Communitas 2010 Issue for PDF File.pmd - University of San Agustin

June 2010
Augustinian Educational..... from page 1
opinions may vary as to how many there
are of them, others would just classify them
into three, or four, or even ten. While
limiting them to smaller numbers, some
values are rather subsumed by the more
commonly known ones.
In our school, the values of
community, charity and truth are being
popularized, while other values may just
belong to any of these Trinitarian values.
Discussing these values, we may notice that
they are interconnected with one another.
1. Community.
The most familiar way our school has
understood this value is through the phrase
taken from the Rule of St. Augustine,
“oneness of heart and mind”. For him, the
source of this communitarian spirit is love;
love that creates an attitude of life in
which the common things are preferred to
what he owns, and what he owns are not
preferred to the common ones. Thus,
community is opposed to egoism and
individualism.
This communitarian dimension of the
person is important in St. Augustine both
in theory and in practice and love of
neighbor is its foundation. He says that
“the measure of love is love without
measure” (Letter 109, 2).
Community as a value carries with it
other values such as solidarity and justice.
And speaking of these values, two other
ideas come to fore: private property and
common good. According to him, private
property is a human institution, not
divine. It causes many human reactions
like enmities, disagreements, wars, mutual
conflicts, among others; while things which
we possess in common we never have
dispute over -- like breathing air and seeing
the sun. In his commentary on Psalms, he
admonishes us “to refrain from possessing
private things. If we cannot do so in
reality, at least for the sake of love, let us
make room for the Lord” (131, 5, and 6).
Thus, the community of goods would be
preferable. And religious life opted for the
community of goods as the perfect system
of life (Rule no. 4).
FROM THE PRESIDENT
As a value, when practiced within
our academic milieu, community is a way
to overcome our egoism and individualism.
Employees can allow more the spirit of
cooperation and availability in favor of the
common good. We can even overcome
envy, self-esteem, or pride. We can also
outgrow destructive criticism, while sisterly
or brotherly constructive criticism takes
place in favor of the community.
Since our school is a venue for
evangelization, within the premises,
community as a value would allow us to
remember more the rights of others and
our personal obligations than our own
rights and the obligations of others. Then,
our outreach program would have more
meaning because we can sincerely
manifest our solid preferential love for the
poor and the needy. And above all, our
school can be the best place to practice the
love of God and love of neighbor toward
the union of souls and of hearts for God’s
honor and glory.
2. Truth
Truth as a value in Augustine is
inseparable from another value,
interiority, the way toward the truth.
Thus, he puts it in these words: “If you
don’t want to overflow outside, enter
within yourself, because the truth lives
in the interior man…” (On True
Religion, 39, 72). For him, we need to
know the truth and live in it and of it
so that we can have self-fulfillment.
Interiority is necessary for us to avoid
purposelessness and superficiality of life.
This value leads us to imitate Augustine
who reflects on himself and on the
fundamental things of life, such as God,
faith, work, study, friendship, even
leisure time, etc., in order for us to
discover our true life’s meaning.
For us to appreciate interiority as a
way to truth, let us be reminded of a
sermon of Augustine which suggests to
us to “Let us leave some margin of
silence. Return to your interiority and
keep away from all noise. Look again
into your interiority, where there are no
Communitas
9
confusions neither reproaches, where
you have a peaceful asylum for your
conscience. Attend with calmness and
serenity to the truth in order that you
will understand it” (Sermon 52, 30).
Through interiority, therefore, all the
truths and the Truth are found. For
Augustine, truths are found when our
mind reflects on the reality of anything.
He further opines that truth is also found
when we discover the realities and values
that lead, give sense, and bring happiness
to human life. Ironically, we are capable
of knowing many truths but at times we
ignore the truth about ourselves, which for
Augustine, is the deepest reason and
purpose of our existence. Most
importantly, he points out that for us
Christians, Jesus Christ, the Son of God
made man, is the most profound and
complete revelation of the truth of man
and of the truth of God.
As in the value of community, we can
attain positive personal maturity while we
practice the value of truth by way of
interiority. Augustine teaches us that the
search for truth draws us away from
frivolity and even superficiality. It can mean
that while on earth we only seek things we
can have forever; that we will deal with
facts of life as they relate to life eternal.
Part of this value of truth is to have
foresight. Foresight helps us to avoid evil by
anticipating it, like fixng our roof before it
rains. Thus, a person who has foresight will
be reflective; being reflective is being
prayerful. Prayer not only prevents us from
becoming too preoccupied with ourselves,
but it also opens us up to God’s presence.
In addition, we who practice the
Augustinian value of truth can overcome
whatever tendency we have to live in vain
events; instead, we become sensible and
attentive toward the most important things
in life. Consequently, we ask these
questions: “What is the proper goal of our
lives? For what (whom) are we made?” For
Augustine, the goal or end of our lives is
happiness. We are made for happiness. But
(and this is a big but) we are made for
happiness rightly understood. That is,
happiness is the blessedness and well-being
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