Legion of Mary  |  Legion of Mary Handbook

ADDITIONAL GRADES OF MEMBERSHIP


In addition to the ordinary active membership, the Legion recognises two other grades of membership:-

1. THE PRAETORIANS


The Praetorian (The Praetorian Guard was the picked regiment of the Roman army degree is a higher grade of active membership, consisting of those who to the ordinary obligations of membership undertake to add:-
  1. The daily recitation of all the prayers comprised in the tessera of the Legion;
  2. daily Mass and daily Holy Communion. No one should be deterred from undertaking the praetorian degree by fears that he will not succeed in attending Mass or receiving Holy Communion absolutely every day. No one can be certain of such exact regularity as this. Anyone, who does not fail normally more often than once or twice a week, may register with confidence as a praetorian;
  3. the daily recitation of an Office approved by the Church, especially the Divine Office or a substantial part of it, for example Morning and Evening Prayer. A shorter breviary containing these hours with night prayer has been approved for use.
Occasionally comes the suggestion that meditation be substituted for, or made an alternative to, an Office. But this proposal would not accord with the essential idea of praetorian membership, which is that of uniting the legionary to the great official acts of the Mystical Body. The active work of the legionary is a participation in the official apostolate of the Church. Praetorian membership aims at immersing him still deeper in the corporate life of the Church. Obviously it must prescribe Mass and Holy Communion, because these are the central ceremonies of the Church, renewing daily the paramount Christian act.
Next in the Liturgy comes the Office, the corporate utterance of the Church, in which Christ prays. In any Office which is built upon the Psalms we use the prayers inspired by the Holy Spirit and thus get close to that corporate Voice which must be heard by the Father. That is why an Office, and not meditation, is a condition of praetorian membership.
"As grace develops in us, our love must take on new forms," said Archbishop Leen to his legionaries. The reciting of the entire Divine Office, for those in a position to do it, would represent such an expansion of love.
The following is to be understood:-

  1. This is only a degree of membership and not a separate unit of organisation. Thus, separate praesidia of praetorians shall not be set up;
  2. the praetorian degree of membership is to be regarded as no more than a private contract of the individual legionary;
  3. nothing implying the smallest degree of moral compulsion is to be resorted to for the gaining of praetorians. Thus, while legionaries may, and should frequently be recommended to undertake this degree, no names are to be taken or mentioned publicly;
  4. membership is effected by the entry of a name on a special roll;
  5. Spiritual Directors and Presidents shall endeavour to increase their praetorian membership, but shall, as well, keep in touch with existing members so that these may not tire in their chivalrous undertaking.
    If the Spiritual Director were willing to allow his name to be inserted in the praetorian register, it would intensify his legionary membership, and bind him still more strongly to his praesidium. As well, it could not but react favourably upon the growth of the praetorian membership of the praesidium.

The Legion anticipates much from the praetorian degree. It will lead many members on to a life of closer union with God through prayer. It will mean the incorporation in the Legion system of a heart of prayer; in which more and more legionaries will tend to bury themselves. This will inevitably affect the whole spiritual circulation of the Legion and make the Legion grow in the spirit of reliance upon prayer in all its works. In fact it will cause the Legion to realise ever more completely that its chief and true destiny is to spiritualise its members.

"Grow you must; I know it; it is your destiny; it is the necessity of the Catholic name; it is the prerogative of the Apostolic heritage. But a material extension without a corresponding moral manifestation, it is almost awful to anticipate." (Cardinal Newman: Present Position of Catholics)

2. AUXILIARY MEMBERSHIP


This membership is open to priests, religious and the laity. It consists of those who are unable or unwilling to assume the duties of active membership, but who associate themselves with the Legion by undertaking a service of prayer in its name.
Auxiliary membership is subdivided into two degrees:-
  1. the primary, whose members shall be simply styled auxiliaries; and
  2. the higher, whose members shall be more particularly designated Adjutores Legionis or Adjutorians.

There are no age limits in the case of auxiliary membership.
This service need not be offered directly on behalf of the Legion. It will suffice to offer it in honour of Our Blessed Lady. Therefore it is conceivable that the Legion might receive nothing from it, nor does the Legion desire to receive anything which would do more good elsewhere. But as this service is a legionary one, it is probable that it will incline the Queen of the Legion to have regard for the needs of the Legion.
However, it is strongly recommended that this and all other legionary service be offered to Our Lady as an unreserved gift to be administered according to her intentions. This would lift it to a higher level of generosity and thus greatly enhance its worth. This purpose would be kept in view by saying daily some formula of offering such as the following: "Mary Immaculate, Mediatrix of all Graces, I place at your disposal such portion of my prayers, works and sufferings as is permitted to me."
This twofold auxiliary membership is to the Legion what its wings are to a bird. With these wings widely expanded by possession of many auxiliaries, and beating powerfully under the rhythmic drive of their faithful prayer, the Legion can soar into the higher air of supernatural ideal and effort. It flies swiftly wherever it wills, and even the mountains cannot stay its course. But if those wings are folded, the Legion hobbles awkwardly and slowly along the ground, brought to a stop by the slightest obstacle.

THE PRIMARY DEGREE: THE AUXILIARIES


This degree, named the auxiliaries, is the left wing of the Legion's praying army. Its service consists in the daily recitation of the prayers comprised in the tessera, namely: the invocation and prayer of the Holy Spirit; five decades of the rosary and the invocations which follow them; the Catena; and the prayers described as "concluding prayers". These may be divided throughout the day, as convenient.
Persons who are already saying a daily rosary for any intention whatsoever may become auxiliaries without obligation to say an additional rosary.
"He who prays helps all the souls of men. He helps his brethren by the saving and powerful magnetism of a soul that believes, knows,and wills. He supplies what St. Paul demands from us above all things: prayers, supplications, and acts of thanksgiving on behalf of all men. 'Cease not to pray and to make supplication at all times in the Holy Spirit.' (Eph 6:18) And does it not seem that if you cease to watch, to insist, to make efforts, to hold fast, everything will relax, the world will relapse, your brethren will feel in themselves less strength and support ? Yes, surely it is so. Each one of us in a measure bears up the world, and those who cease to work and to watch overburden the rest." (Gratry: Les Sources)

THE HIGHER DEGREE: THE ADJUTORIANS


This is the right wing of the praying Legion. It comprises those who will (a) recite daily all the prayers of the tessera and in addition (b) agree to attend Mass and receive Holy Communion daily, and to recite daily an Office approved by the Church.
See the reference in praetorian membership to the special value of an Office.
Accordingly adjutorian membership is to the ordinary auxiliary membership what the praetorian membership is to the ordinary active membership. The additional duties are the same.
Failure once or twice a week to fulfil the required conditions would not be regarded as a notable failure in the duty of membership.
An Office is not required from religious who are not bound by their Rule to say one.
The effort should be made to lead on the ordinary auxiliary to adjutorian membership, for it offers a veritable way of life. What is said in the section on the praetorians in regard to the uniting of the legionary to the prayer of the Church, and to the special value of an Office, applies likewise to the adjutorians.
Special appeal is addressed to priests and religious to become adjutorians. The Legion earnestly desires union with this consecrated class, which has been specially deputed to lead lives of prayer and close intimacy with God, and which forms in the Church a glorious power-station of spiritual energy. Effectively linked up with that power-station, legionary machinery would pulsate with an irresistible force.
Consideration will show how little this membership would add on to their existing obligations - no more, indeed, than the Catena, the Legion prayer, and some invocations: a matter of some minutes only. But through that bond with the Legion they have it in their power to become the driving force of the Legion.
"Give me," said Archimedes of old, "a lever and a support for it, and I will lift the Earth itself." United to the Legion, the adjutorians will find in it that essential support on which to rest the long lever of their holy prayers, which then become omnipotent to uplift the burdened souls of the entire world and move away its mountainous problems.

"In the Cenacle, where by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit the Church was definitely founded, Mary begins to exercise visibly, in the midst of the apostles and the disciples gathered together, a role which she will continue ever after to exercise in a more secret and intimate manner: that of uniting hearts in prayer and of giving life to souls through the merit of her all-powerful intercession: 'All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women and Mary the Mother of Jesus and with his brethren'. (Acts I, 14)" (Mura: Le Corps Mystique du Christ)

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS AFFECTING BOTH DEGREES OF AUXILIARY MEMBERSHIP


  1. Supplementary Service. The Legion appeals to auxiliaries of both degrees to regard the essential conditions of membership, not as limits of service, but as a minimum which they will chivalrously supplement by many other prayers and acts made specially with this intention.
    It is suggested to priest-adjutores that they should in all their Masses make a special memento, and even occasionally offer the Holy Sacrifice, for Mary's intentions and the Legion. Other auxiliaries might, even at the expense of some sacrifice, find it possible to have a Mass offered occasionally for the same intention.
    However generously the auxiliary may give to the Legion, nevertheless he receives one hundredfold, one thousandfold, one millionfold in return. And how is this? It is because the Legion teaches its auxiliaries - no less than its active members how great is Mary, enlists them in soldierly service for her, and makes them love her properly. All this is something so great that words like "millionfold" do not measure the gain. It raises the spiritual life to a higher plane, and thereby assures a more glorious eternity.
  2. Who can refuse to Mary this sort of gift? For she who is the Queen of the Legion is, as well, Queen of the Universe and of all its departments and concerns, so that to give to her is to give where the need is greatest, where one's prayers will accomplish most.
  3. In administering the store thus placed in her hands, Mary Immaculate will have regard to the requirements of one's ordinary life and duties and to all existing obligations. The question may arise: "I would wish to join, but I have already given everything to Mary with complete abandon, or to the Holy Souls, or to the Missions. Everything is gone. There is nothing left over for the Legion, so of what use am I to its auxiliary ranks?" The Legion answers: It is of great benefit for the Legion to gain so unselfish a person. Your anxiety to help the Legion is in itself an additional prayer, a proof of special purity of intention, an irresistible call upon the limitless generosity of the guardian of the Divine treasury. Certain it is that if you join she will respond, and that the new intention will gain while the old intentions will not lose. For it is the art of this most wonderful Queen and Mother that, though she has availed of our offer and helped others liberally from our spiritual treasures, yet we ourselves have grown strangely richer. Her intervention has meant the doing of an extra work. A marvellous multiplication has taken place: what St. Louis-Marie de Montfort calls a secret of grace and thus describes: "Inasmuch as our good works pass through the hands of Mary, they receive an augmentation of purity and consequently of merit and of satisfactory and impetratory value. On this account they become more capable of solacing the souls in Purgatory and of converting sinners than if they did not pass by the virginal and liberal hands of Mary.
    " Every life has need of the potency of this admirable transaction, where what we have is taken, placed at usury, accomplishes its work, and then returns with increment. This force can be found in the gift to Mary of a faithful auxiliary membership.
  4. Possibly because of the number of souls in stress with which it is in touch, Mary seems to have given to her Legion some little of her own irresistible appeal to the heart. Legionaries will not find it difficult to enlist their friends in this auxiliary service so vital to the Legion, and so valuable to the auxiliaries themselves. Thereby they are associated to Legion membership, with share in all the prayers and works of the Legion.
  5. The discovery, too, has been made that the membership of the Legion's auxiliary or praying ranks has the same power to catch the imagination that active membership possesses. Persons who otherwise would not think of saying the rosary every day, are found to be faithfully carrying out the obligations of auxiliary membership, which demands the daily recitation of all the prayers on the Legion prayer-card, already detailed. Numbers in infirmaries and other institutions, who had lost heart, have gained an interest in life through joining the Legion auxiliaries; while multitudes in villages, and living otherwise in circumstances which tend to make religion a tame thing, if not a matter of routine, have through their auxiliary membership realised that they are of importance to the Church; and have found themselves taking a proprietary interest in the Legion, reading with intense interest any scrap of news about it they chance to see. They feel themselves to be part of its most distant battles for souls. They realise it to be dependent upon their prayers. Accounts from different places of noble and exciting deeds done for souls fill their drab lives with the throb of those far-distant doings. Their existences have become transformed by that most inspiring of ideas, the sense of participation in a crusade. And even the holiest of lives require the stimulation of such an idea.
  6. It should be the object of every praesidium to bring every Catholic in its area into auxiliary membership. Thereby a favourable soil is provided for the working of other aspects of the Legion apostolate. A visitation for this purpose, implying a compliment, will be universally well received and a goodly response may be anticipated.
  7. To the extent that members of other Catholic societies and activities are brought into this auxiliary degree, there is effected a desirable
    integration of all those activities. They are thereby united in prayer, sympathy, idealism, under the auspices of Mary, but without the slightest interference with their own autonomy or characteristics and without alienating their prayers from their own movements. For note that those auxiliary prayers are offered in honour of Our Blessed Lady and not on behalf of the Legion.
  8. A Non-Catholic cannot be an auxiliary member. But in the event (which is of occasional occurrence) where such a person is willing to recite all the Legion prayers daily, he should be supplied with a tessera and encouraged in his generous programme. Special note should be taken of his name so as to keep in touch with him. It is certain that Our Blessed Lady will be attentive to the needs of that soul.
  9. It is the Legion's world-wide adventure and battle for souls, rather than the local needs, which are to be represented to the auxiliaries as the object of their service of prayer. The conception should be placed before their minds that though they are not in the fighting ranks, nevertheless they play an essential part, comparable to that of the munition workers and the supply services, without which the fighting forces are powerless.
  10. Persons should not be lightly accepted as auxiliaries. In advance they should be made fully acquainted with the obligations, and there should be reasonable assurance that they will be true to them.
  11. With a view to intensifying the interest of the auxiliaries in the service undertaken by them, and thus
    1. in the present, improving its quality and ensuring its perseverance; and
    2. (2) in the future, leading them on to adjutorian and active membership; they should be given an insight into the work of the Legion.
  12. The keeping in touch with the auxiliaries for the purpose of preserving their membership and interest will be necessary, and will provide admirable work for certain of the legionaries whose ideal should be the leading on still further of their charges.
  13. Every auxiliary should be made aware of the great benefits attaching to membership of the Confraternity of the Most Holy Rosary. As the auxiliary is already saying more than the amount of prayer required by the Confraternity, the only additional obligation entailed by joining the latter is the registration of name.
  14. Likewise, in the interest of the full development of the auxiliary soldiers of Mary, the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin - or entire consecration of one's life to Mary - should at least be explained to them. Many of them might be glad to undertake this fuller service of her which entails the giving of their spiritual treasures to her whom God has already appointed his own Treasurer. Where is the room for misgiving, because Mary's intentions are the interests of the Sacred Heart. They take in every need of the Church. They cover the whole apostolate. They extend the whole world over. They descend also to the Holy Souls biding their time in the abode of Purgatory. Zeal for Mary's intentions is comprehensive care for the needs of our Lord's Body. For she is no less the solicitous Mother now than she was in the days of Nazareth. Conformed to her intentions, one goes straight to the goal, which is God's Will. But making one's own approach, what a tortuous route results: will it ever bring one to the journey's end?
    Lest some might be inclined to think that this devotion can be practised only by persons of advanced spirituality, it is important to record that it was to souls just emerging from the bondage of sin, and to whose darkened memory it was necessary to recall the elementary truths of the Catechism, that St. Louis-Marie de Montfort spoke of the rosary, of devotion to Mary, and of the Holy Slavery of Love.
  15. It is desirable and in fact essential to set up amongst the auxiliaries some loose form of organisation comprising meetings or rallies of its own. Such a network in the community would tend to permeate it with the apostolic and prayerful ideals of the Legion, so that soon all may be found putting those ideals into revolutionary practice.
  16. A Confraternity based on auxiliary membership would be nothing less than any other Confraternity. But in addition, it would be the Legion, with all the Legion's warmth and colour. The periodic meetings of such a Confraternity would keep its members in touch with the spirit and needs of the Legion and make them more ardent in its service.
  17. It should be the aim to bring every auxiliary into the Patricians, for the two supplement each other ideally. The Patrician meeting will fulfil the purpose of the periodic reunion recommended for the auxiliaries. It will keep them in touch with the Legion and develop them in important ways. Then on the other hand, if the Patricians are recruited into auxiliary membership, it would represent for them another step upwards and onwards.
  18. Auxiliaries must not be employed on ordinary active Legion work. Proposals to utilise them in this way are at first sight attractive. It seems a good thing to lead on the auxiliaries. But examination will show that what is really at stake is the doing of legionary work without the Legion meeting, in other words the setting aside of the vital condition of active membership.
  19. Where deemed desirable or possible, auxiliaries may participate in the Acies, which in such circumstances forms an admirable function for them and brings them into intimate touch with the active legionaries. Auxiliaries who are prepared to make the individual Act of Consecration, should make it after the active legionaries.
  20. The invocation to be inserted on the tessera for auxiliary members shall be, "Mary Immaculate, Mediatrix of all Graces, pray for us."
  21. The Legion's call to the active member to be "ever on duty for souls" is addressed likewise to the auxiliary. Just as much as the active member, the auxiliary must strain every nerve to bring others into legionary service. By this addition of link to link the Catena Legionis can be made into a golden network of prayer enveloping the whole world.
  22. It is frequently suggested that the prayers of the auxiliary service should be reduced or changed to meet the case of blind or illiterate persons or of children. Apart from the fact that an obligation is inclined to lose its binding force according as it becomes less definite, the impossibility of administering such a concession should be manifest. It could not and would not long be withheld from the less illiterate, the partly blind, or the very busy. In time, the relaxation would become the ordinary practice.
    No! The Legion must insist upon the performance of the standard service. If this is beyond the powers of certain persons, they cannot be auxiliaries. But they can give invaluable help by praying for the Legion in their own way, and they should be encouraged thereto.
  23. It is allowable to require the auxiliary to defray the cost of the tessera and of a certificate of membership. But otherwise no subscription shall be payable in respect of auxiliary membership.
  24. A roll of its auxiliary members, containing names and addresses, and subdivided as to adjutorians and ordinary auxiliaries, shall be kept by each praesidium and shall be submitted periodically to the Curia or to its authorised visitors. This roll shall be examined carefully with a view to seeing that it is being properly kept, that new members are being zealously sought for, and that existing members are being visited occasionally to secure that having put their hand to the plough, they may not turn back. (cf. Lk 9:62)
  25. Membership of the auxiliary degree is effected by the entry of name upon the auxiliary roll of any praesidium. This roll shall be in the care of the Vice-President.
  26. Names of candidates for the auxiliary degree shall be placed on a provisional list until three months' probation has been served. Then the praesidium must satisfy itself that the obligations of membership have been faithfully discharged before placing the candidate's name on the auxiliary roll.

"What recompense will our good Jesus give us for the heroic and disinterested action of making a surrender to him, by the hands of his holy Mother, of all the value of our good works? If he gives a hundredfold, even in this world, to those who for his love quit outward and temporal and perishable goods, what will that hundredfold be which he will give to the man who sacrifices for him even his inward and spiritual goods?" (St. Louis-Marie de Montfort)