Page 24 - 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 23

CHAPTER 5 THE DEVOTIONAL OUTLOOK OF THE LEGION 23
marvellous unity of mind and purpose and action. This unity
is so precious in the sight of God that he has vested it with an
irresistible power; so that, if for the individual a true devotion
to Mary is a special channel of grace, what shall it bring to an
organisation which is persevering with one mind in prayer
with her (Acts 1:14) who has received all from God, parti ci -
pating in her spirit; and entering fully into the design of God
with regard to the distribution of grace! Shall not such an
organisa tion be filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:4) and shall
there not be “many wonders and signs.” (Acts 2:43)
“The Virgin in the Cenacle, praying in the midst of the apostles
and pouring out her heart for them with intensity unspeakable, calls
down upon the Church that treasure which will abound in it for ever:
the fullness of the Paraclete, the supreme gift of Christ.” (ISE)

6. IF MARY WERE BUT KNOWN!
To the priest struggling almost despairingly in a sea of
religious neglect, the following words of Father Faber — taken
from his preface to St. Louis-Marie de Montfort’s “True
Devotion to Mary” (an abounding source of inspiration to the
Legion) — are commended as a preliminary to his
consideration of the possible value to him of the Legion. The
argument of Father Faber is that Mary is not half enough
known or loved, with sad results for souls:— “Devotion to her
is low and thin and poor. It has no faith in itself. Hence it is
that Jesus is not loved, that heretics are not converted, that
the Church is not exalted; that souls, which might be saints,
wither and dwindle; that the sacraments are not rightly
frequented, or souls enthusiastically evangelised. Jesus is
obscured because Mary is kept in the background. Thousands
of souls perish because Mary is withheld from them. It is the
miserable unworthy shadow which we call our devotion to
the Blessed Virgin, that is the cause of all these wants and
blights, these evils and omissions and declines. Yet, if we are
to believe the revelations of the saints, God is pressing for a
greater, a wider, a stronger, quite another devotion to his
blessed mother . . . Let a man but try it for himself, and his
surprise at the graces it brings with it, and the transformations