The priest, as an alter Christus, has an extended mystical body, just like Christ the Lord. This mystical body is made up of those, who assist the priest. This fascinating idea is conveyed to us today in the reading of the handbook. It is an especially interesting coincidence that this reading occurred today, when the Roman Martyrology commemorates Saint Willibrord. Willibrord is known as the Apostle of Frisia, the land that today comprises the states of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Willibrord was given as a child oblate to Ripon Abbey in the Kingdom of Northumbria right after he was weaned. His mother had died in childbirth, and his father, the noble and devout Wilgis had decided himself to enter monastic life in the setting of the desolate island of Iona.
When Willibrord was sufficiently old, he was sent away from Ripon to be educated in Ireland at Rathmelsigi Abbey by Saint Ecbert. There, Willibrord lived for twelve years. After those twelve years, he was ordained a priest and sent (along with eleven companions) to begin a foundation in the pagan area of Frisia, which had recently been conquered by the Franks. Willibrord, the alter Christus, set out with his "mystical body" to live in the darkness of those pagan lands. Willibrord was eventually ordained bishop over the Frisian lands, but over the space of years, from their home base at the Abbey of Echternach, he and his Benedictine brothers won the whole territory to Christ. One of those Benedictine brothers was the celebrated Wilfrid, otherwise known as Boniface, who, after Willibrord's death, founded abbeys in Germany as well.
Strengthened by the communion of his "mystical body," there was the power and boldness of Christ Himself in Willibrord. At one point, due to an uprising of the pagan king Radbod against his Frankish overlords, Willibrord had to flee from Frisia to neighboring areas. This turned out to be a circumstance for the furtherance of the Gospel of Christ, because the saint had the opportunity to preach the Gospel for the first time in Denmark, especially in Helgoland. There, it is said, he landed on an island traditionally identified as Forsiteland, named after its horrible, menacing god Forsite, a monster, who was said to eat disobedient human beings alive. The worship of the god was centered on a blackened idol shaped like a pole that was truly terrible, frightening to behold. At the base of the pole was the god's sacred artesian well from which none could drink but the priests of the god. Once a year, the water was drawn to bless the people and their fields. Willibrord and his brothers obtained a saw, they cut Forsite down and threw him into a ditch used as a latrine. Then they used the sacred well for baptisms and they slew the god's sacred cattle and hosted a feast for all the people. (Keep in mind, it really was for the people. Traditionally, monks don't eat meat.)
Perhaps this coincidence of this reading from the handbook with the commemoration of the birth into eternal life of St. Willibrord is also a preparation for another unique and equally fascinating coincidence. Among St. Willibrord's spiritual children, a descendant of those won to Christ by the saint, would arise one who had an uncanny resemblance. Pieter-Jan de Smet too was sent from his home country with eleven companions to preach the Gospel of Christ to new people, who had never before heard it. Father de Smet preached the Gospel to the indigenous peoples of the western United States and Canada. Over the course of decades, he traveled over 180,000 miles, over unmapped wilderness spreading the true Faith of Christ. Always strengthened too by his "mystical body," those companions that assisted him in all his travels and labors, he, like St. Willibrord before him, displayed great boldness and power in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. When he feared that his first mission at Council Bluffs, IA was under threat because of the state of war that existed between his people, the Potowatamie tribe, and the Sioux, he went himself and negotiated a peace treaty. It was the beginning of a pattern that was to be played out many, many times before his death. In his declining years, he convinced Sitting Bull to enter into the Fort Laramie Treaty that finally ended the Sioux's war with the United States, saved countless lives and ensured the survival of the tribe as a people.
It's very important for the priest to have that "mystical body" of people around him, assisting him to bring the Gospel to that particular time and place. The Legion of Mary is positioned intentionally to be at least an important part of that "body." Following Saint Paul, as the handbook is at pains to state, the head needs the body and the body needs the head.
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