Page 302 - 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 297

CHAPTER 39 CARDINAL POINTS OF THE LEGION APOSTOLATE 297
Syria in his pavilion to the ragged robbers crawling out of the
wood, there was never a man who looked into those brown,
burning eyes without being certain that Francis Bernardone
was really interested in him, in his own inner individual life
from the cradle to the grave; that he himself was valued and
taken seriously.”
But can one love to order in this way? Yes, by seeing in all of
those met the person of our Blessed Lord. Love is enkindled at
the very thought. Again, it is most certain that Mary wills that
there be shown to the Mystical Body of her Beloved Son just
such another love as she lavished on his actual body. In this she
will help her legionaries. Where she finds in them the gleam,
the readiness to love, she will fan it to a consuming flame.

19. EVERY DOOR OPENS TO THE HUMBLE AND
RESPECTFUL LEGIONARY
Inexperience is apprehensive of the “First Visit,” but the
legionary, whether new or tried, who has taken to heart the
lesson of the preceding clause, possesses the passport to every
home.
It is insisted that one does not enter by any form of right,
but solely by the courtesy of the occupants. Approach must
be made cap-in-hand, so to speak, one’s whole demeanour
showing the respect with which one would enter the palaces
of the great. A statement of one’s mission, accompanied by a
humble request to be permitted to enter, will usually open
wide the door and bring an invitation to be seated. Then the
legionaries must remember that they are not there to lecture,
or to ask a multitude of questions, but to sow the seeds of that
eventual intimacy which will open the floodgates of
knowledge and influence.
It has been said that the special glory of charity is to
understand others. There is no greater need in this sad world
than such a gift. For “the majority of people seem to suffer
from a sense of neglect. They are unhappy because nobody
takes them in hand, because nobody is ready to accept the
confidences they offer.” (Duhamel)
Initial difficulties must not be taken too seriously. Even
where deliberate rudeness is at work, a meek submission will
turn it to shame and produce its harvest at a later stage.