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Legion HANDBOOK D10944_1 26/02/2014 15:53 Page 325

CHAPTER 40 GO PREACH THE GOSPEL 325
increase in interest and power; and (b) that most potent
element, the mother-influence of Mary, which is attracted in
fulness by the Marian system of the Legion, and is lavished on
souls through the medium of its intensive apostolate. In very
fact, the spreading of the light of faith cannot be
accomplished other than in concert with her. Efforts over
which she does not preside are like the oil without the lamp.
Perhaps it is an insufficient appreciation of this fact that
accounts for the rarity of magnificent conquests for the faith
today. In earlier ages whole peoples were rapidly converted.
St. Cyril of Alexandria did not hesitate to declare at the
Council of Ephesus in 431 that it was by Mary that they were
all won to Christ. Moreover, the great patron of the missions,
St. Francis Xavier, gave it as his own experience that wherever
he omitted to place at the foot of the Saviour’s Cross the
figure of the Divine Mother, those countries revolted against
the gospel which he had brought to them.
If, through the legionary apostolate, this most fruitful action
of Mary can be enabled to exert itself in the mission fields,
why should not those days, referred to by St. Cyril, come once
again on earth, so that whole territories and nations will put
aside their errors and joyfully embrace the Christian faith?
“How foolish the presumption, or how sublime and heavenly the
inspiration, which has now taken possession of those fishermen?
Consider for a moment their enterprise. Never has prince, or empire,
or republic conceived so lofty a plan. Without any apparent chance of
human aid, these Galileans partitioned out the whole world for future
conquest. They formed a determined plan to change the religion
established all over the world, whether false or in part true - whether
Jewish or Gentile. They desired to establish a new worship, a new
sacrifice, a new law, because said they, a certain Man whom men
crucified at Jerusalem so ordained it.” (Bossuet)

8. THE PEREGRINATIO PRO CHRISTO
The ambition to get in touch with every soul must begin
with those near at hand. It must not stop there but should
proceed to symbolic steps far beyond the sphere of normal
life. That purpose is facilitated by the legionary movement
known as the Peregrinatio Pro Christo. This name is adopted
from the missionary epic of the Monks of the West,