Pope Leo’s Augustinian order is seeing a ‘Leo bump’ : NPR

Pope Leo XIV leaves the Augustins’ headquarters in Rome after a visit in May.

Domenico Stinellis / AP

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Domenico Stinellis / AP

When James Schloegel took his wishes as a Augustin brother this summer, he knelt before the altar in a church in Chicago, surrounded by friends, family and brothers. At 32, he had spent years discerning his call for religious life – a trip anchored in prayer, spiritual study and the community.

“Me, James Michael Schloegel, led by the Holy Spirit, declares my intention to follow more closely Jesus Christ,” he said during the ceremony, “and to give a more complete expression of my consecration of baptism.”

Schloegel is one of the three men who have officially entered the American province of the Order of Saint-Augustin, known as the Augustinians in recent months. And it is part of a notable increase in the interest in the small Roman Catholic religious order – a trend launched, in part, by the elections earlier in Mayof Pope Leo XIV, the first North American pontiff and the first Augustinian to direct the World Church.

The Augustins are the number of less than 3,000 brothers worldwide, which has increased people interested in joining the significant order.

Before entering the process of discernment, Schloegel said that his life in her twenties was typical for someone his age.

“All that a young man would do, I was doing,” he said.

But he felt a persistent desire for something deeper.

“My heart hurt. It was open. And I wanted a direction,” said Schloegel. The discipline of religious life and the vows involved appealed. “Poverty, chastity, obedience – these are ways to open us to Christ and to the people he asks us to serve.”

The community and friendship attract men to Augustinian order

The discernment process was not lonely. Schloegel has regularly encountered other people exploring a similar call.

“We have prayed to the liturgy of the hours,” he recalls. “We talked about where we felt like we were directed. Father Phil also posed books from Saint Augustine to us to read.”

“Father Phil” is the Reverend Philip Yang, director of vocations of Augustins in the western United States. He saw an increase marked of interest since the election of Pope Leo in May.

“Before, we could get two or three discerners. But after Pope Leo, I now have 15,” said Yang. “It’s incredible.”

But Yang thinks that it is not only the interest of papal motivation. It is also the model of religious life of the Augustinians – centered on the community rather than on solitude.

“Most priests live alone,” said Yang. “With the Augustins, there is what we call the intentional community. When the day is over, you go home to share a meal with your brothers, to pray the psalms together and to have this holy of friendship.”

For Saint Augustine, the 4th century bishop and theologian whose teaching Inspired by order, friendship was more than the company – it was a path to holiness.

“When Christ spoke to the disciples, he said,” You are no longer slaves. You are my friends “,” said Yang. “Saint Augustine took this very seriously. Real holiness can come from a deep friendship.”

The Reverend Max Villeneuve, a Augustinian pastor of our mother from Good Counsel in Los Angeles, says that the Augustinian community does not just concern living together. This is spiritual unity.

“We are not like holy society,” he said. “It is a spirit and a heart that intends to God, as Saint Augustine says. Above all, loves God and each other.”

This goal – to love more deeply and get closer to God – is at the heart of the Augustinian way of life. Villeneuve often returns to a recurring theme in Augustin’s writings: the inner journey to know himself as a path to the knowledge of God.

“Lord, let me know myself that I may know you,” said Villeneuve, citing one of the prayers of Augustine.

Apart from his parish, a mosaic of Augustinian saints – including Saint Monica, Clare de Montefalco and Saint Rita de Cascia – reflects this spiritual line. It is the cloud of witnesses of Villeneuve who have come closer to God by friendship and faith.

A mosaic of Augustinian saints, shown here outside the church of our mother of good council in Los Angeles, reflects the spiritual line of the order.

Jason Derose / NPR

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Jason Derose / NPR

The community shapes people in better versions of themselves

Schloegel remembers anxious at the beginning of his novitiate, the period of community life with other Augustinians before making his vows. “The first two days, frankly, I was terrified,” he said. “I asked the Blessed Virgin Mary,” help me stay here. “And she did it.”

Since then, he said, the community has shaped it-sometimes in a difficult but transformative way.

“The community is like a set full of precious jewels,” said Schloegel. “Everyone, beautiful, but they are shredded. And what the community does is that it trembles this tray, which then leads to the other jewels embroideing itself until it becomes fluid.”

Always distinct, but refined – polished by the other through life shared in faith.