serve better, but we must avoid
negative loneliness and personal and individual decisions that go against the model of our life.

We could also talk about the strength of today’s culture in our world and how it has invaded our
communities, leading to an individualism that can be an evil if we do not know how to control it.
The experience of the other, of his life, knowing him, loving him, supporting him, listening to
him, should be for us the bread of every day because we call ourselves experts in community and
we want to teach in today’s world to be community people, to create fraternity. This factor of
community life will help a lot today to create a more fraternal world with much more peace.

Perhaps the synod on synodality will help us to better understand the enormous richness of our
charism.

Synodality, as we know, means walking together and summarizes the meaning of Augustinian
life. Walking together means living fraternity and life together as members of the same family,
guided by the Spirit and united by his love.

Synodality is what we wish to live as Augustinians in our communities. Therefore, and following
the discourse of Fr. Provincial Monday morning, who insisted on the values and spiritual aspects
of our life, on which he wishes to focus the first year of his government, I point out some
guidelines.

We must create communities that have life, that are renewed, that can live the charism. And
communities founded on charity and on the love of the Healthy Spirit.
Another important point is the following: the communion of goods is something that has a strong
meaning in our life. What a religious earns must be given to the Prior and the bursar to make
worthy use of it. Our Father says that without the communion of goods one cannot reach another
type of communions. And that is true. And give to each one according to their needs. A
centralized and well-managed economy is a guarantee of community life.

Every circumscription needs to have vocations and take care of them. The first vocational
pastoral is the example of each individual community. Thank God you have vocations, and you
must take great care of them. The newer circumscriptions have difficulties in this respect. Now
we have a Ratio Institutionis, which helps us; but also having good formators will help us.
To conclude, also in line with the preacher of Monday morning and his final point about Teresa
of Calcutta but, above all, following the Gospel and our Father, I wish you to continue and
increase the care of the spiritual elements of our life, in a particular way interiority because
without interiority our life will be very empty, and nobody will be interested.

I ask for Fr. Andrew, for his counselors and for every one of you all the blessing of God. May his
Spirit guide you along the way for the next 4 years. Count on our prayer, fraternity, and
friendship.

Thank you for listening and may the Lord bless you!

Fr. Alejandro Moral Anton, OSA

February 22, 2024