"Who is she that comes forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in battle array?" - Song of Songs 6:10
Chapter 14 : The Praesidium 1-9 (pg. 84 – pg. 85) The unit of the Legion of Mary is called a praesidium. When reading this opening paragraph, it immediately brought back the memory of my military service before coming to the US. Back then, all male citizens in Taiwan had to serve two years of military duty due to the Communist threats from mainland China. In the military, the smallest combat formation group is called the fire team and it contains 3 soldiers to fight and protect each other. Three fire teams form a squad. A squad performs a special duty, just as the handbook says, a section of a military line, a fortified post, a garrison.
So the squad served similar duties in the ancient Roman praesidium. In other words, each member of the praesidium takes his/her own position and responsibility to help and protect each other during combat. This is why we, the praesidium, need to team up to visit the needy, and requires an auxiliary member to pray for us. This forms a strong fire team in the spiritual battle field.
We use the title of Our Blessed Lady which indicates that we belong to Our Heavenly Mother, and she is our commander in Chief. We do our best to achieve the goals in honor of our title.
Therefore, obedience becomes the key to our success. While supporting each other in our activities, we need to listen and obey the authority of the organization, which is ultimately our Heavenly Mother so that we can aim at the same common goal and move forward without hesitation.
Listening and obedience comes to every level of the organization. The Legion of Mary listens and obeys the Church, and therefore, we shall not be established in any parish without the consent of the parish priest or of the Ordinary.
As for the meetings of the Legion of Mary, it is clearly stated in the handbook that we shall hold a meeting every week.
As far as the idea of meeting every week, it is easy to use the excuse that “it is difficult to hold a weekly meeting, and that a monthly or fortnightly meeting would serve all purposes.” However, this is why in the handbook says: “But a vital purpose of the meeting is weekly prayer in common, and it is superfluous to point out that this end will not be attained by a meeting held otherwise than weekly. And a weekly meeting may entail self-sacrifice. If the Legion cannot with confidence call for such, where is the whole groundwork on which to build its system?”
A Chinese philosopher, Confucius once said: “Choose what is good and hold fast to it.” This good is considered to be the opposite of evil and this proverb suits the situation we are reading here. Pope Francis said: “even the seed of our good works may seem small; yet, all that is good belongs to God and therefore humbly, slowly bears fruit.” Today we also talk about the Spiritual Director, President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer. Each of us has our position and responsibility. This reminds me of last Sunday’s gospel about the wedding in Cana. In that wedding, the wine ran out. We witnessed that Jesus was able to transform water into the very best wine, and Jesus showed his glory in through this first miracle of "turning water into wine".
From the story we also find that together with Mary’s intercession and prompting, the servants’ obedience and labors, and even the surprise of the headwaiter's tasting, a joint participation and cooperation made the banquet a joyous feast for everybody.
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, participation, cooperation, obedience and insisting on goodness are the keys to build a solid foundation of the praesidium. Please don’t forget, all of these are built on the solid rock of love, the love that every single soul is longing for and we, the Legion of Mary are to lead them to that love. Amen.