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Legion HANDBOOK D10944_1 26/02/2014 15:53 Page 70

70 SCHEME OF THE LEGION CHAPTER 11
which otherwise bring to an inevitable end the most promising
beginnings of apostolic work.
“It is to be noted that our services to the Society of Mary are to be
measured not according to the importance of the post we fill, but
according to the degree of the supernatural spirit and of the zeal for
Mary with which we devote ourselves to the duty assigned by
obedience, however humble, however hidden it may be.” (Petit Traité
de Marialogie: Marianiste)

4. THE PRIMARY OBLIGATION
Foremost in its system, the primary obligation of each
member, the Legion sets the duty of attendance at its
meetings. As the burning lens is to the rays of the sun, so is
the meeting to the members. The focus collects them, begets
the fire, and kindles everything that comes near it. It is the
meeting which makes the Legion. This bond sundered or dis-
esteemed, the members drop away and the work falls to the
ground. Conversely, in measure as the meeting is respected,
so is the power of the organisation intensified.
The following, written in the first years of its life, represents
now as it did then the outlook of the Legion on the subject of
organisa tion, and thus upon the importance of the meeting,
which is the focus-point of such organisation:— “In the
organisation, the individu als, however notable, are content to
play the part of cogs. They yield up much of their
independence to the machine, that is to their associates as a
body, but thereby the work gains a hundredfold in the fact
that a number of individuals, who would otherwise have been
either ineffective or else standing idle, are brought into action
— each one, not with his or her own individual weakness, but
with the fervour and power of all the greatest qualities
amongst them. Consider pieces of coal lying unused, and the
same in the heart of the furnace. Such is the parallel which
suggests itself.
Then the organised body has a well-marked life of its own,
apart from the individuals who compose it, and this
characteristic, rather than the beauty or urgency of the work
done, seems in practice to be the magnet which attracts new
members. The association establishes a tradition, begets a