Page 72 - 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 71

CHAPTER 11 SCHEME OF THE LEGION 71
loyalty, enjoys respect and obedience, and powerfully inspires
its members. Talk to the latter, and you will see that they lean
upon it as upon a wise old mother. And well it may be so. Does
it not save them from every pitfall: the imprudences of zeal:
the discouragement of failure: the elevation of success: the
hesitancy of the unsupported opinion: the timidity of
loneliness: and, in general, from the whole quicksand of
inexperience? It takes the raw material of mere good intention
and educates it: sets about its work with regular plan: secures
expansion and continuity.” (Father Michael Creedon, first
Spiritual Director of Concilium Legionis Mariae)
“Considered in relation to us, its members, the Society of Mary is
the extension, the visible manifestation of Mary our Heavenly
Mother. Mary has received us into the Society as into her loving and
maternal bosom, so as to mould us to the likeness of Jesus, and thus
make us her privileged sons; so as to assign to us our apostolic task,
and thus give us share in her mission as Co-redemptrix of souls. For
us, the cause, the interests of the Society are identified with the cause,
the interests of Mary.”(Petit Traité de Marialogie: Marianiste)

5. THE WEEKLY MEETING OF THE PRAESIDIUM

In an atmosphere made supernatural by its wealth of
prayer, by its devotional usages, and by its sweet spirit of
fraternity, the praesidium holds a weekly meeting, at which
work is assigned to each legionary, and a report received from
each legionary of work done. This weekly meeting is the heart
of the Legion from which the life-blood flows into all its veins
and arteries. It is the power-house from which its light and
energy are derived. It is the treasury out of which its own
special needs are provided for. It is the great com munity
exercise, where someone sits unseen in the midst of them
according to promise; where the peculiar grace of the work is
bestowed; and where the members are imbued with the spirit
of religious discipline, which looks first to the pleasing of God
and personal sanctification; thence to the organisation which
is best calculated to achieve these ends, and then proceeds to
do the work assigned, subordinating private likings.
The legionaries shall therefore regard attendance at their
weekly praesidium meeting as their first and most sacred duty