Page 356 - 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 351

APPENDIX 6 THE MIRACULOUS MEDAL 351
two Hearts, the one pierced with a circlet of thorns, the other
by a sword, the two surmounted by the cross and the letter M,
recalls the Passion and the Compassion, which earned those
graces which legionaries pray to be privileged to bear to
others in company with Mary.
(c) An astonishing circumstance is that it was at the precise
moment of the centenary of the apparition to St. Catherine
Labouré (which had special reference to France) that His
Eminence Cardinal Verdier, Archbishop of Paris, opened the
audience in which he gave his approbation and blessing to
the Legion.
Thus, one can almost say that the medal has been
assimilated by the Legion, so that the mission of the legionary
includes that of the medal. The legionary is, as it were, a
living Miraculous Medal, a humble instrument of Our Lady’s
graces to the world.
A certain class of Catholics, anxious to show itself
“advanced, intellectual”, is found deriding this medal, as well
as the other medals and the scapulars, as superstition. This
attitude of disrespect for the sacramentals approved by the
Church is a rash one. Likewise, it is against the facts, for there
is no doubt that the use of the medal has been blessed in
dramatic fashions. As legionaries are encouraged to regard
themselves as soldiers, likewise should they look upon the
medal as their special ammunition. To a certainty, Mary will
impart to it a double power in the hands of her legionaries.
By the enrolment ceremony one is made a member of the
Associ ation of the Miraculous Medal without any formal
inscription in a register required. The member is entitled
automatically to all the indulgences attached to the Association.
The feast of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal is celebrated
on 27 November.
“Mary brought into the world apostolicity itself — him who came to
cast fire on earth and willed that it be enkindled. Her role would have
now been incomplete if she had not been in the very centre of the
tongues of fire which the Spirit of her Son sent upon the Apostles to
make them burn with his message even to the consummation of the
world. Pentecost was Mary’s spiritual Bethlehem, her new Epiphany, in
which as Mother standing by the crib of the Mystic Christ, she makes
him known once again to other shepherds and other kings.” (Bishop
Fulton Sheen: The Mystical Body of Christ)