The Prior General visits the Dominican Republic and encourages the revival of the missionary flame

Friar Miguel Ángel Hernández begins his visit to the Augustinian Recollect communities in the Dominican Republic and opens the Missionary Year with a call to recover the evangelizing fervor.

This Monday, December 4th, the Prior General of the Augustinian Recollects, Friar Miguel Ángel Hernández, has begun a brief but intense visit to the three communities of the Order in the Dominican Republic. The agenda, which coincides with the beginning of the Missionary Year, includes key moments of encounter with religious, lay people, and pastoral agents. At recoletos.org we have spoken with the Prior General about this visit and his expectations, and this is what he has shared with us.

A visit marked by the spirit of Recollection

The arrival of the Prior General took place on the eve of the 437th anniversary of the Augustinian Recollection (December 5th), a day that is celebrated in a special way with the friars, directors, and teachers of the Order’s ministries in the country. “First the friars were going to be there —explains Friar Miguel Ángel— but then the teachers or directors joined the celebration.”

On December 6th, the Prior General has been invited to preach an Advent retreat, a day of reflection that will serve to prepare the heart in this liturgical time, although it is not yet defined whether it will be aimed at parishes or educational staff.

Saint Ezekiel, model of missionary holiness

The central moment of the visit will be on December 7th, the second Sunday of Advent, when, during the celebration of the Eucharist, the Augustinian Recollect Missionary Year will be officially opened at the level of the entire Order. The date takes on special significance, since it commemorates 50 years of the beatification of Saint Ezekiel Moreno, “a model and example of a missionary for us, Augustinian Recollects.”

“He was beatified in Rome —recalls Friar Miguel Ángel— but he is also a saint linked to these lands, since he was canonized in the Dominican Republic. He is a key figure for our missionary identity.”

“Mission is the fruit of holiness”

In conversation with recoletos.org, the Prior General has enthusiastically shared what he expects from this Missionary Year:

“I hope that we can rekindle a little the flame that sometimes seems to want to go out, that flame of the missionary spirit. A year to recover the audacity, the risk, the getting out of our comfort zone.” And he adds: “It is a year to ask ourselves: how can I be a missionary in my concrete reality, without having to cross borders?”

Friar Miguel Ángel emphasizes that, far from being in tension, mission and holiness walk together:

“Sometimes we think that mission disperses us and holiness gathers us, but the history of the Order shows us the opposite. The most beautiful stories of holiness have been forged in the mission: there are Cleusa Coelho, Ezekiel Moreno, Father Gazpio, Father Ignacio Martínez… and so many others. (…) I believe that the mission is the fruit of a heart that burns for God, for the Kingdom. In that desire and in that love the missionary spirit arises.”

The visit of the Prior General, although brief, marks the beginning of a new stage for the evangelizing life of the Augustinian Recollects, a stage that wants to be, in his own words, “a year to soak up our glorious pages in mission lands and rekindle the fire of the Gospel in all the brothers.”