Page 206 - 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 201

CHAPTER 33 BASIC DUTIES OF LEGIONARIES 201
without effort. An understanding of eternal truths is the reward of the
labour of study which no man can avoid.” (Gemelli: The Franciscan
Message to the World)

11. TO BE IN A SENSE ALWAYS ON DUTY
As far as prudence will dictate, the legionary must aim at
bring ing the spirit of the Legion to bear on all the affairs of
daily life, and must ever be on the alert for opportunities to
promote the general object of the Legion, that is, to destroy
the empire of sin, uproot its foundations, and plant on its
ruins the standard of Christ the King.
“A man will meet you in the street and ask you for a match.
Talk to him, and in ten minutes he will be asking you for
God.” (Duhamel.) But why not make sure of that life-giving
contact by first asking him for the match?
So commonly as to tend to harden into custom,
Christianity is under stood and practised only in a partial
sense, that is, as an individualistic religion directed
exclusively towards the benefiting of one’s own soul and not
at all concerned with one’s fellow-man. This is the “half-circle
Christianity” so reprobated by Pope Pius XI. Evidently the
Command that we must love God with our whole heart and
with our whole soul and with our whole mind; and our
neighbour as ourself (Mt 22:37-39), has fallen on many ears
that are determined to be deaf.
It would be evidence of this gravely incorrect point of view
to regard the legionary standards as a sort of sanctity, intended
for chosen souls only. For these standards are only elementary
Christian ones. It is not easy to see how one can descend
much below them and at the same time claim to be rendering
to our neighbour the active love which is enjoined by the
Great Precept, and which is part of the very love of God; so
much so, that if it be omitted, the Christian idea is mutilated.
“We must be saved together. We must come to God together.
What would God say to us if some of us came to Him without
the others?” (Péguy)
That love must lavish itself on our fellow-men without
distinction, individually and corporately, not as a mere
emotion but in the form of duty, service, self-sacrifice. The
legionary must be an attractive embodiment of this true