Philippines/America

Br. Nicholas Stone

Simple Vows | August 6, 2022

Where are you from?

North Carolina, born and raised.

Tell us more about your journey and how you became connected to the Augustinians.

I didn’t grow up with the Augustinians in that way. I actually met them through my mentor teacher who went to Villanova and is originally from around the university. She grew up around the Augustinians and her mother even worked with the Augustinians. While I was teaching in Northern Virginia and discerning my call, we used her connections and I got in touch with the Vocations director, Fr. Joseph Narog, O.S.A. By God’s grace, I now find myself here.

One of the things that attracted me to the Augustinians is their emphasis on community. There are certain aspects of our religious life that are in common, like prayer and dinner. Between going to classes, my ministry commitments and assorted meetings, it is imperative to me to spend time in common with my community. Throughout our day, we derive grace and strength from moments spent with our loved ones.

What is your favorite thing about your culture/country?

Food is probably the biggest way in which I relate to my culture. The way my family came together around food shaped me significantly as I was growing up. A bunch of us would get together every weekend after Mass and there would be food, music, and everyone is talking and just hanging out. The time we spent together was very intentional and we faithfully attended every week. Schedule-wise, sometimes life happens and someone has to travel or can’t attend due to a conflicting appointment, but that was okay because we always showed up the next week. That’s the reason why the majority of my family lived within a three-hour radius of each other. It was very important for us to regularly be together as a family, to eat with each other and cook for one another. If the family needed to come together for a family member who was struggling for any reason, or wanted to celebrate something positive (like a baptism or a wedding), it was easy for the whole family to gather together since that was vital to us.

I’ll never forget the first time I went to Old St. Augustine’s and a Filipino family immediately recognized me as a Filipino and invited me to lunch. The family was asking me about the Filipino community in Northern Virginia so I described how we go to Mass, then go home to take a nap, and later we show up at this person’s house for evening prayer. The priest shows up, we have evening prayer, and then dinner is set out

– continued on next page on three tables. I go on to describe what’s on each table and how when the priest leaves the men go over here and the kids go over there and the women go in another direction. When I finish describing everything to them, the teenage son leans over to his mom and declares that “Filipino gatherings are the same everywhere!”

This concept of breaking bread together, of steeping ourselves in the communal aspect of cooking and creating memories, was an invaluable part of my childhood. Cooking together with my aunts, uncles and grandparents instilled in me a joy to cook for others in order to share that special feeling. It’s one of the main ways that I show love and hospitality and share my culture with others.

What facet of your culture do you think can enrich the Order for the better?

As the order becomes more concentrated and we Augustinians are pulled in different directions, I think it’s important to recognize that we are not called to be cloistered. The need to come together, to be together in community, these exterior signs of community, of family and closeness, enrich our interior well-being, mental health and our spirituality. The balance between working in the “outside” world and nurturing our home front (families and communities) is something that the Filipino culture has mastered.

Filipinos inherently understand that these values of closeness, family and togetherness are absolutely essential for community welfare and cohesiveness. There is a tendency in religious life to emphasize ministry and service because we have been called to serve. While Augustinians thankfully have a better balance than other orders, there is always more that can be done to invest in our gatherings and ensure that we consciously and emphatically bond with one another.

Share a favorite quote/ saying/ proverb/

lyric that you love.

“The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual strengthening the bonds of family and community, from the mere animal biology to a spiritual act.”

~ Michael Pollan