The Congregation of the Augustinian Missionaries Sisters is a branch of the Augustinian Order (O.S.A) that recognizes Saint Augustine as Father and Teacher and embraces his Rule and Spirituality. The spirituality of St. Augustine constitutes the first factor of the Congregational Charism, common to the entire Augustinian family.
It was founded in Madrid, Spain, on May 6, 1890, by a group of three simple women, Augustinian Tertiaries from the Beatory of St. Augustine in Barcelona: Mothers Querubina Samarra, Mónica Mujal and Clara Cantó, who combined contemplative serenity with the teaching service.
Going back a little further to the origins, in 1883, a group of Augustinian Tertiaries of the Beguinage of Barcelona, showed us their audacious and voluntary response to a specific need of the Church, assuming with exemplary availability the missions in the Philippine Archipelago, to take charge of the education of girls orphaned by the cholera epidemic.
A few years later, in 1890, Querubina, Mónica and Clara, equipped themselves with unconditional availability and abandoned their peaceful retreat from the Beguinage, to found a novitiate in Madrid with the main purpose of forming religious to be sent as missionaries to the Philippines and to be able to take care of the orphans. This is how the Congregation of The Augustinian Missionaries was born when the said community, which in addition to formation took care of an orphanage for girls in that same place, was canonically constituted on May 6, 1890.
We are a Congregation of apostolic life. We profess to follow Christ in chastity, poverty and obedience, according to the spirituality of Saint Augustine, expressed mainly in the Rule and in our Constitutions.
God has blessed the Congregation with two martyrs: Blessed Sr. Caridad Alvarez and Blessed Sr. Esther Paniagua, who were martyred on 23 October 1994 in Bab-el-Oued, Algiers, Algeria. The Beatification took place in Algeria on the December 8th 2018, where they were proclaimed as Blessed.
Today the Congregation is present in seventeen countries: Spain, Brazil, China, Algeria, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Italy, Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, India, Kenya, Chile, Mozambique, Dominican Republic, Taiwan and the Philippines.
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