The Rule of Saint Augustine is one of the foundational texts of Augustinian spirituality. Brief in length but profound in purpose, it offers a practical vision of Christian community centered on love of God, love of neighbor, common prayer, humility, shared responsibility, and the common search for God.
For our community, the Rule is not simply an historical document. It is a guide for daily life — a way of ordering prayer, relationships, possessions, work, correction, leadership, and service so that everything may lead us toward deeper communion with God and with one another.
“Above all else, dear brothers, love God and then your neighbor.”
Saint Augustine did not write the Rule as an abstract theory of religious life. Its wisdom grew from his own experience of living in Christian community.
Augustine looked especially to the first Christian community described in the Acts of the Apostles: believers united in heart and mind, sharing what they possessed and seeking to live the Gospel together.
That biblical vision became the foundation of his understanding of religious life.
The Rule therefore begins not with a list of individual achievements, but with a common purpose: people are brought together so that they may live harmoniously and direct their lives toward God.
“The main purpose for you having come together is to live harmoniously in your house, intent upon God in oneness of mind and heart.”
The heart of the Rule is community.
Augustine does not present community merely as a practical arrangement for people who happen to share a house. He understands it as a spiritual path.
Those who live together are called to become one in mind and heart, not because they lose their individuality, but because their lives are directed toward the same destination: God.
This is why Augustinian community life places such importance on fraternity, friendship, mutual responsibility, forgiveness, humility, and the sharing of both spiritual and material goods.
Unity is never an end in itself. It is unity on the way to God.
The Rule places charity before everything else.
Love of God and love of neighbor provide the standard by which every other aspect of religious life is understood. Prayer, possessions, discipline, leadership, correction, forgiveness, and service all have meaning only when they help a community grow in charity.
This means that the Rule is demanding in a very practical way.
It calls us to consider how our choices affect others, to resist selfishness, to forgive offenses, to receive correction with humility, and to seek the good of the whole community rather than merely our own preferences.
Prayer is essential to the life described by the Rule.
The brothers are called to gather faithfully for prayer and to allow the words spoken in prayer to be reflected in the heart.
For Augustine, external religious practices are never enough by themselves. The interior life matters. Prayer must become an encounter with God that gradually transforms the person who prays.
This Augustinian emphasis on interiority remains central to our life today through the Holy Eucharist, the Liturgy of the Hours, Sacred Scripture, Lectio Divina, silent prayer, and personal reflection.
The Rule draws strongly from the example of the early Church by emphasizing the common sharing of goods.
What a brother possesses, receives, or is able to contribute is not to be treated simply as his own. Material goods are entrusted to the community and distributed according to genuine need.
This principle reaches beyond possessions.
Abilities, time, responsibilities, experience, and spiritual gifts are also gifts from God. Augustinian community life invites us to place them at the service of others rather than use them only for ourselves.
The goal is not uniformity, but communion: each person receives according to need and gives according to what he has been entrusted.
Humility is essential to the Rule because community cannot flourish when pride governs relationships.
Augustine repeatedly directs attention away from status, privilege, appearances, and self-importance. Those who enter community life are called to recognize that every good thing they possess is ultimately a gift from God.
Simplicity helps create this freedom.
By loosening our attachment to possessions, recognition, and personal preference, we become more available to God and to one another.
Humility also allows brothers to receive correction, admit faults, ask forgiveness, and begin again.
The Rule is realistic about human weakness.
Life together inevitably includes misunderstanding, disagreement, temptation, and failure. Augustine therefore treats correction and forgiveness as necessary parts of community life.
Correction is not meant to humiliate. Its purpose is healing and the good of the person and the community.
Likewise, forgiveness is not optional. Brothers who offend one another are called to seek reconciliation rather than allow resentment to divide the community.
In this way, the monastery becomes a place where charity is learned through practice.
Authority within the Rule is understood as service.
Those entrusted with leadership carry a serious responsibility for the good of the community. They are to guide with care, while remembering that authority does not place them above the brothers they serve.
At the same time, community members are called to cooperate with legitimate leadership in a spirit of charity and shared responsibility.
This relationship between authority and obedience is meant to help the whole community remain focused on its common purpose: the journey toward God.
The Rule is not simply a collection of restrictions.
Its deeper purpose is freedom — the freedom that comes when a person is no longer ruled by selfish desire, pride, resentment, or attachment.
Augustine wants those who live the Rule to become people whose actions increasingly flow from love.
Christian discipline therefore has a purpose: to form hearts capable of loving God and neighbor more freely.
The goal is not merely to follow regulations, but to become the kind of community in which charity has become a way of life.
The Servants of God of St. Augustine seek to live this ancient Rule within the circumstances of monastic life today.
Its central principles continue to shape our prayer, fraternity, common responsibilities, use of material goods, relationships, ministries, and service.
The world around us is very different from the world of Saint Augustine, but the human heart has not changed. We still need to learn how to live together, how to forgive, how to share, how to seek truth, and how to direct our lives toward God.
For this reason, the Rule remains both ancient and remarkably contemporary.
The Rule ultimately points toward a simple vision:
A community brought together by God.
A community learning to love.
A community sharing life and responsibility.
A community continually being converted.
A community traveling together toward the same destination.
“One mind and one heart intent upon God.”
For us, this is not only a summary of the Rule. It is the direction of our monastic life.
