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Legion HANDBOOK D10944_1 26/02/2014 15:53 Page 31

CHAPTER 6 THE DUTY OF LEGIONARIES TOWARDS MARY 31
develop in him energies and sacrifices beyond nature, and
make of him a good soldier of Christ (2 Tim 2:3), fit for the
arduous service to which that profession calls him.
“God delights to work on nothing; from that deep foundation it is
that he raises the creations of his power. We should be full of zeal for
God’s glory, and at the same time convinced of our incapacity to
promote it. Let us sink into the abyss of our worthlessness; let us take
shelter under the deep shade of our lowliness; let us tranquilly wait
until the Almighty shall see fit to render our active exertions
instrumental to his glory. For this purpose he will make use of means
quite opposed to those we might naturally expect. Next to Jesus
Christ no one ever contributed to the glory of God in the same degree
as the Blessed Virgin Mary, and yet the sole object to which her
thoughts deliberately tended was her own annihilation. Her humility
seemed to set up an obstacle to the designs of God. But it was, on the
contrary, that humility precisely which facilitated the
accomplishment of his all-merciful views.” (Grou: Interior of Jesus
and Mary)

3. REAL DEVOTION TO MARY OBLIGES
APOSTLESHIP

Elsewhere in this handbook it has been stressed that we
cannot pick and choose in Christ; that we cannot receive the
Christ of glory without at the same time bringing into our
lives the Christ of pain and persecution; because there is but
the one Christ who cannot be divided. We have to take him
as he is. If we go to him seeking peace and happiness, we may
find that we have nailed ourselves to the cross. The opposites
are mixed up and cannot be separated; no pain, no palm; no
thorn, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown. We
reach out for the one and find that we have got the other
with it.
And, of course, the same law applies to Our Blessed Lady.
Neither can she be divided up into compartments as between
which we may pick and choose what seems to suit us. We
cannot join her in her joys without finding that presently our
hearts are riven with her sufferings.
If we want, like St. John the beloved disciple, to take her to
our own (Jn 19:27), it must be in her completeness. If we are
willing to accept only a phase of her being, we may hardly