Allocutio at August 2014 Comitium Meeting by Fr. Bede McGregor OP

True Devotion to the Nation (2)

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Last month we offered some introductory reflections with regard to the Legion’s deep commitment to the True Devotion to the Nation (TDN). Its entrance into the history and scheme of the Legion met with some stern opposition. Frank Duff records: ‘In 1958 the first TDN Conference took place. There was quite revulsion of feeling at it. Many were distressed, angry; they felt that a menace was being directed at the life of their beloved Society; that time honoured ideas were being hurled overboard and that an unjustifiable revolution was being launched in the Legion. To some extent those fears were allayed before the end of the Conference. They persisted in certain quarters. But where today in the Legion is there a trace of such dissent? However, I think it is worthwhile to revisit the whole question of the meaning and role of TDN in the Legion today. What activities does the average praesidium undertake as an explicit expression of their commitment to TDN? Does the general public see TDN as an inseparable characteristic of the Legion? Is this devotion a frequent theme of our Congresses and Patrician meetings? I leave you to answer the questions.

Let us first remind ourselves that the true TDN is a direct application of the Gospel itself. This love and service of our neighbour is the chief characteristic and the test of our Christian faith. ‘By this shall all men know that you are my disciples that you love one another.’ In the evening of life we will be judged on how we treated our neighbour and that is the explicit teaching of Our Lord on the Last Judgement. The love of our neighbour is not just an emotion but a concrete service. The whole social teaching of the Church is simply an application of the Gospel to the social questions that arise in every generation. And TDN is simply the Legion’s implementation of the social teaching of the Church. The spirituality of the Legion cannot be divorced from the social Gospel as mediated to us through the Magisterium.

The first fear about TDN in the early days of the Legion was that it might obscure the primacy of the spiritual and religious in its apostolate. There were plenty of examples around that took a purely secular approach to social problems or at least had a very muted spiritual dimension. But this was never true of the Legion. The salvation of souls was always given absolute primacy in the Legion and in all multiplicity of activities. We insist on the dignity of the human person who is made by God and for God. A phrase from the writings of St. Alphonsus could aptly sum up a fundamental conviction of the Legion: ‘The most perfect charity consists in being zealous about our neighbour’s spiritual good.’ There is nothing more precious that we can offer another person or community or nation than a meeting with Jesus Christ. There is nothing more enriching that we can offer another person than our Catholic Faith. Until we are utterly convinced of the truth we are not yet fully legionaries. Why? Because Mary has no other purpose or desire except to give Jesus to the world and everything He stands for. As with Mary, so must it be the object of the Legion. So all TDN for us must be within the framework of the motives, methods and scheme of the Legion.

We see this principle worked out in the history of the Legion’s approach to grave social and spiritual problems. For instance, in the case of prostitution the Legion does not get involved in denouncing the evil of prostitution through the media or in other ways, but sees the supreme dignity of the human person involved in this activity and seeks by persevering personal contact and friendship to lead them back to a more human and Christian way of life and happiness. We seek to see and serve the Person of Christ in the spirit of Mary in all those involved in this grave social and spiritual problem. The book, Miracles on Tap gives us a great example of how the Legion deals with this problem.

The same is true of the Legion’s approach to the horrendous problem of abortion. Our primary concern is not with condemnation of the women and the doctors and their co-workers nor with any kind of harassment, but we seek personal contact with the women and all those concerned with this savage evil and seek by constant prayer and personal friendship to dissuade them from abortion or to be a real help in the healing process of those who have had abortions. Of course there are many other approaches to all these kinds of problems and many of them may be necessary and effective, but they do not belong to the spirit and methods of the Legion. Doctors, nurses, family members,teachers, journalists, legislators, Bishops, priests and many Pro Life groups operate according to their special responsibilities and methods and the Legion seeks to play its part according to its own charism within the Church and society

The various hostels run by the Legion throughout the Legion world are a classic example of its TDN. The dignity of the human person made in the image and likeness of God and ina certain way a sacrament of the presence of Christ governs every aspect of the running of these hostels. The legionaries care for the whole person and above all of his or her spiritual needs. The hostels are primarily places of evangelisation and the Eucharist in the Chapel is the great source of motivation and perseverance for the legionaries in an often difficult and thankless work. The ethos of the Legion hostels is a deeply Gospel and Christian one ; the best possible care of all the needs of the residents both spiritual and material. Nor does the work in the Hostels contravene the fundamental Legion principle of excluding the giving of material relief in the course of its apostolate. There is an important distinction between material relief and services. The Handbook insists that the Legion does not wish to rerstrict the range of services that we offer in the course of our apostolates.

The writings of Frank Duff often give us the best available interpretation of the Handbook, so let me finish with a substantial quotation from him: ‘But I insist there is no abandonment of our traditional scheme. There is no dropping of our spiritual programme, but only an intensification of it. We have not relaxed our rule against the giving of material relief. In fact we have become progressively strengthened in regard to it. We believe it to be our bulwark against the mere humanism which has absorbed so much of the Catholic apostolate. Too much of the alleged apostolate of today is but a cult of the material even though a spiritual gloss is imparted to it. With sufficient agencies devoted to the giving of material relief, it is vital that the Legion should remain constant to its aim of seeking first the Kingdom of God. T.D.N. is an effort to do this, and then to reach out to the ‘other things.’ This order of values is essential. The spiritual must be the motive. The prevailing tendency is to rule out that motive and to commit the people’s lives to secular and technical handling. This is not even a distant relation to Christianity, and we must energetically try to impart true balance.

But, ‘material relief is to be correctly interpreted. It does not include that rendering of services to the individual and the community which constitute T.D.N. While our great preoccupation is the spiritual, it must not be viewed too narrowly, for that spiritual concerns all life. All springs from it and ministers to it. If we have to distinguish between what is primary and secondary, it should not result in the neglecting of either. If we are dealing with the secondary aspects stressed in the True Devotion to the Nation, it must not be to the detriment of the primary one. We must not for a moment lose sight of the soul. It is to the soul that we are really addressing ourselves through the means which we use, each of which should be viewed as a lever to uplift faith, to promote moral good.
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