Our Purpose
The evangelization of culture to extend the Incarnation of the Word
COMMON , PROPER, AND SPECIFIC END
Like all institutes of consecrated life, religious as well as secular,1 we have a universal and common end – often called vocation – by which we want to follow Christ more closely under the action of the Holy Spirit. We want to dedicate ourselves totally to God as our supreme Love, so that, dedicated by a new and special title to his glory, for the edification of the Church and for the salvation of the world, we may achieve the perfection of charity. Through this charity, to which we are led by the profession of the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience, we want to be united in a special way to the Church and her mystery.2
Likewise, we tend to the proper end of all institutes of religious life, which is the total consecration of our person, manifesting the admirable betrothal established by God in the Church, the sign of heavenly life. In this way we will accomplish the full offering of ourselves as a sacrifice acceptable to God by which our entire existence becomes continuous worship to Him in charity.
This consecration is manifested by forming a Religious Family, professing vows publicly, and living a fraternal life in common3. The public testimony we must give includes detachment from the world4. To live according to the Holy Spirit, we must separate ourselves from the spirit of the world: … the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him (Jn 14:17).
NATURE AND PURPOSE OF THE INSTITUTE
Finally, as our specific and singular end, we want to dedicate ourselves to evangelization of the culture – to work, “through the power of the Gospel, to transform:
- mankind’s criteria of judgment
- determining values
- points of interest
- lines of thought
- sources of inspiration
- models of life
We want to do this so that the “very power of the Gospel should permeate:
- thought patterns
- standards of judgment
- and norms of behavior
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.”7 In large part, this is because the world “in recent times has come to the point of separating and detaching itself from the Christian foundations of its culture,”8 leading to the deChristianization of the culture.
Our Universal and Specific Purposes
Universal Purpose Our objective is twofold. First, we seek the glory of God and the salvation of our own souls, and those of our brethren. We do this especially by practicing those virtues that allow us to share more fully in Christ’s emptying of Himself9.
Specific Purpose Secondly, we specifically pledge all our strength to inculturate the Gospel, that is, to extend the Incarnation “to all men, in the whole man, and in all of the manifestations of man,”10 in accordance with the teachings of the Magisterium of the Church11. In this respect, His Holiness Blessed 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”.
