Biting Reality
With the expression “biting reality,”[1] we desire to signify the effective insertion of our apostolic work into the culture that we seek to evangelize. This aspect is, without doubt, one of the essential components of our task of evangelizing and that which gives our priestly ministry a distinctive note.
First, this “biting reality” is born and nourished from the just consideration of the mystery of the Incarnate Word and fidelity to it, without which all of our pastoral work would invariably fall into utter failure.
Indeed, we are persuaded—and experience has demonstrated it to us as such—that it is familiarity with the Incarnate Word—fed and increased by the life of prayer—that gives us “that Christian common sense,”[2] that special ability to interpret the signs of the times, free from all worldly pretense. It is this familiarity with the Incarnate Word—and we say it with humility and gratitude—that gives us a particular “sensibility” for the cultural movements of the time, for the specific needs of the mission, for the problems of today’s world and its currents of thought and makes us capable of engaging in fruitful dialogue with the cultures[3] that we are called to evangelize, knowing how to give a positive response in the light of the Gospel; knowing how to esteem and value the diverse paths by which God seeks to communicate with men; and, ultimately, knowing how to insert ourselves effectively where we are working apostolically, for it will always be certain that “true inculturation is from within: it consists, ultimately, of a renewal of life under the influence of grace.”[4] Far be it from us to “embrace the current culture, abandoning the task of impregnating it with the Gospel,”[5] for we would betray our mission, which is that of the Church: to assume all that is human and communicate to it the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the life of grace.
That same insertion into reality, with us centered on the mystery of the Incarnate Word, makes it so that nothing that is authentically human is foreign to us, and that we seek to assume it in order to communicate to it the divine, knowing that “what is not assumed is not redeemed”[6] … and that, therefore, the Word assumed a perfect human nature.
This non-negotiable element is reflected in diverse aspects of our religious life. Thus, for example, our plan of formation seeks to engrave the Incarnate Word into the minds and hearts of our members in formation so that their lives may be a “living memorial of Jesus’ way of living and acting as the Incarnate Word.”[7] That is, the Institute promotes a formation that will make our members religious priests who, by the superior light of faith, which enlightens all human realities, will be fit for “biting reality” with courage, that is, religious priests who, in absolute fidelity to Jesus Christ[8] and with a “serious spirituality (not sensible),”[9] will not fall into posing, into ostentation, into false mysticism, into externalities, into sentimentality, or into false pietism, but rather will be capable of transcending the merely sensible and be willing to go through the dark nights. For only in this way will our religious “be able to effectively present our Divine Master to the peoples and worthily and fruitfully carry out the mission.”[10] Only thus will they be able to “bite reality,” knowing how to effectively change it by submitting it to Jesus Christ, just as the specific end of our Institute calls for.
Second, it is Thomistic metaphysics that helps us to not box as one beating the air,[11] that is, that permits us to carry out an effective contribution so that faith may become incarnate in men’s lives and culture.[12]
It is for this reason that we members of the Institute of the Incarnate Word strive to learn to think reality—grounded in Saint Thomas himself, entering into dialogue and into debate with contemporary problems and thinkers—in order to make it known to others in a way that is ever creative, yet which does not imply “giv[ing] in to the spirit of the world.”[13] This is a task that has become imperative in this time, given progressivism, which devastates the Church “because of the lack of critique and discernment in the face of the modern philosophies and the assimilation of the principle of immanence.”[14]
We believe, then, that the metaphysics of being—a dynamic metaphysics that allows full and global openness toward the whole of reality, all the way up to the One who perfects it all—united to a Christocentric spirituality and theology are the two tools for reading the social reality in the light of the Gospel and offering our contribution in the inculturation of the Gospel.
This biting of reality has great influence on our pastoral work since we members of the Institute are dedicated, among many other activities, to the preaching of authentic Spiritual Exercises (without ever forgetting that their essence is, above all, conversion and a right election), to popular missions (seeking the conversion of sinners), to catechetical teaching, striving always to guide souls to the knowledge and love of the living Jesus Christ, etc.
In short, from the very fact that God became man without ceasing to be God, we members of the Institute of the Incarnate Word learn to be in the world “without being of the world.”[15] We go to the world in order to convert it and not to camouflage ourselves with it. We go to the culture and the cultures of man not in order to convert ourselves into them, but in order to heal them and elevate them with the strength of the Gospel, doing, analogously, what Christ did: “The Son took away the devil’s nature, assumed human nature, and conferred the divine nature.”[16]
Therefore, “biting reality” is non-negotiable in when it comes to evangelizing.
[1] “Notes from the V General Chapter,” 4.
[2] Constitutions, 231.
[3] Cf. Saint John Paul II, Vita consecrata, 79: “Applying themselves with these attitudes to the study and understanding of other cultures, consecrated persons can better discern the real values in them, and the best way to accept them and perfect them with the help of their own charism.”
[4] Saint John Paul II, “Address to the Bishops of Zimbabwe in Ad Limina Visit,” July 2, 1988; OR (8/21/1988) Spanish Edition, quoted in Directory of Spirituality, 51.
[5] Fr. Carlos Buela, IVE, El Arte del Padre, part III, chap. 14; our translation.
[6] Cf. Second Vatican Council II, Ad Gentes, 3: Saint Athanasius, Ep. ad Epictetum 7: PG 26:1060; Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. 4:9: PG 33:465; Marius Victorinus, Adv. Arium 3:3: PL 8:1101; Saint Basil, Epist. 261:2: PG 32:969; Saint Gregory Nazianzus, Epist. 101: PG 37:181; Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Antirreheticus, Adv. Apollin. 17: PG 45:1156; Saint Ambrose, Epist. 48:5: PL 16:1153; Saint Augustine, In Ioan. Ev. tr. 23:6: PL 35:1585; CChr. 36:236.
[7] Constitutions, 254, 257, quoting Vita consecrata, 22; cf. Jn 1:14.
[8] “Notes from the V General Chapter,” 4.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Blessed Paolo Manna, Apostolic Virtues, Circular Letter no. 6, September 15, 1926; our translation.
[11] 1 Cor 9:26.
[12] Cf. Directorio de Evangelización de la Cultura, 248.
[13] Directory of Spirituality, 118.
[14] Directorio de Seminarios Mayores, 324; our translation; cf. Constitutions, 220.
[15] Cf. Jn 17:14-16.
[16] Blessed Isaac of Stella, Sermon 11, ML 194, 1728.
