St. James Parish is run by priests from the Institute of the Incarnate Word. The Institute of the Incarnate Word, often referred to as “the IVE” (from the Spanish “Instituto del Verbo Encarnado”) is a Catholic men’s religious congregation founded in Argentina on March 25, 1984 by Fr. Carlos Miguel Buela.

We bear the name “of the Incarnate Word” in recognition of the central mystery of our Faith, and indeed, the axis around which man’s entire existence must be understood—the Incarnation of the Son of God. Our charism is broad-based—we seek to “inculturate” the Gospel—to evangelize all cultures in order to bring Christ to the entirety of man and to all of mankind.

We are, therefore, a missionary order, and we seek to cultivate an authentic and fervent missionary spirit whether we are working in the United States or Sudan or Pakistan, trying always to use those elements of culture which are noble and are in keeping with the spirit of the Gospel, and to reject those which are detrimental to the Catholic faith, and therefore, to the good of man. Thus we work in many different apostolates—as parish priests, running orphanages, teaching in seminaries and in various intellectual apostolates, seeking always to sow the Faith in absolute fidelity to the Church and Her magisterial teaching, and avoiding the false lures of relativism, synchretism, materialism, and the like. In all of these apostolates—and in everything that we do—we want to live out the virtues of emptying oneself–kenosis: humility, justice, sacrifice, poverty, long-suffering, obedience, merciful love—simply put, to “take up the cross” in imitation of Christ.

At its foundation, our mission has a two-fold characterization. On one hand, we seek the glory of God and the salvation of souls—our own and others—especially by practicing those virtues that make us participate more in the humbling of Christ himself. On the other hand, we commit all our strength to inculturate the Gospel, that is to say, to extend the Incarnation “to all men, in the whole man, and in all of the manifestations of man,” in accordance with the teachings of the Magisterium of the Church.

In order to effect this, we want to be rooted in Jesus Christ who has come in the flesh, and only in Christ, and always in Christ, and Christ in everything, and Christ in all, and all of Christ, because the Rock is Christ, “and no other foundation can any one lay.” We want both to love and serve Jesus Christ; his Body (both His physical body in the Eucharist and His mystical body in the Church) as well as His Spirit, and to bring others to love and serve Him with us. We want to love and serve the Spirit of Christ because the Spirit is the soul of the Church, and because anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him (Rom 8:9).