Page 40 - 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 39

CHAPTER 6 THE DUTY OF LEGIONARIES TOWARDS MARY 39
Devotion, and the position it has attained in the devotional
life of the Church, would reasonably appear to indicate that it
represents an authentic message from Heaven, and this is
precisely what St. Louis-Marie de Montfort claimed it to be.
He attached to it immense promises, and he asserted most
positively that those promises would be fulfilled if the
conditions which govern them are fulfilled.
And as to the everyday experience: speak to those whose
practice of the Devotion is more than a surface affair, and see
with what complete conviction they speak of what it has
done for them. Ask them if they may not be the victims of
their feelings or imagination. Always they will declare that
there is no question of it; the fruits have been too evident to
admit of their being deceived.
If the sum of the experiences of those who teach, and
understand, and practise the True Devotion is of value, it
seems unquestionable that it deepens the interior life, sealing
it with the special character of unselfishness and purity of
intention. There is a sense of guidance and protection: a
joyful certainty that now one’s life is being employed to the
best advantage. There is a supernatural outlook, a definite
courage, a firmer faith, which make one a mainstay of any
enterprise. There is a tenderness and a wisdom which keep
strength in its proper place. There is, too, the protectress of
them all, a sweet humility. Graces come which one cannot
but realise are out of the common. Frequently, there is a call
to a great work, which is patently beyond one’s merits and
natural capacity. Yet with it come such helps as enable that
glorious but heavy burden to be borne without faltering. In a
word, in exchange for the splendid sacrifice which is made in
the True Devotion by selling oneself into this species of
slavery, there is gained the hundredfold which is promised to
those who despoil themselves for the greater glory of God.
When we serve, we rule; when we give, we have; when we
surrender ourselves we are victors.
Some persons appear to reduce their spiritual life very
simply to a matter of selfish gain or loss. These are
disconcerted by the suggestion that they should abandon their
treasures even to the Mother of our souls. Such as the
following is heard: “If I give everything to Mary, will I not at
the hour of my departure from this life stand empty-handed