Basically, our Congregation is consecrated to Christ. Its pro found devotion to him naturally includes a love for Mary, his Mother, and for the Church, his Spouse. This threefold love of Christ, Mary, and the Church, is for Father d'Alzon, a particular characteristic of an Assumptionist religious.

The spirit of our Congregation can be expressed very briefly as: love of Our Lord, of the Blessed Virgin, his Mother, and of the Church, his Spouse.

Love for Our Lord. As a religious, I am the servant of Jesus Christ in Our Lord very special way. All the affections of my heart, all the powers of my being must be directed toward him That is my life: Mihi vivere Christus - For me, 'life' means Christ' (Phil 1:21).

Is Jesus Christ everything to me?... Is he the single object of my desires?... Am I prepared to sacrifice everything to him?... Is he the only one for whom I long?... Is my heart completely free. attached to nothing else?... Or do my affections embrace some person or thing which could stifle the love I have for Jesus? Unless and until my heart is completely free. I cannot true Assumptionist.

Love for Mary and the Church. Not only must I avoid everything that might pre-and the Church vent me from loving Jesus wholeheartedly, but at the same time, I must love for his sake everything that was dearest to him. On earth, his two great loves were Mary, his Mother, and the Church, his Spouse, which he purchased with his own blood.

What is my devotion to Mary? Can I call myself her son? Up to now, what have I done to honor her, not with mere formalism or barren emotion, but in a concrete way??... Do I have a sound idea of the wonderful relationship which, through Jesus, could exist between Mary and myself?...

After his Mother, Jesus loved nothing as much as the Church, which is his Spouse and his Mystical Body. What does the Church of Jesus Christ mean for me?... Until now, has she inspired me with feelings of love?... What is the depth of my devotion to her?... What is my gratitude to her?

An Augustinian Spirituality

St. Augustine, a towering figure in Western Christianity, holds immense significance for us. We deeply value his emphasis on friendship, community, and his gift for gathering those who earnestly seek God and are committed to following Christ together. A fraternal life, lived in a family spirit, is therefore fundamental to our way.

Above all, we strive to live in unity within our shared home, with one soul and one heart directed towards God. Hence our coming together?

RULE OF SAINT AUGUSTINE

Augustine's legacy further imbues us with a profound reverence for the ecclesia, a body perpetually engaged in the epistemological pursuit of Truth, the axiomatic realization of Charity, and the ontological integration of Unity. This profound affect for the Church manifests as much in a macro-level concern for its universal questions and meta-narratives, as in the micro-level, humble stewardship of a particular Christian community, rooted in its spatio-temporal locus within a specific diocese and cultural milieu. Analogous to Augustine's 35-year episcopal tenure in Hippo, our founder, Father Emmanuel d’Alzon, dedicated 39 years to the Diocese of Nîmes as Vicar General, consistently declining hierarchical elevation and eschewing the metropolitan allure of Paris.

Our deeper engagement with our Augustinian philosophical foundations is particularly evident in the established tradition of Augustinian Studies. This serves as a paramount intellectual hub for Augustinian scholarship, where successive generations of brothers undertake a specialized hermeneutical inquiry into Saint Augustine's corpus and his intricate philosophical system.

An Alzonian Spirituality

Amidst the burgeoning proliferation of French religious foundations during the 19th century, Father Emmanuel d’Alzon evinced a perspicacious and far-reaching vision: he ardently desired to establish a congregation demonstrably capable of facilitating the teleological expansion of the Divine Reign within a post-revolutionary French society increasingly defined by its secularizing tendencies. His aspirations further encompassed a singular and unequivocally ecumenical Church, its influence spanning from the nascent missionary territories of Australia to the Anglican domains of England, and extending even to Orthodox Bulgaria, where a vigorous inter-confessional discourse was actively unfolding with the Huguenots of the Cévennes. Nothing proved more anathema to his spirit than a constricted, parochial, or factional disposition. He yearned for individuals of unwavering intrepidity, boundless magnanimity, and profound altruism, who would dedicate themselves with unbridled passion to the immanent and transcendent actualization of the Divine Imperium within themselves and their surrounding milieu.

The spirit of the Founder impels us to make the great causes of God and man our own, to carry ourselves to where God is threatened as the image of God (rule of life n°4)