The Legion of Mary is an international association of practising Roman Catholics who serve the Catholic Church on a voluntary basis. It was founded by an Irish layman, Frank Duff (1889-1980). Naturally, it has a very strong emphasis on Marian devotion, and it is a popular group here in Ireland.
I have addressed Roman Catholic Mariology a number of times on this blog, as well as presenting Catholic prayers and hymns to/through Mary, showing that, in spite of the wishes of some errant Latter-day Saints, theological ecumenism with Catholicism is an impossibility (I do support coming together to fight against social evils such as abortion). Examples include:
For a Latter-day Saint Mariology, see the slides to a fireside I gave in January 2017:
I recently purchased from a nearby second-hand bookstore a book published the Legion:
The Official Handbook of the Legion of Mary (Dublin: Concilium Legionis Mariae, 1969)
The very opening page begins with the following dedication to the Legion from Pope Pius IX dated 16th September, 1933:
We give a very special blessing to this beautiful and holy work—the Legion of Mary. Its name speaks for itself. The image of Mary Immaculate on its Standard portrays high and holy things.
The Blessed Virgin is mother of the Redeemer and of us all. She co-operates in our Redemption, for it was under the Cross that she became our mother. This year we are celebrating the centenary of that co-operation and of that universal maternity of Mary.
I pray for out that you may exercise still more earnestly that apostolate of prayer and work to which you have set your hands. So doing, God will make you, too, co-operators in the Redemption. This is the best of all ways in which to show your gratitude to the Redeemer.
The following selected excerpts from the book, as with the above endorsement from a Roman Pontiff, shows the over-exalted view of Mary that is part-and-parcel of Catholic Mariology and Marian devotion; indeed, as I have said before, what Rome officially teaches about Mary is the greatest disproof of her claim to be the true Church:
Mary, Mediatrix Of All Graces
The Legion’s trust in Mary is limitless, knowing that by the ordinance of God, her power is without limit. All that He could give to Mary, He has given to her. All that she was capable of receiving, she has received in plenitude. For us God has constituted her a special means of grace. Operating in union with her we approach Him more effectively, and hence win grace more freely. Indeed we place ourselves in the very flood-tide of grace, for she is the spouse of the Holy Ghost: she is the channel of every grace which Jesus Christ has won. We receive nothing which we do not owe to a positive intervention on her part. She does not content herself with transmitting all: she obtains all for us. Penetrated with belief in this office of Mary, the Legion enjoins it as a special devotion and sets in its Catena, for daily recitation by every member, the proper prayer of the Feast of Mary, Mediatrix of all Graces, which occurs on the 8th May:
“Judge as to the ardent love with which God would have us honour Mary, seeing that He has set in her the fullness of all good: in such manner that all we have of hope, of all grace, all of salvation all—I say and let us doubt it not—flows to us from her.”—(St. Bernard: Sermo de Aquaeductu) (p. 10)
Of the Holy Ghost, Mary is commonly called the temple or sanctuary, but these terms are insufficiently expressive of the reality, which is that He has so united her to Himself as to make her the next thing in dignity to Himself. Mary has been so taken up into the Holy Ghost, made one with Him, animated by Him, that He is her very soul. She is no mere instrument or channel or His activity; she is an intelligent, conscious co-operator with Him to such degree that when she acts, it is also He Who acts; and that if her intervention be not accepted, neither is His.
The Holy Ghost is Love, Beauty, Power, Wisdom, Purity, and all else that is of God. If He descend in plenitude, every need can be met, and the most grievous problem can be brought into conformity with the Divine Will. The man who thus makes the Holy Ghost his helper (Ps. 77) enters into the tide of omnipotence. If one of the conditions for so attracting Him is the understanding of Our Lady’s relation to Him, another vital condition is that we appreciate the Holy Ghost Himself as a real, distinct, Divine Person with His appropriate mission in regard to us. The appreciation of Him will not be maintained except there be a reasonably frequent turning of the mind to Him. By including just that glance in His direction, every devotion to the Blessed Virgin can be made a wide-open way to the Holy Ghost. Especially can Legionaries so utilise the Rosary. Not only does the Rosary form a prime devotion to the Holy Ghost by reason of its being the chief prayer to Our Lady, but, as well, its contents, the Fifteen Mysteries, celebrate the principal interventions of the Holy Ghost in the drama of Redemption. (p. 134)
Souls Are Not Approached Except With Mary
Sometimes Mary is kept in the background as to meet the prejudices of those who make small account of her. This method of making Catholic doctrine more acceptable may accord with human reasonings. It does not reflect the Divine Idea. Those who act in this way do not realise that they might as well preach Christianity without Christ as ignore Mary’s part in Redemption. For God Himself has thought fit to arrange that no foreshadowing or coming or giving or manifestation of Jesus should be without Mary.
From the Beginning and before was the World she was in the mind of God.—God Himself it was Who first began to tell of her and to sketch out for her a destiny unquestionably unique. For all that greatness of hers had a beginning very back. It began before constitution of the world. From the first, the idea of Mary was present to the Eternal Father along with that of the Redeemer, of Whose destiny she formed part. Thus far back had God answered the doubter’s saying: “What need has God of Mary’s help?” God could have dispensed with her altogether, just as He might have dispensed with Jesus Himself. But the course which it pleased Him to adopt included Mary. It placed her by the side of the Redeemer from the very moment in which the Redeemer was Himself decreed. It went further; that plan assigned to her no less a part than that of the Mother of the Redeemer and necessarily, therefore, of those united to Him.
Thus, from all eternity Mary was in a position exalted, alone among creatures, and utterly outside comparison even with the sublimest among them, different in the Divine idea, different in the preparation she received; and therefore fittingly singled out from all others in the first prophecy of Redemption, addressed to Satan: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed. She shall crush thy head” (Gen. iii, 15). There is the future Redemption summarised by God Himself. Definitely, Mary is to be in an order of her own; even before her birth, and ever after, the enemy of Satan; below the Saviour, but next to Him, and like unto Him (Gen, ii, 18), and remote from all others. Not any prophet—even the Baptist—is thus set with Him, nor king, nor leader, nor apostle nor evangelist—including Peter and Paul themselves; nor the greatest among the popes and pastors and doctors; nor any saint; nor David, nor Solomon, nor Moses, nor Abraham. Not one of them! Alone, out of all creatures that will ever be, she is divinely designated as the Co-worker of Salvation. (pp. 252-53)
The Holy Ghost operates always with her.—Come a little further to the feast of Pentecost—that tremendous occasion when the Church was launched upon its mission. Mary was there. It was by her prayer that the Holy Spirit descended on the Mystical Body and came to abide in it with all His “magnificence and power and glory and victory” (1 Par.xxx, 11). Mary reproduces in respect of the Mystical Body of Christ every service which she rendered to His actual Body. This law applies to Pentecost, which was a sort of new Epiphany. She is necessary to the one as she had been to the other. And so of all divine things to the end: if Mary is left out, God’s Plan is not conformed to, no matter that one’s prayers and works and strivings may be. If Mary is not there, the grace is not given. This is an overpowering thought. It may provoke the question: “Do those who ignore or insult Mary receive no graces?” They do, indeed, receive graces, for failure to acknowledge Mary may be excused on grounds of utter ignorance. But what a sorry title to Heaven! and what a way of treating her who helps one thither! Moreover, the graces which come in such circumstances are but a fraction of what should flow, so that one’s life’s work is largely failing. (p. 257)
