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Legion HANDBOOK D10944_1 26/02/2014 15:53 Page 130

130 THE MYSTICAL HOME OF NAZARETH CHAPTER 21
purpose and fit it was by the order, cleanliness, brightness and
indefinable quality which Mary contrived to impart to it.
In its own fashion, everything about the praesidium plays
its part in moulding the member and therefore should reflect
those charac ter istics of the Holy Home, just as the legionaries
themselves should reflect Jesus and Mary.
A French author has written a book entitled “A Journey
Around My Room.” Make such a thoughtful journey around
your praesidium and analyse most critically everything that
strikes the eye and ear; the floor and walls and windows; the
furniture; the components of the altar, in particular the statue
which represents the pivot of the home, its mother. Above all,
observe the demeanour of the members and the method of
conducting the meeting.
If the sum total of what is seen and heard is unattuned to
the Home of Nazareth, then it is not likely that the spirit of
Nazareth abides in that praesidium. But without that spirit
the praesidium is worse than dead.
Sometimes officers, like worthless parents, pervert those
entrus ted to their care. Nearly always the shortcomings of
praesidia can be traced back to the officers. If members are
unpunctual and irregular in their attendance, doing
insufficient work and doing it irregularly, failing in their
attitude at the meeting, it is because that defective behaviour
is being accepted from them, because they are not being
taught any better. They are being warped by the training they
are receiving from their officers.
Contrast all that inadequacy with the Home of Nazareth.
Imagine Our Lady being thus neglectful about details and
order, giving that disfiguring sort of training to her child! Try
— it is difficult, but try — to think of her as slatternly, weak,
unreliable, indifferent; letting the Holy House go to wrack
and ruin, so that it is the contemptuous talk of the
neighbours! Of course the very idea is fantastic. Yet more than
a few Legion officers let things drift thus shamefully in the
prae si di um Home of Nazareth which they profess to be
adminis ter ing as the very embodiments of Our Lady.
But if, on the other hand, all those things by their per -
fection prove the praesidium’s devotion, then we may know
that our Lord is there in that fullness indicated by his words.
The spirit of the Holy Family was not confined by the Holy