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Universality of the Legion
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Years and years ago, in a small Illinois town of Collinsville, Illinois, I had a Pastor by the name
of Monsignor Barney Manning, a good old Irish priest who introduced me to the Legion of Mary.
As a young assistant getting into the Legion I had a lot to learn. A new organization devoted to
Mary and, I thought, limited to the area of southern Illinois along with Alton the curia town.
Little did I think of places in the rest of the world who would also have praesidia, doing the same
thing that our praesidium was doing, working on marriages, encouraging people to attend Mass,
getting children to attend the Catholic school etc. I am sure that some of you have the same
feeling as I unless we had our eyes open to where the Legion is in the world.
From places like your home parish, to small towns in African jungles, in Central America where
the descendants of the Mayan Indian tribes still live and work, to the area of Southern Georgia,
near to Russia, people like you and I meet every week, make our visits and pray that the people
we work with will get closer to God and increase our own holiness as is the purpose of the
Legion
I had the good fortune recently to be in the Yucatan Peninsula spending some time with the
Maya people - just a few days or so. They are nice people, very simple, very happy and, I
guess the majority still believes in their Mayan traditions as they have for centuries. I wondered
whether there are many Catholics, although in Belize City there were a couple of churches. Had
I had the Concilium Report from Ireland and noticed that Belize City has a praesidium I would
have probably inquired but as I wandered around the streets, seeing the stalls of sellers, it
seemed like an entirely different world. And yet, you and I as Legion members are related to
these people as to the people in Africa and Asia because of what Jesus did no the Cross when
He gave us to His mother. The Legion was here too, in Belize, as in the rest of the world. So
you see, we as the Legion are not just one little group of people in our praesidium, but
universal, throughout the entire world and there is a brotherhood you might say, of praesidia
throughout the world that we belong to, doing the same things we are doing, saying the same
prayers, having the same devotion as we do. What a wonderful thing our Legion is!
Think of that the next time you see some people in the news from another nation, another
world. Mary is there in that part of the world with her Legion, having the same things going on
as we do, and say a prayer for them in their work of trying to first of all improve their own
sanctification and then that of the people they serve. I am sure the Blessed Mother will smile on
us as we do our work for her. God Bless!
©2009 Fr.Louis Schlangen
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