Allocutio on Legionary Service (1)

Chapter 4, article 1, titled, " Must put on the whole armour of God"

The Legion of Mary believes in the words of St James that faith without good work is useless hence they carry out apostolic work. As a matter of fact, the Legion is built around performance of substantial active work. Foremost of these works is the visitation of homes of people at weekly basis in a systematic manner. This work requires great patience, courage and endurance since we meet people of different temperament. The bible tells us in Eph. 6:12 that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and power and so the Legionaries needs the cover of the Holy Spirit to empower them so as to be able to carry out this assignment of winning souls for Christ.

In the Roman days, the soldiers were always successful in any war they fought because of the characters they exhibited which includes endurance, discipline, loyalty as well as courage. Whenever they went on war, they were always with their arms and armour. This was to enable them fight well while the armour was a metallic covering to protect the body in the battle. This way they were able to fight without easily getting hurt.

In the Legion of Mary, the work we carry out is likened to the battle that the Roman legion fought, hence the need to go with missiles and armour to be able to fight with. Though the legion thinks always of war and battle but the war that we fight is a spiritual one and so the arms, armour and ammunition we need, should also be spiritual. When St. Paul said that we must put on the whole armour of God in Eph. 6:11, he meant that we must put on God in its entirety so as to be able to record success in the combat with the devil. By putting on God, it simply means that we must have unwavering faith in Him, and always be in communication with Him by praying constantly for these are the main ways we can defeat the devil and its agent. The Roman soldiers had class in all department, how much more soldiers of Mary our Mother. We are to imitate their quality in all ramification so as to conquer this world of sin.
In our quest to spread the gospel , many persons will receive the message while a good number will definitely reject the message and reject us. What should be our immediate reaction to rejection.? It is to have profound faith in God and not lose hope on the unrepentant. One of the weapon of the devil is to make us depressed after our contact with people.
Once when we were on visitation, we were asked to leave a household, my partner and i felt so sad that we were silent on our way back home with a resolve not to venture the work in future. But a u-turn was made in our thoughts since we were told that God's time is the best. We again visited the household and we were surprised with the warm reception the father of the household showered on us.
My brothers and sisters in Christ, it is God's wish to ensure that all His children gain eternal salvation but He needs u and i to reach out to souls while putting on His armour.
Put on a positive attitude to rejection and put the devil to shame.