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Legion HANDBOOK D10944_1 26/02/2014 15:53 Page 200

200 BASIC DUTIES OF LEGIONARIES CHAPTER 33
inner body of doctrine which only the few can grasp”
(Archbishop John Charles McQuaid). This has been proved by
the fact that countless legionaries, ordinary and even simple
people, have completely grasped those ideas and have made
them food and fibre for their lives. Neither are those ideas
unnecessary. Actually, they must be reasonably
comprehended if the apostolate is to be properly fulfilled, for
they are only the common principles, that is to say, the very
life, of apostleship. Without a sufficient understanding of
those principles, the apostolate would be deprived of its true
meaning — its spiritual roots, and would not have the right to
be called Christian at all. The difference between the
Christian apostolate and a vague campaign of “doing good” is
as the distance between heaven and earth.
Therefore, the apostolic ideas of the handbook must be
absorbed, and the praesidium must play the part of teacher.
This process will be accomplished through the spiritual
reading, through the Allocutio, and by stimulating the
legionaries in a systematic reading and study of the
handbook. Knowledge must not remain theoretical. Each item
of the active work must be linked to its appropriate doctrine
and thus given spiritual significance.
Once when asked how to become learned, St. Thomas
Aquinas replied: “Read one book. Whatever you read or hear,
take care to understand it well. Attain certainty in what is
doubtful.” The master of learning was not here pointing to
one particular great book, but had in mind any worthy book
which aimed at the imparting of knowledge. Therefore
legionaries can take his words as an incentive to an
exhaustive study of the handbook.
In addition, it has a catechism value. It affords a simple,
com prehensive presentation of the Catholic religion,
conformed to the legislation of the Second Vatican Council.
“Although he held knowledge to be the result of interior
illumination, St. Bonaventure, nevertheless, was well aware of the
labour which study entails. And so, quoting St. Gregory, he put
forward as an illustration of study the miracle at the marriage at Cana
of Galilee. Christ did not create the wine out of nothing, but bade the
servants first fill their pitchers with water. In the same manner the
Holy Spirit does not grant spiritual intelligence and understanding to
a man who does not fill his pitcher — that is his mind — with water
— that is with matter learnt from study. There can be no illumination