BEATITUDE AS A TOOL FOR THE EFFECTIVE FORMATION OF THE AUGUSTINIANS IN KENYA

Abstract

Religious formation plays a crucial role in the Catholic Church. It is crucial in the sense that the people being formed are prepared to take over the leadership of the Church in the years to come. Thus, if the formation is not done properly then the Church will face difficulty shortly. The people being formed have the mandate to continue with the mission of the church. The main purpose of this study, therefore, is to examine the beatitudes in the Gospel of Mathew as a tool for effective formation among the Augustinians in Kenya. The paper explores the possibility of how the understanding of the beatitudes can be used to foster the formation of the Augustinians in Kenya, how can beatitudes promote the community living among the Augustinians, how the beatitudes can be used to strengthen the relationship between formators and formees in the Augustinian Order in Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive research design to gather an in-depth understanding of the formation process of the Augustinians in Kenya. Targeted populations were the Augustinians, those that are in initial formation and ongoing formation. Purposive sampling was used to select the respondents comprised of male and female Augustinians. Qualitative data were analysed using the thematic framework. To understand the formation process of the Augustinian, the researcher postulated that the two models of leadership formation should be used in this study, that is; pre-classical leadership theory and servant leadership theory.