THE AUGUSTINIAN VALUES

by: Ms. Ma. Theresa A. Tingson, MBA

NSTP Director

How much do you know about St. Augustine?

Are you a smart Augustinian student?

The emblem/logo of the Augustinian Order

The emblem of the Augustinian Order represents our Augustinian spirituality

(spiritual tradition).

The flaming heart is the human heart. It reminds of the love of God for all people
that
Augustine demonstrated.

The Augustinian heart is passionately alive, with the desire to know God and
experience divine love in our lives.

The open book represents the conversion of Augustine to the Christian Faith and
the Bible.
It also symbolizes the Word of God, source of light and truth, and the quest for
wisdom.

The arrow which pierces the heart represents the Spirit of God piercing our hearts,
calling us to continued growth in faith, hope and love.

Augustinian Values

Values

- Latin word, “valere” meaning to measure the worth of something

- it is intimately related to the search for meaning in human life; life is meaningful
when we have found something capable of arousing our commitment to it,
something deserving of best efforts, worth living for, or worth dying for.

- are things, persons, ideas or goals which are important to life

- to simply put it, VALUES are our ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, to which
we are committed and which influence our everyday behavior and decisions.
Value Criterion

1. It must be chosen freely.

2. A value must be chosen from alternatives.
3. A value must be chosen after considering the consequences.
4. A value must be performed.
5. A value becomes a pattern of life.
6. A value is cherished.
7. A value is publicly affirmed.
8. A value enhances a person’s total growth.

Augustinian Values are values which St. Augustine lived and taught in the conviction
that such values contribute to the fulfillment of the Lord’s two-fold commandment
of love in the Spirit of the Beatitudes.

Augustinian Core Values

CARITAS (Charity)
• Humility
• Care for the Common Good
• Love
• Humble & Generous Service

UNITAS (Unity)
• Community
• Friendship
• Christian Liberty

VERITAS (Truth)
• Prayer
• Devotion to Study & Pursuit of Wisdom
• Interiority

CARITAS (Charity)
• Humility
• Care for the Common Good
• Love
• Humble & Generous Service

1. LOVE
• Love & the Hierarchy of Values
• Love for God is verified in one’s love for the neighbor
• Solidarity: Identification through love

“Do not quarrel. But if you do have to quarrel, put an end to it as quickly as
possible. Otherwise an isolated moment of anger grows into hatred, the
splinter becomes a beam (Matt. 7:3-5), and you make your heart a
 murderer’s den. For we read in the Scriptures: ‘Whoever hates his brother is
a murderer’ (1 John 3:15). ” Rule VI, 1
ADVERSARIES: (Love)
sowing disunity; gossips; envy; jealousy; greediness; hatred; grudges; etc.

2. HUMILITY

“His garments, his footwear, his bedclothing were modest, yet sufficient, neither
too fine nor yet too mean.”

“The simpler way of life, the better it is suited to servants of God…For it is better
to be able to make do with a little than to have plenty.” Rule III, 5

“There is no coming to unity without humility, there is no love without the

openness of humble patience.

‘Where humility reigns, there is love’ (Sermons on the First Letter John: Prologue)

“Pride lurks even in good works seeking to destroy even them.” Rule I, 7

ADVERSARIES: (Humility)
pride; boastfulness; pretensions; self-righteousness; self-opinionatedness; etc.

3. CARE FOR THE COMMON GOOD

“The degree to which you are concerned for the interests of the community
rather than for your own, is the criterion by which you can judge how much
progress you have made.” Rule V, 2

graft & corruption (using one’s position to gain personal benefits); lack of care
for home & school properties; vandalism; refusal to share one’s talents;
dishonesty; neglect of care for the environment; etc.

4. HUMBLE & GENEROUS SERVICE

“Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant . . . For the Son of
Man (=Jesus) did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a
ransom for many.” (Mk. 10:44-45)

“Service is love in action.”

ADVERSARIES: (Humble & Service)

idleness; indifference; lack of initiative; pride; make popularity as end-goal of
services rendered; etc.

Augustinian Core Values

UNITAS (Unity)
• Community
• Friendship
• Freedom
5. COMMUNITY LIFE

“The community of believers was of one heart and mind.” (Acts 4:32)

“…One heart and one soul towards God.” (Rule 1,3)

“How good and how pleasant when the brothers dwell as one. (Commentary on
Psalm 132 or 133)

ADVERSARIES: (Community Life)

hypocrisy; pretensions; disdain of others; refusal to work for unity; sowing
disunity; glorifying in the shortcomings of others; insidiousness; dishonesty;
animosity; resentment; etc.

6. FRIENDSHIP

“I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from
my father.” (Jn. 15:15)

• True Friendship
• Biblical Inspiration
• Friendship Rooted in God

“And what did me most good and helped most to cure me was
the comfort I found in other friends.”

ADVERSARIES: (Friendship)
malicious anger; hatred; refusal to forgive and to reconcile; aloftness; refusal to
reciprocate charity for charity offered; shunning fraternal corrections;
vindictiveness; vengeance; etc.

7. FREEDOM

Freedom is the power, rooted in reason & will, to act or not to act, to do this or
that & so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will
one shape one’s life.

Wrong concept and exercise of freedom

Drugs & Substance Abuse

Premarital Sex/
Teenage Pregnancy

ADVERSARIES: (Freedom)
succumbing to temptation; surrendering to peer pressures to do evil acts;
rejecting dictates of a good conscience; enslavement to vices; etc.

Augustinian Core Values

 VERITAS (Truth)
• Prayer
• Devotion to Study & Pursuit of Wisdom
• Interiority

8. PRAYER

“When you pray, go into your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father
in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” (Mt. 6:6)

“Persevere faithfully in prayer (Col. 4:2).” Rule II,1

“As soon as I was ordained a priest I planned to use all my leisure time for this
duty of reading and studying the Sacred Scripture.”

ADVERSARIES: (Prayer)
lack of reverence for God & neighbors; laxity in prayer life; callousness of
conscience; lack of reflection on words of prayers; lack of meditation; failure to
practice regular examination of conscience; etc.

9. DEVOTION TO STUDY & PURSUIT OF WISDOM

The cultivation of the mind is an integral element in Augustinian Values

formation.

Devotion to study must be understood within the perspective of pursuit of

wisdom.

ADVERSARIES: (Devotion to Study and Pursuit of Wisdom)

cramming; cheating; watching indecent shows; refusal to foster a virtuous life;
dishonesty; etc.

10. INTERIORITY

“Don’t go outside yourself, but return within yourself; for Truth resides in the
inmost part of man.” (On the True Religion 39.72)

“Enter into yourself.” (Conf. X.6)

“…and within me, I found You, O Beauty, ever ancient, ever new.” (Conf. X.27)

“I was admonished by all these thoughts to return to my own self, and, with You
as my guide, I entered into the innermost part of myself.” (Conf. X.)

“You are within me more than I within myself. (Conf. III.6)

ADVERSARIES: (Interiority)
neglect of examination of conscience; neglect of prayer life, reflection,
meditation, recollections and retreats; drug abuse; etc.
Augustinian Core Values
The Augustinian Way is the way of Love that has been verified (in Interiority,
Humility & Devotion to Study and the Pursuit of Wisdom)

Exercised in Freedom that matures in Community and is expended for the

Common Good in the spirit of Service and Friendship both by which are
nourished and enlivened by a life of Prayer.

The Challenge . . . for the Augustinians…

In your own simple way . . . how can you help heal the world …