Who We Are

Who We Are

Religious Family of the Incarnate Word

The Religious Family of the Incarnate Word is composed of a male branch (Institute of the Incarnate Word, IVE), a female branch (Servants of the Lord and of the Virgin of Matará, SSVM) and a secular third order (TOS).

Its founder, Fr. Carlos M. Buela, wanted to name it after the greatest event in history, an event that cannot be surpassed by any other: the Incarnation of the Son of God.

The Religious Family of the Incarnate Word focuses its spirituality on this mystery and considers it the model for realizing its specific purpose, namely, to inculturate the Gospel, to extend the Incarnation to all men, to the whole man and to every manifestation of man. (Cf. Constitutions, #5).

Through the profession of the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, we want to imitate and follow more closely the Incarnate Word in his chastity, poverty and obedience. In addition, we profess a fourth vow of Marian slavery in the spirit of St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort. Through this vow we consecrate our whole life to the Virgin Mary. 

Both the IVE and the SSVM have a contemplative branch in which their members "wish to devote themselves to the one thing necessary, choosing the better part" (cf. Lk 10:38-42). In the monastery, through a life of silence, prayer and penance, they obtain from the Lord the graces necessary for the salvation of many souls.

The secular third order, or the order of the laity of the Family of the Incarnate Word, is an association of the lay faithful who, living in the world, participate in the spirit of the religious family, to seek Christian perfection in a more secure and effective way, in the broad sphere of the lay vocation and to bring about the sanctification of every man and woman through works of the apostolate. To this end, they wish and commit themselves to form one family with the religious of the Incarnate Word, united by the same faith, the same end, the same mission, the same charism and the same spirit, constituting themselves "salt of the earth and light of the world" (Mt 5:13-14) in their own environments.

Charism and Purpose

Purpose

 

The purpose that we intend is twofold, on the one hand a universal purpose, which is to seek the glory of God and the salvation of souls. 

On the other hand, according to our specific purpose, we commit all our strength in order to inculturate the Gospel, namely to extend the Incarnation to all men, in the whole man, and in all the manifestations of man, according to the teachings of the Magisterium of the Church. 

We want to dedicate ourselves to the evangelization of the culture – to work to transform the following through the power of the Gospel:

  • mankind’s criteria of judgment,
  • determining values,
  • points of interest,
  • lines of thought,
  • sources of inspiration, and
  • models of life;

so that they are imbued with the strength of the Gospel

  • the ways of thinking,
  • the criteria for judgement,
  • the rules of action.

We cannot forget what the Second Vatican Council pointed out: “One of the gravest errors of our time is the dichotomy between the faith which many profess and the practice of their daily lives” (Gaudium et Spes, 43). This dichotomy is primarily due to the fact that the world in recent times has come to the point of separating and detaching itself from the Christian foundations of its culture leading to the de-christianization of the culture.

Charism

The specific charism of our Institute requires all its members to work in supreme docility to the Holy Spirit according to the pattern of the Virgin Mary, in order that Jesus Christ be the Lord of all that is genuinely human, even in the most difficult situations and under the most adverse conditions.

This charism is the grace to know how to work concretely in order to prolong Christ in families, in education, in the mass media, in the intellectuals, and in all other legitimate manifestations of human life. It is the gift, by being essentially missionary and Marian, to make each man “like a new Incarnation of the Word.” 

Therefore, the proper mission of the Institute, received from the founder and sanctioned by the Church, is to bring to fullness the effects of the Incarnation of the Word, which “is the epitome and root of all good”, especially to the vast world of culture, i.e., the “manifestation of man as an individual, as a community, as a people, as a nation.”

We consider that some of the most important means of achieving the established purpose are to work in the key areas of the culture, namely: families, education (especially in seminaries, universities and colleges), mass media, and the thinkers or intellectuals.

IVE in the World

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