Page 14 - 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 13

CHAPTER 4 LEGIONARY SERVICE 13
Mary, her Legion essays any and every work and “complains
not of impossibility, because it conceives that it may and can
do all things.’’ (Imitation of Christ, Book 3:5)
“Perfect model of this apostolic spiritual life is the Blessed Virgin
Mary, Queen of Apostles. While on earth her life was like that of any
other, filled with labours and the cares of the home; always, however,
she remained intimately united to her Son and cooperated in an
entirely unique way in the Saviour’s work . . . Everyone should have a
genuine devotion to her and entrust his life to her motherly care.”
(AA 4)

4

LEGIONARY SERVICE

1. Must “put on the whole armour of God”. (Eph 6:11)
The Roman Legion, from which the Legion takes its name,
has come down through the centuries illustrious for loyalty,
courage, discipline, endurance, and success, and this for ends
that were often base and never more than worldly. (see
appendix 4, The Roman Legion) Manifestly, Mary’s Legion
cannot offer to her the name (like a setting stripped of the
jewels which adorned it) accompanied by qualities less
notable, so that in these qualities is indicated the very mini -
mum of legionary service. St. Clement, who was converted by
St. Peter and was a fellow-worker of St. Paul, proposes the
Roman army as a model to be imitated by the Church.
“Who are the enemy? They are the wicked who resist the will of
God. Therefore, let us throw ourselves determinedly into the warfare
of Christ and submit ourselves to his glorious commands. Let us
scrutinise those who serve in the Roman Legion under the military
authorities, and note their discipline, their readiness, their obedience
in executing orders. Not all are prefects or tribunes or centurions or
commanders of fifty or in the minor grades of authority. But each
man in his own rank carries out the commands of the emperor and of
his superior officers. The great cannot exist without the small; nor the
small without the great. A certain organic unity binds all parts, so that
each helps and is helped by all. Let us take the analogy of our body.
The head is nothing without the feet; likewise the feet are nothing