By Anthony Barich
THE Legion of Mary is a crucial but ageing ministry of lay peoplewho are the “face of the priest” in the community, its president said after its annual Mass celebrating 70 years since their first meeting.
Rosemary Bennett, 57, is one of the younger members of the apostolate in WA founded by Dublin-born Frank Duff, whose cause for beatification is under way.
Duff, the eldest of seven children, was originally a member of the St Vincent de Paul Society and, after having developed a great love for the poor and underpriviledged through the Society’s work, published his first pamphlet, Can we be Saints?
The treatise of St Louis de Montfort, True Devotion to Mary, changed his life and in 1921 he founded the Legion of Mary, a lay apostolate at the service of the Church whose aim is the spiritual development of its members and advancing the reign of Christ through Our Lady.
Mrs Bennett told The Record that the Legion’s work in the Archdiocese of Perth has mainly been to be “the face of the priest”, knocking on doors to establish where the Catholics are, practising or not, develop a relationship with them to draw them back to the Church.
The Legion of Mary seeks the personal sanctification of members by prayer and apostolic work including visiting the sick, elderly and bereaved, door-knocking for parish census, prison visitation, street ministry, book barrow, catechetics, distribution of Pilgrim Statues, prayer group sessions, pilgrimages and retreats.
Rosemary Bennett said the Legion has also recently been involved in visiting people in nursing homes and hospitals, and also prison ministry in regional areas around WA.
Mt Lawley parish priest Fr Timothy Deeter, who leads the Legion in prayer at their monthly meetings, said at the annual Mass he concelebrated at St Joachim’s Church in Victoria Park on 13 November that the presence of himself and Frs Eugene McGrath and Albert Saminedi SDB testified to how critical the Legion’s work is and how much priests appreciate it.
Fr McGrath, now retired, has a long history with the Legion, having established a group in Belmont which tapped into the lapsed Catholics in the area and grew a thriving parish with perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Fr Saminedi has a Legion group at his Bedford parish and also in his African community at St Bakhita’s.
The “prayer body” behind the Legion’s work is 1,200 Auxiliaries in WA, many of whom include priests and Religious, who pray for the apostolate. There are 275 active members in WA and 173 of them attended the 13 November Mass. It has over three million active members globally. Fr Deeter said that, like the work of Mary during the ‘hidden life of Christ’ which was so essential to the life of Jesus, so too is the work of the Legion which is silent also yet vitally important to the work of the Church, which is Christ in the world.
The Legion, he said, is summoned to be at the forefront of the task to “make all things new”, as God said in the Mass reading from Revelation. This is nothing less than bringing about God’s Kingdom on earth by bringing a new attitude to life and to faith, founded on love “which fills our lamps and lights the way to heaven”.
“May you be always vigilant like the virgin bridesmaids (in the day’s Gospel of Matthew). May the love of God and His mercy cause a chain reaction of mercy in your lives and your hearts”, he said, so that they may do Christ’s work.
He also prayed for past Legion members, whose good example should inspire today’s workers to build God’s Kingdom. They also prayed for the beatification of Duff in the Prayers of the Faithful.
The cause of his canonisation was introduced by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Desmond Connell, in July 1996 after Duff died in 1980.
While Fr Deeter clarified that Jesus Christ is the Gate of Heaven, not Mary, the term calling Mary ‘the Gate of Heaven’ has existed since the time of the early Church Fathers to illustrate the centrality of Mary’s role in the salvation of mankind.
It was her faith, Fr Deeter said, that opened for us that which was closed by Eve – the Gate of Heaven. It was her faith in God that allowed Christ to come into the world.
Just like St Martin of Tours – whose feast day it was on 11 November, and who clothed a homeless man in his red army cloak only to be told by Christ in a dream that he had clothed Christ Himself – the Legion is called to see those in need, notice their material and spiritual poverty, their physical and moral weakness and tend to them.
To enquire about the Legion’s apostolate, contact
perthcomitium@bigpond.com or phone 9328 2726.