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PART I: INTRODUCTION
OUR RELIGIOUS FAMILY: GENERAL PRINCIPLES OR OUR “WAY” (SEE
ACTS 9:2)
1. [Intention] We profess that God is the
Lord and Father of all things, the beginning and end of
everything; that his Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, was made
flesh, died, and rose from the dead to save all men; that
the Holy Spirit is Lord and giver of life, Who for the glory
of the Holy Trinity, for a greater manifestation of the
Incarnate Word, and for the honor of the Church founded by
Christ, “subsists in the Catholic Church which is governed
by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion
with him.”1 We want to give “testimony that the world can
neither be transfigured nor offered to God without the
spirit of the beatitudes.”2 We ask the Blessed Virgin Mary
to grant us the grace to persevere in this purpose until
death.
2. We wish to live in a state that
“constitutes a closer imitation and an abiding re-enactment
in the Church of the form of life which the Son of God made
his own when he came into the world...”3 by the practice of
the evangelical counsels, contributing in this way “to
reveal the variegated nature and the multiple dynamism of
the incarnate Word of God.”4
3. [Name] We aspire that our religious
family be known and called “of the Incarnate Word” as we
come closer to the 2,000th anniversary of the event -the
Incarnation- that is even greater than the creation of the
world and that cannot be surpassed by any other event.
4. [Universal End] The objective that we
intend is twofold. On one hand, it is to seek the glory of
God and the salvation of souls – our own and those of our
brethren – especially by practicing the virtues that make us
participate more in the humbling of Christ himself.5
5. [Specific End] On the other hand, we
commit all our strength to inculturate the Gospel, that is
to say, to extend the Incarnation “to all men, in the whole
man, and in all of the manifestations of man,”6 in
accordance with the teachings of the Magisterium of the
Church.7 In this respect His Holiness John Paul II teaches:
“The term ‘acculturation’ or ‘inculturization,’ may well be
a neologism, but it expresses very well one of the elements
of the great mystery of the Incarnation.”8
6. [Consecration by means of vows] To
carry out the service of God and his people with greater
perfection, we commit ourselves by taking three vows;
chastity, for the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt 19:12); poverty,
sell what you have (Mk 10:21); and obedience, which is
better than sacrifice (1 Sm 15:22); in order to follow the
Incarnate Word more intimately in his chastity, poverty, and
obedience.
7. [Foundation] We want to be rooted in
Jesus Christ who has come in the flesh (1 Jn 4:2), and only
in Christ, and always in Christ, and Christ in everything,
and Christ in all, and all of Christ, because the Rock is
Christ,9 and no other foundation can any one lay (1 Cor
3:11). We want to love and serve Jesus Christ, his Body and
his Spirit, and to make others love and serve him. We want
to love and serve the physical Body of Christ as much as his
physical Body in the Eucharist as his mystical Body, the
Church: formed by us all who must become “other Christs” by
holiness of life. Church that is also formed by all men in
whom we see the same Christ, especially sinners, enemies and
the poor. We want to be “another humanity added to His
own”10; to be chalices so full of Christ that we spill out
to others in over-abundance; to show with our lives that
Christ lives. We want to love and serve the Spirit of Christ
because the Spirit is the soul of the Church, and because
any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not
belong to him (Rom 8:9).
8. [Spirituality] In this respect, we
consider that our spirituality must be deeply marked by all
the aspects of the mystery of the Incarnation: a) its
origin, b) its natures, c) the union of its natures, d) and
its end.
9. a) In regards to the origin: We must
have a deep and radical devotion to the Holy Trinity, the
active principle of the Incarnation; and to whom it is
attributed: the Father insofar as He is the principle of the
Son - I came not of my own accord, but he sent me (Jn 8:42)
- and the Holy Spirit insofar as He is the personal Love
from which all divine work proceeds – by the power of the
Holy Spirit.11 From here the primacy of spiritual things is
derived in all of our thoughts, feelings, and actions, since
God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good
pleasure (Phil 2:13), and because the teaching of the
Incarnate Word is clear: seek first his kingdom and his
righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well
(Mt 6:33). An example of total abandonment to the will of
God is the Virgin Mary: I am the handmaid of the Lord; let
it be to me according to your word (Lk 1:38).
10. b) In regards to the two natures,
human and divine: We want to live intensely the virtues of
the transcendence: faith, hope, and charity, in order to be
the salt... to be the light (Mt 5:13ff) in order not to be
of the world.12 Therefore incessant prayer is necessary - to
pray constantly (1 Thes 5:17) -as well as the active and
passive purification of the senses and the spirit: unless
you repent you will all likewise perish (Lk 13:3).
11. We want to live intensely the virtues
of humiliation (to humble oneself): humility, justice,
sacrifice, poverty, pain, obedience, and merciful love...,
in a word to take the cross.13 It is necessary to be in the
world14 and to assume in Christ all that is human, since
“what is not assumed is not redeemed“15 and “becomes a new
idol replete with all the old malicious cunning.”16 Priests
working as spiritual directors are able to illumine the
temporal, and form lay people so that they “are engaged in
temporal matters and direct them according to God’s will.”17
We must not assume non-assuming “matter” like sin, error,
lies, evil: abstain from every form of evil (1 Thes 5:22).
12. c) In regards to the union of
natures: The center of our life must be Jesus Christ, true
God and true man, who unites both natures in his one,
unique, divine person; for in truth we profess that the Word
became flesh (Jn 1:14), and he is the one mediator between
God and men (1 Tm 2:5), and that He is the only one who has
the words of eternal life.18 He is the resulting person of
the Incarnation. In a particular way our devotion to Jesus
Christ must manifest itself in the mystery of the
Incarnation; in his second complete humiliation in the
mystery of the Passion -the supreme priestly act- that, in
contrast, makes us admire the kenosis19 of the Incarnation
even more deeply; and in the mystery of his Second Coming
which will constitute the fullness of his First Coming.
Intimately united to the mystery of our religion which was
manifested in the flesh (1 Tm 3:16), and therefore united to
our love, are the three white things of the Church: the
Eucharist that prolongs the Incarnation under the species of
bread and wine by the action of the Catholic priesthood; the
Most Holy Virgin Mary, who gave her yes so that the flesh
and blood of the Word was made flesh;20 and the Pope, the
incarnate presence of the Truth, the Will, and Sanctity of
Christ.
13. It is necessary to embrace the
practice of the apparently opposed virtues, against all
false dialectics; it is necessary to respect the essence of
the virtues without interchanging them; it is necessary to
avoid all false duality by practicing truthfulness,
fidelity, coherence, and authenticity of life, against all
falsehood, infidelity, pretense, and hypocrisy; it is
necessary to restore entirely, all things in Christ. For he
must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet
(1 Cor 15:25), taking possession of the entire universe for
Christ to unite all things in him, things in heaven and
things on earth (Eph 1:10).
14. d) In respect to the end: We want, in
Christ, to seek the glory of God and the integral well-being
of man. By introducing his first-born son into the world21
the Father manifested his glory: we have beheld his glory (Jn
1:14) and in everything we want to have a righteous
intention: whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1
Cor 10:31).
15. Since “every man, on account of the
mystery of the Redemption, is entrusted to the solicitude of
the Church”22 and that “it is only in the mystery of the
Incarnate Word that the mystery of man truly becomes
clear,”23 we want to work for man’s integral well-being by
showing him his nature, dignity, vocation, inalienable
rights, freedom, and eternal destiny by achieving the goal
of faith which is the salvation of souls.24 All which leads
to seeing Christ formed25 in men will be an object of
maximum attention and apostolic work for us.
16. [Apostolate] In a special way, we
will devote ourselves to the preaching of the Word of God,
sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb 4:12), in all forms:
by studying and teaching the Holy Scriptures, Theology, the
Church Fathers, Liturgy, Catechesis, Ecumenism, etc.; by the
achievement of mission outreaches, spiritual exercises,
education and Christian formation of children and young
people, and also works of charity with the most needy
(abandoned children, the handicapped, the sick, the
elderly); in the search and formation of suitable ministers
of the Word; in the publication of magazines, treaties,
books, etc.; and in other things. By oral and written word
we want to prolong the Word.
17. [Marian Slavery] By making a fourth
vow of slavery to Mary according to Saint Louis-Marie
Grignion de Montfort, we want to manifest our love and
gratitude to the Blessed Virgin so to obtain her
indispensable help in order to prolong the Incarnation in
all things. We do not want the spirit of our religious
family to be any other than that of the Holy Spirit, and if
it degenerates to be of another spirit, from now on and in
whatever place, we beg the Lord to erase our religious
family from the face of the Church.
18. [Fidelity to the Holy Spirit] Only
with the most absolute fidelity to the Holy Spirit can we
use the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Eph
6:17). Our poor breath is only fertile and irresistible if
it is in communication with the Spirit of Pentecost.
To achieve this disposition of maximum, total and
unrestricted docility to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of
Christ,26 we need the Holy Virgin Mary to be the model, the
guide, and the form of all our actions. For by this means
can we say with all the strength of soul and heart, today
and always, “Totus tuus”, Mary!27 |
