The Idente Missionaries aspire evangelical holiness through spiritual direction in common or the ascetical and mystical examination.

Holiness or perfection is based both on the imperative precept given by Christ: “Be therefore perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48), as in the indicative precept: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have … then come and follow me” (Mt 19:21). The second mandate expresses the way of living this perfection with the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience in the form of perfectio caritatis (perfection of charity).

The missionaries therefore aspire to live the perfection of poverty, chastity and obedience. In this way, they fully imitate Jesus Christ, and by renouncing the spirit of this world, they receive the riches, the fruitfulness and the freedom that Christ promises to those who follow him: “I tell you the truth, whoever leaves house, or brothers or sisters, or mother or father, or children or lands, for me and for the Gospel, will receive, at this time, a hundred times more – houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions – and in the coming age eternal life” (Mk 10:29f).

The missionaries enter common life as an authentic family gathered in the name of Christ under the same promise: “Where two or more are gathered together in my name, I am in their midst” (Mt 18:20). Its model is the Holy Family with its characteristic lifestyle: the state of perfection and deep and endearing love. The Institute also has associate members that do not live in common life.

The ascetical and mystical examination consists in common spiritual direction based on the words of Christ: “Where two or more are gathered together in my name I am in their midst” (Mt 18:20) in order to live the mandate of the holiness: “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). It is realized in homogeneous communities, carried out collegially, in order that all its members progress in the form of sanctity that can only be achieved with a loving obedience to the divine will, represented in the direction of the rector of the ascetical-mystical community. This weekly examination will help them to live the Gospel, the Eucharist and continuous prayer, in order to live holiness in common, to undertake apostolic activity, work and study.

This evangelical sanctity has as its center the heavenly Father, imitating the filial consciousness of Jesus Christ, as taught by Fernando Rielo: “What is holiness? It is filial consciousness; it is nothing else. It is to be able to reach the end of life, and the first word pronounced like the last, and the last word the same as the first, is: ‘Father!’ and He: ‘Son!’ This is where the center of all wisdom, all hope, all faith, all piety, all authenticity resides. The word Father will preserve us from all deception.”

(Fernando Rielo, In the Heart of the Father, BAC, Madrid, 2014, p .35).