LEGION OF MARY

An international association of lay Catholics founded in Dublin, Ireland (1921), for the spiritual advancement of its members and the general intensification of Catholic life. On Sept. 7, 1921, a small group of lay people, stimulated by an awareness of the Christian vocation to be a witness and urged on by the writings of the popes, met with their parish priest in St. Nicholas of Myra parish, Dublin, to discover some practical means of translating their discussions on the doctrine of the mystical body of christ and the writings of St. Louis Marie grignion de montfort into concrete action in the service of others. The system of lay apostleship that eventually became known as the Legion of Mary was influenced also by the st. vincent de paul society, which was extremely active in Dublin during the 1920s. During the next 40 years the original group of the Myra Street meeting multiplied worldwide. In addition to the active members of the Legion of Mary, there are also auxiliary members who render the Legion a service of prayer. The Legion was first established in the U.S. in 1931.

Membership. The Legion admits any practicing Catholic of at least 18 years of age. (A junior system, differing only in the adaptation of the work to adolescents, parallels the senior organization and prepares the young for membership in the senior group). The Legion demands high standards of Christian life, but only after the member is enrolled and not as a prerequisite for admission; the method employed consists of prayer and active work in the apostolate. Consequently, the two most fundamental requirements for membership are (1) attendance at the weekly meeting, where the Legion prayers, spiritual reading, and guidance by the spiritual director form the member and (2) the performance of a substantial amount of assigned apostolic work each week. Discipline, very much a part of the ideal of membership, is measured by the individual's adherence to the system; in addition, each member has a personal responsibility to recruit new members, both active and auxiliary. The Legion seeks to undertake any and every form of social service and evangelical outreach. The visitation of homes is the most characteristic work of the Legion members.

Organization. The nomenclature employed, derived from ancient Roman military usage, designates the individual unit or cell as a praesidium, a district of two or more praesidia as a curia, the governing body for a country or region as a senatus, and the supreme governing body as the concilium. The higher governing bodies come into existence only as the multiplication of praesidia requires them. As the number of praesidia in an area increases, the curias, composed of the officers of the various praesidia, are multiplied and in turn are governed by a higher council, the comitium. Several comitia are supervised by a senatus, which answers directly to the highest council in the system, the concilium, whose headquarters are in Dublin. This tight supervision of the lower groups by the governing councils, together with the standard handbook accounts for the remarkable uniformity throughout the world.

Bibliography: legion of mary, The Official Handbook of the Legion of Mary. f. duff, Miracles on Tap (Bay Shore, NY 1962), by the founder of Legion of Mary. l. c. morand, The Character of the Legion of Mary in the Law of the Church (London 1955). l. j. suenens, Theology of the Apostolate of the Legion of Mary (Westminster, MD 1954). f. j. ripley and f. s. mitchell, Souls at Stake (New York 1948).

[t. p. carroll/eds.]