{"id":2032,"date":"2022-10-28T16:52:58","date_gmt":"2022-10-28T15:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ourcharism.org\/?p=2032"},"modified":"2022-11-10T10:00:22","modified_gmt":"2022-11-10T10:00:22","slug":"a-serious-spirituality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourcharism.org\/index.php\/2022\/10\/28\/a-serious-spirituality\/","title":{"rendered":"A Serious Spirituality"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">A Serious Spirituality<\/h4>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Our spirituality is profoundly marked by all the aspects of the mystery of the Incarnation,<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> to the point that we could say that our spirituality is that of the \u201cAve Maria,\u201d that of the \u201cAngelus\u201d and that of the hymn of kenosis,<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a> that of the \u201cMagnificat\u201d and that of the \u201cGloria.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a> Therefore, it is a spirituality that impels us to transcend the sensible and disposes us to total detachment, seeking the glory of God in everything and through everything.<a href=\"#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In conformity with the charism with which God has blessed us, and given humanity\u2019s immense spiritual needs in today\u2019s world, we are convinced that, with a strengthening that is ever more rooted in the principles of our spirituality, and by being creative when spreading our spirituality, we members of the Institute of the Incarnate Word will be able to render the particular service that the Church asks and expects of us.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The evangelization of the culture demands of us a spirituality with peculiar nuances: \u201cAll this demands a new approach of cultures, attitudes, [and] behaviors aimed at in-depth dialogue with cultural centers and at rendering fruitful their meeting with the message of Christ. This work also demands a faith on the part of responsible Christians that is illumined by continual reflection when confronted with the sources of the Church\u2019s message, and a continual spiritual discernment pursued in prayer.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\">[5]<\/a> Therefore, we members of the Institute of the Incarnate Word understand that \u201cevangelizing consists principally in carrying the grace of God to all men, making of them a new humanity, that is, new men created <em>after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness<\/em>.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn6\" name=\"_ftnref6\">[6]<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">With the evangelization of the culture thus understood, characteristic elements of our apostolate are the preaching of the Spiritual Exercises according to the genuine spirit of Saint Ignatius of Loyola; the preaching of popular missions, in which Eucharistic devotion and the sacrament of Reconciliation, together with devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, are the pillars upon which the evangelization of a people is established and preserved; and, of course, the proclamation of the Word that seeks to bring men to conversion to God through \u201ca complete and sincere adherence to Christ and his Gospel through faith.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn7\" name=\"_ftnref7\">[7]<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Now, then, why do we say that our spirituality is serious?<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>Ours is a \u201cserious spirituality,\u201d not because it is lacking joy or is boring, but <em>serious<\/em> because it is open to transcendence, and it makes us tend to this even in the midst of the difficulties of life, for it understands that \u201call the best of here, compared with those eternal goods for which we are created, is ugly and bitter.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn8\" name=\"_ftnref8\">[8]<\/a><\/li>\n<li><em>Serious<\/em> because it gives primacy to the life of prayer, because we know that \u201cwe do not work for ephemeral or fleeting things, but \u2018for the most divine work among the divine ones,\u2019 which is the eternal salvation of souls,\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn9\" name=\"_ftnref9\">[9]<\/a> and prayer becomes for us the soul of our religious and apostolic life.<\/li>\n<li><em>Serious<\/em> because it is markedly Eucharistic.<\/li>\n<li><em>Serious<\/em> because we wish to immolate ourselves through the practice of the vows of obedience, poverty, chastity, and maternal Marian slavery, in order to tend to the perfection of charity, imitating the Incarnate Word in his way of life, in order to be a \u201ctangible seal that the Trinity impresses upon history.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn10\" name=\"_ftnref10\">[10]<\/a><\/li>\n<li><em>Serious <\/em>because, by \u201cfollowing the Holy Father in belief and following the saints in practice, we will never err, since, just as the Holy Father cannot err in his teachings about faith and morals, nor did the saints err in their practice of the virtues.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn11\" name=\"_ftnref11\">[11]<\/a><\/li>\n<li><em>Serious<\/em> because \u201cwe want to form priestly souls of priests who are not \u2018tributaries,\u2019<a href=\"#_ftn12\" name=\"_ftnref12\">[12]<\/a> priests who will fully live the Christian and priestly kingship and lordship.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn13\" name=\"_ftnref13\">[13]<\/a><\/li>\n<li><em>Serious <\/em>because \u201cwe want to form virtuous men (that is, \u2018virtuous\u2019 in the sense of <em>vir<\/em> and <em>vis<\/em>: to have the strength of the man) according to the doctrine of the great teachers of spiritual life, especially Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint John of the Cross, Saint Teresa of Jesus, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, Saint Th\u00e9r\u00e8se of the Child Jesus, and according to the examples of all the saints of all times that the Church proposes as models of virtue for us to imitate.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn14\" name=\"_ftnref14\">[14]<\/a><\/li>\n<li><em>Serious<\/em> because we are commanded to be \u201cmasters of prayer\u201d and are urged, as we have just said, to learn from the great masters of the spiritual life, among them, the great Doctor of the Church Saint John of the Cross.<\/li>\n<li><em>Serious <\/em>because it is anchored in the solid doctrine taught throughout the centuries by our Holy Mother Church, which wanted to make of the teachings of Saint John of the Cross one of its most beautiful pages. And although many souls who are friends of sweetness and consolations may not want to read Saint John of the Cross and may fill their heads with soft authors,<a href=\"#_ftn15\" name=\"_ftnref15\">[15]<\/a> we prefer the \u201chard bread\u201d of the radical doctrine of Saint John, because that is what God ordinarily gives to those He wishes to lead on.<a href=\"#_ftn16\" name=\"_ftnref16\">[16]<\/a> For the very One who said to us, \u201cFollow me,\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn17\" name=\"_ftnref17\">[17]<\/a> was the One who associated the staff of the cross with his call.<\/li>\n<li>Ours is a serious spirituality because, from the living and vigorous faith that it seeks to instill in us, it makes us capable of judging everything according to transcendence, and it gives us that providential vision of all of life<a href=\"#_ftn18\" name=\"_ftnref18\">[18]<\/a> with which we value everything according to God and in relation to God. Certainly, this is born from prayer, but it translates into concrete works of religious imperative. Total and complete detachment, effective and affective, from all that is not God, and loss of the fear of \u201cbeing left without anything,\u201d on whatever level, are also elements that characterize us.<\/li>\n<li>Aware that \u201creligious life is a process of continual conversion\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn19\" name=\"_ftnref19\">[19]<\/a> and that we must always grow in our faith, we are encouraged to courageously pass through \u201cthe active and passive purification of the senses and of the spirit.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn20\" name=\"_ftnref20\">[20]<\/a> Indeed, we consider that \u201ca religious who is not willing to go through the second and third conversions, or who does nothing concrete to achieve them, does not actually belong to our spiritual family, though he may be with us in body.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn21\" name=\"_ftnref21\">[21]<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Ours is a serious spirituality because it engraves love for the cross in our souls with fire, which should motivate us to choose it always, with preference to any other means; the cross not only accepted but also positively and directly preferred and embraced.<\/li>\n<li>Ours is a serious spirituality because we consider that \u201cthis is the resounding idea: to sacrifice oneself,\u201d and that only \u201cthis is the way history is directed, yet silently directed and in secret.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn22\" name=\"_ftnref22\">[22]<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Ours is a serious spirituality because it brings us to strive to \u201cembrace the practice of those virtues which are seemingly opposed \u2026 by practicing truthfulness, fidelity, coherence and authenticity of life, against all falsehood, infidelity, pretense and hypocrisy.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn23\" name=\"_ftnref23\">[23]<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Finally, ours is a serious spirituality because it is Marian. And, by consecrating ourselves as slaves of the Virgin, we are following the path that He used, that He keeps using, and that He will use to come to the world.<a href=\"#_ftn24\" name=\"_ftnref24\">[24]<\/a> Therefore, our fundamental code reads: \u201cEverything through Jesus and through Mary; with Jesus and with Mary; in Jesus and in Mary; for Jesus and for Mary.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn25\" name=\"_ftnref25\">[25]<\/a>\u201cGod alone.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn26\" name=\"_ftnref26\">[26]<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> <em>Constitutions<\/em>, 8.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> Cf. Phil. 2:6ff.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> <em>Directory of Spirituality<\/em>, 78.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a> Cf. <em>Constitutions<\/em>, 67.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[5]<\/a> <em>Directory of Spirituality<\/em>, 51, quoting Saint John Paul II, \u201cAddress to the Bishops of Zimbabwe in Ad Limina Visit,\u201d July 2, 1988; OR (8\/21\/1988), Spanish Edition.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref6\" name=\"_ftn6\">[6]<\/a> <em>Directorio de Evangelizaci\u00f3n de la Cultura<\/em>, 57, (our translation) quoting Eph. 4:24.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref7\" name=\"_ftn7\">[7]<\/a> Saint John Paul II, <em>R<\/em><em>edemptoris missio<\/em>, 46, quoted in <em>Constitutions<\/em>, 165.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref8\" name=\"_ftn8\">[8]<\/a> Saint John of the Cross, <em>Carta 12, A una doncella de Narros del Catillo (\u00c1vila), <\/em>February 1589; our translation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref9\" name=\"_ftn9\">[9]<\/a> <em>Directory of Spirituality<\/em>, 321, quoting Pseudo-Dionysius, quoted by Saint Alphonsus Liguori, <em>Selva<\/em>, 9, 1.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref10\" name=\"_ftn10\">[10]<\/a> <em>Constitutions<\/em>, 254 and 257, formulas of religious profession.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref11\" name=\"_ftn11\">[11]<\/a> <em>Constitutions<\/em>, 213.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref12\" name=\"_ftn12\">[12]<\/a> Cf. Nm 18:24; Gn 47:26; Saint John of Avila, <em>Sermons<\/em>, quoted from Saint Vincent Ferrer, <em>Opusculum de fine mundi<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref13\" name=\"_ftn13\">[13]<\/a> <em>Constitutions<\/em>, 214.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref14\" name=\"_ftn14\">[14]<\/a> <em>Constitutions<\/em>, 212.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref15\" name=\"_ftn15\">[15]<\/a> Cf. Fr. C. Buela, IVE, <em>El Arte del Padre<\/em>, pt. III, chap. 14; our translation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref16\" name=\"_ftn16\">[16]<\/a> Saint John of the Cross, <em>The Ascent of Mount Carmel<\/em>, Book III, chap. 28.7, in <em>The Complete Works of Saint John of the Cross<\/em>, vol. 1, trans. and ed. E. Allison Peers (London: Burns Oates &amp; Washbourne Ltd., 1959), 278.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref17\" name=\"_ftn17\">[17]<\/a> Mark 10:21.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref18\" name=\"_ftn18\">[18]<\/a> \u201cNotes from the V General Chapter,\u201d 11.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref19\" name=\"_ftn19\">[19]<\/a> <em>Constitutions<\/em>, 262.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref20\" name=\"_ftn20\">[20]<\/a> <em>Constitutions<\/em>, 10, 40, and <em>Directory of Spirituality<\/em>, 22.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref21\" name=\"_ftn21\">[21]<\/a> <em>Directory of Spirituality<\/em>, 42.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref22\" name=\"_ftn22\">[22]<\/a> <em>Directory of Spirituality<\/em>, 146.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref23\" name=\"_ftn23\">[23]<\/a> <em>Constitutions<\/em>, 13.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref24\" name=\"_ftn24\">[24]<\/a> <em>Directory of Spirituality<\/em>, 83.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref25\" name=\"_ftn25\">[25]<\/a> <em>Directory of Spirituality<\/em>, 325.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"#_ftnref26\" name=\"_ftn26\">[26]<\/a> <em>Constitutions<\/em>, 380.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Serious Spirituality &nbsp; Our spirituality is profoundly marked by all the aspects of the mystery of the Incarnation,[1] to the point that we could say that our spirituality is that of the \u201cAve Maria,\u201d that of the \u201cAngelus\u201d and that of the hymn of kenosis,[2] that of the \u201cMagnificat\u201d and that of the \u201cGloria.\u201d[3] [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2033,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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