Page 232 - 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 227

CHAPTER 36 PRAESIDIA REQUIRING SPECIAL MENTION 227
standard cannot be reached by any child who, after some
instruction, is incapable of saying the full Legion prayers
intelligently.

19. Similarly, propositions are made that a simplified
handbook be provided for the use of juniors. This is discussed
in section 10, chapter 33, Basic Duties of Legionaries.

20. Parents and all others in authority should co-operate
fully with the legionary programme on which so much
depends. Those young people are being fashioned into what
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort calls: “a legion of valiant soldiers
of Jesus and Mary to combat the world, the devil and
corrupted nature in those more than ever perilous days which
are to come.” As simple in its ideas and structure as a pulley
or a lever or other device for multiplying power, the Legion is
able to make vivid the whole circle of Catholic Doctrine and
to turn it into motive-power for every Christian purpose. But
also there is an immediate outpouring of this power. It fills
schooltime, playtime, home, and every other time, with holy,
practical idealism. It gives its members a new vision of things,
which is equivalent to making the world different for them —
a new outlook:
(a) On the Church, once they have realised that they are its
soldiers, with a definite place in its warfare, and with
responsibility for its extension.
(b) On the everyday round and task. As a tiny point of light
illum inates a room, so the little Legion task gives a new
meaning to the whole course of the week. What the members
learn and practise in the praesidium they will live in their
ordinary life.
(c) On their neighbour, in whom they have been taught to
see and serve Christ.
(d) On their home, which they have learned to surround
with the atmosphere of Nazareth.
(e) On helping at home (or in the school if the praesidium
be an internal one) in the spirit of the Legion, that is of Mary
at Nazareth; seeking for work instead of trying to escape it;
choosing the most unpleasant tasks; putting one’s heart into