Page 282 - 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 277

CHAPTER 39 CARDINAL POINTS OF THE LEGION APOSTOLATE 277
The Son is always found with his Mother. — It was God’s
will that the reign of grace should not be inaugurated without
Mary. It was his pleasure that things should continue in the
self-same way. When he desired to prepare St. John the
Baptist for his mission of going before himself, he sanctified
him by the charitable visit of his Blessed Mother in the
Visitation. On the first Christmas night those who turned her
from their doors turned him away. They did not realise that
with her they refused him whom they awaited. When the
shepherd-representatives of the chosen people found the
Promised of all Nations, they found him with her. If they had
turned away from her, they would not have found him. At
the Epiphany, the Gentile races of the world were received by
our Lord in the persons of the three Kings, but they only
found him because they found her. If they had refused to
approach her, they would not have reached him.
What had been done in secret at Nazareth had to be
confirmed openly in the Temple: Jesus made offering of
himself to the Father, but it was between the arms and by the
hands of his Mother. For that babe belonged to its Mother;
without her the Presentation could not be made.
Proceed, and it is learned from the Fathers that our Lord
did not enter upon his public life without her consent.
Likewise her request at Cana of Galilee was the beginning of
the signs and wonders and mighty deeds by which he proved
his mission.

Man for man: Maid for maid: Tree for tree. — When the
last scene came on Calvary which finished the awful drama of
Redemption, Jesus hung upon the tree of the Cross and Mary
stood beneath it, not merely because she was a fond Mother,
not in any accidental way, but precisely in the same capacity
as she was present at the Incarnation. She was there as the
representative of all mankind, ratifying her offering of her Son
for men’s sake. Our Lord did not offer himself to the Father
without her assent and offering, made on behalf of all her
children; the Cross was to be their Sacrifice and his Sacrifice.
“For as truly as she suffered and almost died with her suffering
Son”—these are the words of Pope Benedict XV —“so truly did
she renounce her maternal rights over that Son for the sake of
our salvation, and immolate him, as far as with her lay, to