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Legion HANDBOOK D10944_1 26/02/2014 15:53 Page 129

CHAPTER 21 THE MYSTICAL HOME OF NAZARETH 129
relation that they had to him; which permits us to look on the
praesidium as a projection of the Home of Nazareth, and this
not as a mere devotional exercise but as something based on
reality. “We are obliged,” says Bérulle, “to treat the things and
mysteries of Jesus not as things past and dead, but as things
living and present and even eternal.” Likewise we may piously
identify the premises and equipment of the praesidium with
the fabric and the furniture of the Holy House, and we may
regard the behaviour of the legionaries towards those adjuncts
of the praesidium as a test of their appreciation of the truth
that Christ lives in us and works through us, necessarily avail -
ing of the things that we are utilising.
This thought provides a sweet and compelling motive for a
be stow ing of a careful attention upon the things that
surround the praesidium and form its home.
Legionaries may have limited control over the room in
which they meet, but other accessories of the meeting are
more fully in their charge, such as the table, chairs, altar,
books. How are the legion aries enabling the mother of the
praesidium Home of Nazareth to reproduce in it the devoted
housekeeping which she started long ago in Galilee? Their aid
is necessary to her. They can deny it to her or they can give it
negligently — thus perverting her work for the Mystical
Christ. Faced with this idea, let legionaries try to imagine how
Mary kept her home.
Poor it was, and its furniture far from elaborate. Yet it must
have been most beautiful. For among the wives and mothers
of all time, this one was unique, gifted with exquisite taste
and refinement which could not but show themselves in
every item of her home. Each simple detail must somehow
have possessed a loveliness, each common thing a charm. For
she loved — as only she could love — all those things because
of him who made them and who now made human use of
them. She cared them and cleaned them and polished them
and tried to make them nice, for they had to be quite perfect
in their way. We may be certain that there was not one jarring
note in all that domicile. There could not possibly be. For that
little house was like no other. It was the cradle for the
redemption, the frame for the Lord of the world. Everything
in it served strangely to mould him who had made all things.
Therefore, everything had to be fit to serve that sublime