Page 202 - 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 197

CHAPTER 33 BASIC DUTIES OF LEGIONARIES 197
regenerating John the Baptist and in the same moment ennobling
Elizabeth.
But if those first words have worked such great things, what is to
be thought of the days, the weeks, the months which followed? Mary
is giving all the time . . . And Elizabeth receives — and why not say it
boldly out — receives without jealousy. That Elizabeth, in whom God
has likewise effected a miraculous maternity, bows before her young
cousin without the slightest secret bitterness at not having been
herself the one chosen by the Lord. Elizabeth was not jealous of
Mary; and later on, Mary will be incapable of feeling jealous of the
love her Son will give to his apostles. Nor will John the Baptist have a
jealousy of Jesus, when his own disciples leave him for Jesus. Without
a trace of bitterness, he will see them go from him, his only comment
being: ‘He that cometh from above, is above all . . . He must increase
but I must decrease’.” (Jn 3:30-31) (Perroy: L’Humble Vierge Marie)

8. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN CO-VISITORS
Legionaries owe an especial duty to their co-visitors. Here is
the mystic number “two” — the symbol of charity upon
which all fruit fulness depends: The Lord “sent them on ahead
of him, two by two”. (Lk 10:1) But “two” must not signify
merely two persons who happen to be work ing together but a
unity such as that of David and Jonathan, whose souls were
knit one with the other. Each loved the other as his own soul.
(1 Sam 18:1)
“(They) shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their
sheaves.” (Ps 126:6)
It will be in small details that the union of co-visitor with
co-visitor will be shown and developed. Broken promises,
missed appointments, unpunctuality, failures in charity of
thought or word, little discourtesies, airs of superiority: these
dig a trench between the two. In such circumstances no unity
is possible.

“Next to religious discipline, the most precious guarantee of
blessings and of fruitfulness for a religious society is found in
fraternal charity, in harmonious union. We must love all our
brothers, without exception, as the privileged and chosen sons of
Mary. What we do to each of them, Mary regards as done to herself,
or rather as done to her Son Jesus — all our members being called by
their vocation to become, with Jesus and in Jesus, the very sons of
Mary.” (Petit Traite de Marialogie: Marianiste)