Page 246 - 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 241

CHAPTER 37 SUGGESTIONS AS TO WORKS 241
determinedly persevered with in spite of rebuffs, utter
ingratitude, and apparent failure. Of these a considerable
proportion will form a life-long task.
Obviously such a work, carried on according to such ideas,
calls for heroic qualities and a purely supernatural vision. The
compensa tion for toil so great will lie in the seeing of the
objects of that toil eventually die in the friendship of God.
Then what joy to have co operated with

“Him who from the mire, in patient length of days,
Elaborated into life a people to His praise!”
(Bl. John Henry Newman: Dream of Gerontius.)
This particular activity has been considered at length
because it really concerns the whole spirit of the Legion. In
addition, it holds, amongst services done to the Church, a key
position. For it constitutes a special assertion of the Catholic
principle that even the lowest of human beings hold in
relation to us a position which is independent of their value
or agreeableness to us: that in them Christ is to be seen,
reverenced, loved.
The proof of the reality of this love is that it be manifested
in circumstances which test it. That vital test consists in
loving those whom mere human nature bids one not to love.
Here is the acid-test of the true and the false love for
humanity. It is a pivot of faith, a crucial-point of Christianity,
for without the Catholic ideal this sort of love simply cannot
exist. The very notion would be fantastic, if divorced from the
root which gives it meaning and life. If humanity for its own
sake is to be the gospel, then everything must be judged from
the angle of its apparent utility to humanity. Something
which would admittedly be valueless to humanity must
logically, under such systems, be viewed just as sin would be
viewed in the Christian dispensation, that is, as something to
be eliminated at any cost.
Those who give self-sacrificing demonstrations of true
Christian love in its highest forms, do a supreme service to the
Church.
“It is hard, you say, to put up with the evil-doer. But just for that
very reason you should devote yourself lovingly to him. Your set
purpose must be to wean him from his sinful ways and to lead him
on to virtue. But you retort that he does not mind what you say. nor