Page 123 - 聖母軍團員手冊（英文版，2014年5月-2022年1月更新版）

Legion HANDBOOK D10944_1 26/02/2014 15:53 Page 121

CHAPTER 19 THE MEETING AND THE MEMBER 121
principle of punctuality and order must apply to everything
from beginning to end.
If the officers are at fault in the above directions, the
members should protest. Otherwise they are aiding and
abetting.
13. Manner of saying the prayers. Some impetuous souls
find it hard to hold back even in the matter of praying; and
this wrong sort of leadership can draw an entire praesidium
on to a way of saying the prayers which verges on the
disrespectful. In fact, if there is one fault which is more or less
general, it is that the prayers are recited too fast, seeming to
denote a disregard of that injunction which bids legionaries
to pray as if Our Blessed Lady herself, instead of her statue,
were visibly present among them.
14. Prayers to be one with the meeting. From time to
time it has been suggested that the rosary might be recited
before the Blessed Sacrament, the members then proceeding
to their meeting-room. This proposal is not allowable on the
general principle that the unity of the meeting is essential to
the whole Legion system. With the meeting one, all the
business takes a distinctively prayerful character (producing
eminent fruits of heroism and effort), which it would lose
were the bulk of the prayers to be said elsewhere. Such a
change would alter the whole character of the meeting, and
hence of the Legion itself which is built upon the meeting. In
fact, the resulting organisation, however great its merits,
would not be the Legion of Mary at all. Having said this,
presumably it is unnecessary to state that the actual omission
of the rosary or any other part of the prayers is—no matter
what the circumstances may be — still less admissible. What
the breathing is to the human body, the rosary is to the
Legion meetings.
15. Church devotions and meeting. For the foregoing
reason, a praesidium which has said the Legion prayers at
some Church or other function prior to its meeting, is bound
to repeat the full prayers at the praesidium meeting.
16. Special prayers at meeting. It is frequently asked if it is
permissible to offer the prayers of the meeting for special