Page 241 - 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 236

236 SUGGESTIONS AS TO WORKS CHAPTER 37
5. VISITATION OF HOSPITALS, INCLUDING
PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITALS
The visitation of a hospital for the poor was the first work
the Legion ever undertook and for a while it did no other. It
teemed with blessings for the infant organisation, and the
Legion desires that this work will ever be attended to by its
praesidia. The following, written in those early days,
exemplifies the spirit which must always characterise it:—
“Then a name was called and a member began her report. It
concerned the visitation of a hospital. It was brief, yet showed
great intimacy with the patients. She admitted with some
confusion that the patients knew the names of all her
brothers and sisters. She is succeeded by her co-visitor.
Evidently work is done in pairs. It occurs to me that apart
from there being apostolic example for this, the practice
prevents procrastina tion in the making of the weekly
visitation.
Report follows report. In some wards there is something
new and there is an extended account, but most reports are
short. Many are amusing, many touching, and all are
beautiful in the obvious realis a tion shown of whom it is that
is visited in the patient. There is evidence of it in every report.
Why, many people would not do for their own flesh and
blood what is here recounted as done, simply and naturally,
for the least elements in our population. The exquis ite care
and tenderness of the visits are supplemented by the per form -
ance of many commissions — the writing of letters, the
looking up of the neglectful friends or relatives, the running
of errands. It is plain that nothing is too disagreeable or too
trifling to look after.
‘One letter from a patient to her visitors was read out at the
meeting. A phrase from it ran: ‘Since you came into my life.’
It rang of the cheap novelette, and all laughed. But later I
thought back to a lonely person in a hospital bed to whom
those words meant a great deal, and the thought filled me
with emotion. I reflected, too, that though said of one, it
could apply to all. Thus wonderful is the power of association
which can bring together many persons into one room and
thence send them out on angelic missions into the lives of
thousands who have dropped out of the recollection of the