Page 365 - 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 360

360 A MARIAN SYNTHESIS APPENDIX 11
so was it required that you be included in our worship. We
must appreciate what you have done, and through our faith,
our love, our service, attempt an adequate acknowledgement.
Having thus declared the vast extent and sweetness of our
debt to you, what more is there to say but to repeat with all
our hearts: “We are all yours, our Queen, our Mother, and all
that we have is yours”.
“This is the first time that an Ecumenical Council has presented so
vast a unification of the Catholic doctrine on the place which Mary
most holy occupies in the Mystery of Christ and the Church. But
such is in conformity with the purpose, which the Council had
proposed to itself, of manifesting the face of Holy Church. For Mary is
joined to the Church in the very closest way. As has been
magnificently declared: ‘She is its grandest part, its best part, its
special part, its choicest part.’ (Rupert de Apoc.)
In truth the reality of the Church does not consist solely in its
hierarchical structure, its liturgy, its sacraments, its judicial
pronounce ments. Its deeper essence, the primary source of its
efficacious power to sanctify, are to be sought in its mystical union
with Christ. This union cannot be regarded as something apart from
her who is the Mother of the Word Incarnate, and whom Jesus Christ
willed to unite so intimately to himself for the accomplishing of our
salvation. This explains why it is that into that survey of the Church
must properly be inserted the loving contemplation of the wonders
which God has wrought in his holy Mother. The knowledge of the
correct Catholic doctrine on Mary will always constitute a key to the
exact comprehension of the Mystery of Christ and the Church.
And so it is that we proclaim the most holy Mary to be the Mother
of the Church, that is to say of all the people of God, of the faithful
and their pastors.” (Pope Paul VI: Discourse during Vatican Council II)

[This quotation does not form part of the Synthesis.]