"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
Real Devotion to Mary Obliges Apostleship (Page 31-34)
I just love this paragraph. We cannot pick and choose Christ.We cannot receive the Christ of glory without at the same time bringing into our lives the Christ of pain and persecution; because there is but the one Christ who cannot be divided. We have to take him as he is. If we go to him seeking peace and happiness, we may find that we have nailed ourselves to the cross. The opposites are mixed up and cannot be separated; no pain, no palm, no thorn, no throne, no gall, no glory, no cross, no crown. We reach out for the one and find that we have the other with it.
Because when we embrace Jesus, we have to embrace Him all, not part of him, especially not the part we favor and disregard or ignore the part we don’t like. This tells us several key points. First, are you Christian? Am I Christian? If the answer is yes, then are we a 100% Christian or just 70%? 50% or 10%? Are we Christian 24/7 or just a Sunday or weekday Christian? If we are Christian, then we need to be 100% Christian, no more and no less, because we need to be Christian as a whole.
Then what is a Christian? This is the question we need to ask for ourselves. If we profess our identity of Christianity, we need to ask ourselves, how has my life changed because I am a Christian? Do I have the marks of a follower of Jesus Christ, a person who knows Jesus Christ? 1 John chapter 2:4-6 says: “Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, the love of God is truly perfected in him. This is the way we may know that we are in union with him: whoever claims to abide in him ought to live [just] as He lived. This is what we call, a 100%, 24/7 Christian.
Second, God loves us as a whole. God never discriminates, God loves you and God loves me, God loves us not because we are perfect, God loves us just because we are us. No need to hide, no need to pretend. Jesus says, you have to love each other as I have loved you. This same love, without reservation, without discount, and without decoration.
Third, Our Lady receives all the graces from God, she is the channel to distribute these graces to us.The same law applies here.Her distribution is also 100%, without reservation and without discrimination. The question is, do we accept them? Not only the graces, she, as a mother, started from Christ and then of men. This motherhood of every single soul being her essential function and her very life, it follows that without participation in it there can be no real union with her. Therefore, to be the legionary of Mary, if we want to be truly devoted to her, we must also be comprised in the service of souls as well.
The handbook says that the legion is not built upon two principles, that is, Mary and apostleship, but upon the single principle of Mary, because Mary embraces both apostleship and the entire Christian life. What does it mean? It means if we have Mary, we have all. Therefore, as the legionary, we are required to devote 100% to Mary so that we can also embrace apostleship and our entire Christian life.
My dear brothers and sisters, let us make the commitment to be a 100%, 24/7 Christian, 100% children of God, and 100% legionary.