THE EXTERNAL AIMS OF THE LEGION
The Legion aims not at the doing of
any particular work, but has as a primary object the making of its
members holy. For the attainment of this it relies, in the first place,
upon its members' attendance at its various meetings, into which prayer
and devotion are so wound and woven as to give their complexion to all
the proceedings. But then the Legion seeks to develop that holiness in
a specific way, to give it the character of apostleship, to heat it
white hot so that it must diffuse itself. This diffusion is not simply
a utilisation of developed force, but (by a sort of reaction) is a
necessary part of the development of that force. For the apostolic
spirit is best developed by the apostolate. Therefore the Legion also
imposes on each member, as an essential obligation, the weekly
performance of some active work prescribed by the praesidium. The work
proceeds from the meeting as an act of obedience to it, and, subject to
the exceptions later indicated, the praesidium can approve of any
active work as satisfying the member's weekly obligation. In practice,
however, the Legion outlook would require the directing of the
work-obligation towards actual needs, and among the latter, towards the
gravest. For that intensity of zeal which the Legion strives to
generate in its members requires a worthy objective. Trivial work will
react unfavourably upon it, so that hearts that were ready to spend
themselves for souls, and to return love for the Christ-Love, and
effort and sacrifice for his labours and death, end by settling down to
pettiness and lukewarmness.
2. THE
REMOTER
AND GREATER AIM - THE LEAVEN IN THE COMMUNITY
Important, however, as may be the
work in hand, the Legion does not regard it as the ultimate or even as
the chief object of its members' apostolate. Such work may employ two,
three, or many hours of the legionary's week, whereas the Legion looks
beyond this to every hour of that week as radiant from the apostolic
fire which has been kindled at its hearth. The system that imparts this
quality of fire to souls has put abroad a mighty force. The apostolic
spirit enters in only as master, dominates every thought, word, and
action; and in its external manifestations is not confined to set times
and places. The most diffident and otherwise least equipped person
becomes invested with a peculiar capacity to influence others, so that
whatever the surroundings, and even without the pursuing of a conscious
apostolate, sin and indifference will end by bowing to a power greater
than themselves. Universal experience teaches this. Therefore, with the
satisfaction with which a general contemplates important posts
adequately held, does the Legion think of each home, shop, factory,
school, office, and every other place devoted to purposes of work or
recreation, in which a true legionary may be set by circumstances. Even
where scandal and irreligion are at their worst, entrenched so to
speak, the presence of this other Tower of David will bar the way to
further advance and menace the evil. The corruption will never be
acquiesced in; efforts at remedy will be essayed; it will be a subject
of sorrow, of prayer; will be contended against determinedly,
unremittingly, and probably successfully in the end.
Thus the Legion begins by bringing
its members together to persevere with one mind in prayer with their
Queen. Then it sends them into the sinful and sorrowful places, there
to do a good work, and by catching fire in the doing to do a greater.
Finally it looks out over the highways and byways of the everyday life
as the object of a still more glorious mission. Knowing what has been
done by limited numbers, reflecting that the potential material for its
ranks is almost beyond number, believing that its system, if vigorously
utilised by the Church, affords a strangely efficacious way of
purifying a sinful world, the Legion yearns exceedingly for the
multiplication of its members, that it may be legion in number as in
name.
Between those working actively,
those giving auxiliary service and those being worked for, the whole
population can be embraced, and raised from the level of neglect or
routine to that of enthusiastic membership of the Church. Consider what
this can mean to village or town; no longer merely in the Church, but a
driving force in it, sending directly or through the Communion of
Saints its impulses to the ends of the earth, and into the dark places
thereof. What an ideal - a whole population organised for God! And yet
this is no mere ideal. It is the most practical and possible thing in
the world to-day - if eyes are but uplifted and arms unfolded.
This seeking "first for the kingdom
of God and His righteousness" (Mt 6:33), that is, its direct labours
for souls, absorbs the Legion altogether. Nevertheless, it must not be
overlooked that other things have been "added unto it." For instance,
the Legion has a social value. This becomes a national asset to the
individual country, and represents spiritual gain to the souls which it
contains.
The successful working of the social
machine demands, like any other machine, the harmonious co-operation of
its component parts. Each part, that is the individual citizen, must do
exactly what it is intended to do, and with the least possible amount
of friction. If each does not render complete service, then waste
enters in to disturb that necessary balance, to throw all the cogs out
of alignment with each other. Repair is impossible, as it is infinitely
difficult to detect the degree or the origin of the trouble; hence the
remedy which must be adopted is to employ more force or lubricate with
more money. This remedy still further impairs the idea of service or
spontaneous co-operation, so that there is progressive failure.
Communities have such vitality that they continue to function even
though half their parts are misfits. But they work at a terrible price
of poverty, frustration, and unhappiness. Money and effort are poured
out to drive parts which should be moving effortlessly, or which indeed
should be sources of power. Result: problems, turmoil, crises.
Who can deny that this is what
obtains even in the best regulated states to-day? Selfishness is the
rule of the individual life. Hate turns the lives of many into purely
destructive forces, and each new day brings new and universal
demonstration of a vital truth which may effectively be stated thus:
"Men who deny God, who are traitors to God, will be false to every
person and to everything less than God, to all things on earth and in
heaven." (Brian O'Higgins.) The state is only the sum of the individual
lives, so what heights can it be expected to reach ? A danger and a
pain to themselves, what are the nations offering to the world at large
but a bit of their own turmoil ?
But suppose that into the community
there enters a force which spreads like a contagion from one to
another, and which makes the ideas of self-sacrifice, mutual love, and
idealism pleasing to the individual! What a change is effected! The
grievous sores heal up, and life is lived on a different level. Suppose
a nation were to arise which built its life on lofty standards, and
held up to the world the example of a whole people putting its faith
into practice, and hence as a matter of course, solving its problems.
Who can doubt that such a nation would be a shining light to the world,
so that the world would come to sit at its feet for the purpose of
learning.
Now, it is unquestionable that the
Legion possesses the power of making the laity vitally interested in
their religion, and of communicating an ardent idealism to those who
come under its influence, so that they tend to forget their worldly
divisions, distinctions and antagonisms, and are animated with the
desire to labour for and love all mankind. This idealism, being rooted
in religion, is not a mere sentiment. It makes the individual think in
terms of service, it elicits great sacrifices, it reaches heights of
heroism, and it does not evaporate.
Why? The reason lies in the motive.
Power must have a source. The Legion has a compelling motive for that
service of the community. It is that Jesus and Mary were citizens of
Nazareth. They loved that town and their country with a religious
devotion, for to the Jews faith and fatherland were so divinely
intertwined as to be but one. Jesus and Mary lived the common life of
their locality with perfection. Every person and thing there was an
object of deepest interest to them. It would be impossible to conceive
them as indifferent or neglectful in any respect.
It is this spiritualised service of
the community which the Legion has been urging under the title: True
Devotion to the Nation. Not only is that service to be undertaken out
of the spiritual motive but it and all the contacts arising from it
must be used to promote the spiritual. Operations which produced
advance but only on the material plane would falsify the whole idea of
True Devotion to the Nation. Cardinal Newman perfectly expresses that
basic idea when he says that a material advance unaccompanied by a
corresponding moral manifestation is almost too awful to consider. The
correct balance must be preserved.
A booklet on this subject can be
obtained from the Concilium.
Look, peoples of the world! If such
be the Legion, would it not seem as if it offers, ready for use, a
chivalry with magic in it to weld all men together in high enterprise
for God: in service far transcending that legendary warfare of King
Arthur, who - in Tennyson's beautiful verse - "drew the
knight-erranthood of his realm: and all the realms: together in that
Order of his Table Round: a glorious company, the flower of men: to
serve as model for the mighty world: and be the fair beginning of a
time."
4. IN
HIGH
ENTERPRISE FOR GOD
Such a chivalry is needed at this
time of particular peril for religion. Secularism and irreligion, aided
by able propaganda, spread their corrupting influences in constantly
widening circles and seem capable of engulfing the world.
Compared with these formidable
forces, what a modest little flock the Legion is. Yet that very
contrast emboldens one. The Legion is composed of souls who are united
to the Virgin most Powerful. More, it contains within itself great
principles, and it knows how to apply them in effective ways. It may be
that he who is mighty will do great things to it, and through it.
The aims of the Legion of Mary and
of those other legions which deny "our only Master and Lord, Jesus
Christ" (Jude 4) are diametrically opposed. That of the Legion is to
bring God and religion to every soul; the object of the other forces is
to accomplish the very opposite. But it is not to be thought that the
legionary scheme was conceived in deliberate opposition to this empire
of unbelief. Things worked out more simply. A little band gathered
around a statue of Our Lady and said to her: "Lead us". United to her,
they began the visitation of an immense infirmary, filled with the sick
and sorrowful and broken ones of a great city, seeing her Beloved Son
in each of them. They came to understand that so also is he in each
member of humanity and that they should join in Mary's mother-work for
him in each one. So, hand in hand with her, they set about their simple
work of service, and lo, they have grown into a legion; and over the
world that Legion is doing those simple acts of the love of God in man,
and of the love of men for the sake of God; and in every place that
love shows its power to stir and win hearts.
Likewise, the secularistic systems
profess the love and service of man. They preach a hollow gospel of
fraternity. Millions believe that gospel. In its name, they desert a
religion which they think to be inert. And yet the position is not a
hopeless one. There is a way of bringing back to Faith those determined
millions, and of saving countless other millions. That hope lies in the
application of a great principle which rules the world, and which St.
John Vianney, the Cure of Ars, has stated thus: "The world belongs to
him who loves it most, and who proves that love." People cannot help
seeing, and being moved by a real faith which operates through a real
heroic love for all men. Convince them that the Church loves them most,
and they will return to Faith in spite of everything. They will even
lay down their lives for that Faith.
No common love can conquer men thus.
Neither will it be accomplished by a mediocre Catholicism which can
hardly preserve itself. It can be done by a Catholicism which loves
Christ its Lord with all its heart, and then sees him and loves him in
all men of whatsoever description. But this supreme charity of Christ
must be practised on such a scale that they who look on are driven to
admit that it is indeed a characteristic of the Church, and not merely
the acts of sublime members of the Church. Therefore, it must be
exhibited in the lives of the general body of the laity.
But it seems a hopeless thing to
fire the entire household of the Church with this exalted spirit? Yes,
the task is herculean! So unending, indeed, are the perspectives of the
problem, so infinite the hosts which possess the land, that even the
courage of the strongest heart might well fail. But Mary is the heart
of the Legion, and that heart is faith and love unutterable. So
thinking, the Legion looks out over the world, and all at once excited
hope is born: "The world belongs to him who loves it most." Then it
turns to its great Queen, as it did at the beginning: "Lead us!"