Page 57 - 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 56

56 THE LEGIONARY AND THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST CHAPTER 9
Let this teach the legionary his sublime vocation in the
Mystical Body. It is to supply what is wanting to the mission
of our Lord. What an inspiring thought for the legionary: that
Christ stands in need of him to bring light and hope to those
in darkness, consolation to those who are afflicted, life to
those who are dead in sin. It goes without saying, that it must
be the legionary’s place and duty to imitate in a quite especial
manner the surpassing love and obedi ence which Christ the
head gave his Mother, and which the Mystical Body must
reproduce.
“As St. Paul assures us that he fills up the sufferings of Christ, so we
may say in truth that a true Christian, who is a member of Jesus
Christ and united with him by grace, continues and carries to
completion, by every action performed in the spirit of Jesus Christ,
the actions which Jesus Christ himself performed during the time of
his peaceful life on earth. So that when a Christian prays, he
continues the prayer of Jesus during his life on earth. When he works,
he makes up what was wanting to the life and conversation of Jesus.
We must be like so many Christs upon earth, continuing his life and
his actions, doing and suffering all in the spirit of Jesus, that is to say
in holy and divine dispositions.” (St. John Eudes: Kingdom of Jesus)

3. SUFFERING IN THE MYSTICAL BODY
The mission of the legionaries brings them into close touch
with humanity, and especially with suffering humanity.
Therefore, they should possess insight into what the world
insists on calling the problem of suffering. There is not one
who does not bear through life a weight of woe. Almost all
rebel against it. They seek to cast it from them, and if this be
impossible, they lie down beneath it. Thus are frustrated the
designs of redemption which require that suffering must have
its place in every fruitful life, just as in weaving the woof must
cross and complement the warp. While seeming to cross and
thwart the course of man’s life, suffering in reality gives that
life its completeness. For, as holy scripture teaches us in every
page, God “has graciously granted you the privilege not only
of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well.” (Phil
1:29) and again: “If we have died with him, we will also live
with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him.” (2 Tim
2:11-12)
That moment of our death is represented by a cross, all
dripping with blood, upon which our head has just finished