Its founder, Father Carlos M. Buela, has wanted it to be so named in honor of the greatest event in history which cannot be superseded by any other: the Incarnation of the Son of God.
Spirituality
In this mystery, the Family of the Incarnate Word centers its spirituality and takes the example in order to fulfill its specific end: to inculturate the Gospel, prolonging the Incarnation in all man, in all of man and in all the manifestations of man.
Men and Women Religious
By means of the profession of the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience the religious members of our family want to imitate and follow more intimately the Incarnate Word in his poverty, chastity and obedience. They also make a fourth vow of Marian slavery, according to the spirit of Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort.
Exclusively Contemplative Members
While the majority of the religious dedicate themselves to apostolic works, imitating Christ who announced the Kingdom of God, some of them live an exclusively contemplative life, be it monastic or hermetic.
East and West
In order to help the Christians of the Eastern churches, who form part of the indivisible patrimony of the Universal Church, we also include an Eastern branch: Byzantine and Coptic rites. In this way we breathe, in the same way as the Church, with two lungs. “One cannot breathe as a Christian, to say it more, as a Catholic, with only one lung; one must have two lungs, that is to say, of the East and of the West.” (John Paul II, OR 08/06/1980)
When our mission in Ukraine opened in 1998, our General Superior recognized the importance of the black habit to conform to the culture, whose liturgy is that of the Greek-Byzantine Rite of the Catholic Church. Religious sisters of this rite traditionally wear black habits. Today in Ukraine and Siberia, our Eastern Rite sisters wear the black habit, which, except for the color, is the same as the blue and grey habit, including the Cross of Matará.
Third Order
The Secular Third Order or lay order of the Family of the Incarnate Word is an association of faithful lay people, whose members, while living in the world, wish to participate in the same spirit so as to seek in the most secure and efficacious way their own Christian perfection in all the wide field of the lay vocation and in order to bring about the sanctification of all men by means of their works of apostolate.
For this reason, they desire to and commit themselves to form with the religious of the Incarnate Word one unique family, united by the same faith, the same ends, the same mission, the same charism, the same nature and the same spirit; constituting themselves thus in the prolongation of the action of the religious in the proper environments of the lay life.