Res Nostra Augustiniana

Looks like the celebration of the feast of St. Nicholas of Tolentino was a success. With the simultaneous activities being performed all over the world by the members of the Order of St. Augustine on September 10, we can be sure that a lot more people knew about the saint from the Italian Marches. Don't forget this Spanish Augustinian however, because there are some people in the Bicol region who think he should be well-known.

A comment in a blog I wrote about the interest of some people in seeing Fray Diego de Herrera beatified led me to this website.

More about Fray Diego here.

ROME, MAY 24, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University.

Q: What is the proper procedure when a consecrated Host falls on the floor when distributing Communion? We were told to leave the consecrated Host on the floor till the Communion procession is over, then pick up the Host and put it in a bowl of water to dissolve and then pour the contents on a plant in the church or down the sacristy sink. Is the dissolved Host still the Body of Christ? Is this a new directive to be followed? -- M.B., Upper Sackville, Nova Scotia

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The National Catholic Reporter reports two new books on Augustine. One is by John O' Donnel (the one who put Augustine on the web)entitled "Augustine: A New Biography" and the other is by Gary Willis, "St. Augustine's Conversion."

O' Donnel's new biography is a response to the new manuscripts unearthed during these past twenty years, most of them (if not all) letters, that draw attention to the socio-economic and political situation of North Africa during Augustine's time. Willis's "St. Augustine's Conversion" won't be anything like Romano Guardini's "The Conversion of St. Augustine". But knowing how contemporary scholars work, it should prove to be a good read.

I was doing a search on "Ten Augustinian Values" earlier and Google gave me quite a number of pages already tagged under "Augustinian". One of these pages was quite new and it gave the name "A Guide To An Augustinian Way of Life." The link led me to an Angelfire website that contained a document about an Augustinian group which describes itself in the following way:

The title we choose to be called is simply: ?Servants of God? and our groups are known collectively as the ?Augustinian Seculars?, ?Oblates of Saint Augustine? or ?Augustinian Servants?.

At this point, I didn't know whether this group is related in any way to the Order. References to the Constitutions and some documents that are clearly products of the Order of St. Augustine (cf. Miscellanea Augustiniana) show the group to be of the Augustinian Order (not Recollects nor Discalced). So I am wondering: is this group related to the Augustinian seculars or is it an altogether different group?