Legion Of Mary

A little more than a year and a half ago, I joined a group at our church called the Legion of Mary. For anyone that is not Catholic that might read this, the Legion is devoted to helping Mary, the Mother of Jesus, serve Him by bringing souls to Christ, and by helping those He spoke of when He said "Whenever you did for the least of my brothers, you did it for me."

The Legion has been a huge blessing in my life. We had just moved here to Fredericksburg when I joined, so most of my friends are in the Legion. They are without a doubt, the holiest group of people I have ever met.

Members who join the Legion agree to do several things in order to be part of a group.

1) Members agree to go to one meeting a week, held at the same time and place. Our Church has several groups, call Praesidiums, that meet at different times during the week. One of these groups is a Spanish speaking group, and another is a Junior Praesidium, composed entirely of members under the age of 18.

2) Members also agree to participate in work that is assigned by the President of the group. Such work usually consists of visiting nursing homes, shut ins, prisons, teaching CCD, visiting parishioners, or other outreach type work.

3) Members also agree to respect the confidential nature of the facts regarding the work that they do. Oral reports are furnished to the group every week concerning the work done the previous week.

4) Members agree to say a particular prayer called the Catena, which is derived from the words of Our Lady, spoken upon her visit to her cousin Elizabeth.

These requirements are for active Legionaries. There are also Auxiliary Legionaries, who pray certain prayers each day for the success of the Legionaries that are active in the field. These include the Catena, and the rest of the small leaflet called the Tessera. They also agree to say one Rosary a day for the intention of the Legion.

Please consider this wonderful ministry. It has been said by one person I know in the Legion, that it is a "Fast track to holiness". And that, is a beautiful objective in itself.

For anyone interested in joining the Legion, you may contact me by emailing peggy dot wickham at gmail dot com . If in the Northern Virginia area, you may go to the "Head group" or "Regia" for Arlington. If you are not in this area, you might google your city's name and "Legion of Mary" to see if you come up with anything. This page is the headquarters of the Legion, which is in Dublin, Ireland. Here is a page that has Senati (the next level up from Regia) of many areas of the world. If that doesn't work to find you a Praesidium that you might participate in, please do email me, and I will try to locate one for you.

If you have been feeling that you need something more in your faith life... please consider the Legion. The miracles that abound from it are amazing.