Introduction

37 We seek to be anchored in the sacrosanct mystery of the Incarnation – the mystery of the Word made flesh in the womb of the Holy Virgin Mary. We can say that our spirituality derives from the Person of the Word and His Mother, so that, in the Holy Spirit, we may become united to the Father. All the principles of our Institute’s spiritual life, as stated in the Directory of Spirituality, stem from the elucidation of the mystery of the Incarnate Word.

 

The Primacy of Jesus Christ

38 “[T]he name, the teaching, the life, the promises, the kingdom and the mystery of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God”[47] must take priority in our lives and actions, so that we put anything before his love.

 

Pre-existence of the Person of the Word

39 Confessing the eternity, distinction and divinity of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, we wish to nurture our desire to abandon ourselves completely to God’s blessed will and our love for the Trinity and for the people created by God in his image and likeness.[48]

 

The Mystery of the Incarnate Word
His First Coming

40 His First Coming, accomplished within Mary by the Holy Spirit, must lead us to total docility to the same Spirit and to a deep love for Mary – Jesus’ mother and ours. To know that Jesus is true God must move us to practice the transcendental virtues: faith, hope, and charity; to give an irreplaceable importance to a life of prayer, and to the need for active and passive purifications of the senses and the spirit. To know that Jesus is true man must move us to realize that nothing that is authentically human is strange to us if we know how to take it on;[49] to love, in Him, every human being in his or her totality, to practice the mortifying virtues of self-denial. To know that in Him both natures become indissoluble must move us to recognize the double reality of grace and nature, with no interchange; to practice the apparently opposing virtues, without falling into false dualisms, the superior taking over the inferior; always seeking God’s greatest glory and the salvation of humankind, which is the goal of the Incarnation.

 

His Earthly Life

41 From the instant of the incarnation, he gives us an example – which we must imitate – of a priestly surrendering to the Father. In Mary’s womb, we are already present through the koinonia principle, teaching us to completely depend on his mother. In his hidden life, he teaches us to grow, to work, to be silent, to be subject[50], to live with festive joy.[51] All of his words and actions nurture our spirituality.

 

His Departure from This World

42 In a special way, the Paschal mystery of our Lord is an inexhaustible source of spirituality. His Passion, Death, descent into hell, and Resurrection must always illuminate our lives. We must be experts in the wisdom of the cross, in the love of the cross, and in the joy of the cross.

 

His Glorious Life

43 The splendid fact that Christ rose from the dead should lead us to live as resurrected people, to live – according to the New Law, the Holy Spirit – the freedom of God’s children, characteristic of a New Man, with an immense joy, especially on Sunday, knowing how to celebrate, with great commitment to the mission.

 

His Mystical Life

44 It is the wonder of the Church, Christ’s Body, nurtured by God’s Word, One, Holy, Catholic – missionary and ecumenical – and Apostolic, enriched and founded on the “three white things”.

 

His Second Coming

45 We are certain that the Lord is coming and that we are walking toward Him. He will one day return in power and majesty, raise the dead, and preside over the final judgment and the innovation of the universe.

 

46 All other parts of the Constitutions, except the second, are inspired by the Directory of Spirituality and must be understood in its light. We have sought to give an absolute precedence to the spiritual section because we understand that such is the requirement of our charism, in such a way that it must be considered as a doctrinal text that serves as the foundation for the constitutional articles, and as a point of reference for the possible modifications that the times might later demand, and for the application of the Constitutions to new circumstances.

 

47 We can synthesized our spirituality as follows:

Not Jesus or Mary; not Mary or Jesus.
Neither Jesus without Mary; nor Mary without Jesus.
Neither only Jesus, but also Mary; not only Mary, but also Jesus.
Always Jesus and Mary; always Mary and Jesus.
To Mary by Jesus: Behold, your mother! (Jn 19:27).
To Jesus by Mary: Do whatever he tells you. (Jn 2:5).
First, Jesus, the God-man; then Mary, the Mother of God.
He, Head; She, Neck; we, Body.
Everything through Jesus and through Mary; with Jesus and with Mary;
in Jesus and in Mary; for Jesus and for Mary.
In short, simply: Jesus and Mary; Mary and Jesus.
And through Christ, to the Father, in the Holy Spirit.

 

[47] EN 22.

[48] Cf. Gn 1:26.

[49] “What has not been taken has not been redeemed”; cf. AG 3, footnote 15.

[50] Cf. Lk 2:51.

[51] Cf. Lk 2:42.

Note: This English translation of the Constitutions of Institute of the Incarnate Word and the Directory of Spirituality is a draft version and is subject to further revision and improvement.