Page 124 - 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 122

122 THE MEETING AND THE MEMBER CHAPTER 19
intentions. As many applications for such prayers are made, it
becomes necessary to define the position:—(a) If it is a
question of offering the ordinary Legion prayers of the
meeting for a special intention, the ruling is that those
prayers should be offered for the intentions of Our Blessed
Lady, the Queen of the Legion, and not for any other
intention. (b) If it is a question of supplementing the Legion
prayers by some other prayers for special intentions, the
ruling is that the existing prayers are already long enough,
and should not ordinarily be added to. It is recognised,
however, that from time to time items of exceptional
legionary concern may call for special prayer; and in that case,
some short prayer may be added to the ordinary prayers of the
meeting. It is emphasised that such additions must be of rare
occurrence. (c) It would, of course, be allowable to
recommend special intentions to the members for inclusion
in their private devotions.
17. Does the report offend against humility? Members
have been known to justify a valueless report by saying that
they felt it to be contrary to humility to parade the good
which they were doing. But there is such a thing as a pride
which imitates humility, and the poets have termed it the
devil’s favourite sin. Those members, therefore, should beware
lest in that thought of theirs may lie the subtle workings not
of humility but of pride itself, and not a little of a desire to
exempt their actions from minute control by the praesidium.
For surely, true humility would not urge them to set a false
headline, which if imitated by the other members would ruin
the praesidium? No, to a certainty, Christian simplicity would
impel members to avoid singularity, to submit themselves
sweetly to the rules and observances of their organisation,
and to play fully their individual but none the less essential
parts in the building up of the meeting, of which each report
forms, as has been said, a brick.
18. Harmony the expression of unity. Harmony, being
the outward manifestation of the spirit of love in the meeting,
must reign supreme; and efficiency, in the Legion sense of the
word, never excludes the idea of harmony. Good
accomplished at the expense of harmony is a doubtful gain;
while those failings which are in their essence opposed to it