"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
Good afternoon my dear sisters and brothers. Today’s allocutio was specifically prepared for all of us; myself, officers, every member of the Legion of Mary.
Why am I saying this? Because in the very first sentence of today’s reading the handbook says: “There are no bad soldiers,” said Napoleon, “only bad officers”; which is a biting way of saying that the soldiers will be as the officers make them. Legionaries, too, will never rise above the standards of spirit and work created by their officers.”
This paragraph is very convicting. The legion of Mary is a spiritual group and is under the leadership of Mother Mary. Mother Mary is our role model, if we do not exercise our membership or even our leadership in the group like Mary, we are not the Legion of Mary.
So what does Mary do?
Mary humbles herself. Mary leads us to Jesus. Mary ponders issues in her heart. Mary obeys whatever Jesus says. Mary prays, and Mary stood under the crucifix until Jesus’s last breath. Mary glorifies the Lord and her spirit rejoices in God the Savior. The list goes go on and on. But if we are the Legion of Mary, do we follow Mary and let her lead us toward Jesus?
Think of it this way, if we are not taking up our responsibilities to learn from Mary’s spirituality yet claim that we are under her leadership, we will never be a good soldier and officer in the Legion of Mary.
So my dear sisters and brothers, we need to all sincerely ask ourselves, “Am I a good soldier of the Legion of Mary? Am I a good officer? Or a good spiritual director when serving my praesidium, curia, or even comitium?
We need a lot of prayers, we need to be servant leaders not stubborn leaders. We should not be the cause or the center of dispute in the group and we need to follow Mary’s footsteps in every aspect of our service.
Therefore, it is so important to have a prayer life and to connect with the body of auxiliaries and ask for their prayers. Yes, of course, we are all busy in doing our active duties, yet, every one of you is the officer. May I ask a very straight and forward question? How many of you have messaged or contacted your auxiliary members periodically to care for them, their prayer lives or their needs? How many of you know if your auxiliary members continuously recite the tessera and/or pray the rosary for your active members?
It’s never too late, my dear sisters and brothers, let us also put our hearts to them and establish a prayer network within your group so that we all have a true support from the auxiliary members.
At last, I would like to quote you Father Patrick Peyton’s famous quote, “that a family prays together stays together,” we, the Legion of Mary is this kind of a family, a family towards Jesus and Holiness. May God bless us all. Amen.