The reading from the handbook today was concerned with the legionary's responsibility as far as the report at the meeting and the attendant confidentiality of the meeting are concerned. All of this reminds us that in the view of the integral Legion system, the meeting gives birth to substantial work, then the performance of that substantial work, embraced as a cross, leads back to the meeting, where the report on that substantial work becomes inspiration and edification for others. In this we see a powerful example of how the Legion of Mary incarnates the Church's teaching on the role of the laity, that it is the responsibility of lay people to be active in the work of evangelization and, thus, to permeate business and commerce, at all levels of their professions with the Faith. The weekly substantial work of the Legion is in reality an earnest, a token that represents all of life. Offering the earnest contain the promise of the gathering in of the whole harvest. Lay people are, in a sense, to baptize every aspect of their experience around them, to change everything, to make everything univocally Catholic.
We see immediately that this teaching has deep roots in the doctrines of the Incarnation and theosis (the deification of the human being, who comes to share the same life with God through grace). The Incarnation is the basis too of all sense of sacramentality. Since God became man, He entered His creation, then everything is rendered holy by His contact. Through the Incarnation, everything has been restored, so that it can, potentially, be a means to communion with God.
The vision of the Second Vatican Council regarding the role of the laity in evangelization is various reminiscent of the above-stated ideals. Vatican II thought of itself as the dawn of new age of the laity, in which the laity, rather than the clergy would hold the pivotal role in the evangelization of the Earth in advance of Christ's second and glorious coming. Perhaps Vatican II had an entirely different outcome in mind, but it must be immediately admitted that Catholic businessmen and professionals, lay people working in the world in a variety of jobs and trades, are rank amateurs compared to our Catholic ancestors from the Age of Faith in sanctifying their world and experience, permeating it with the Faith, and extending the Faith to those around them. I would like to meditate briefly on the example of these ancestors, because I believe that their example is the authentic way forward towards achieving the noble goal that the council, has set for lay people in the twenty-first century.
First of all, it bears mentioning that the Age of Faith was replete with professional organizations. It was a foregone conclusion that, if you were not engaged in agriculture, you were a member of such an organization. The guilds were made up of people who practiced the same or similar trades or arts. They were gathered together for mutual support (insurance was unnecessary, because the brotherhood of the guild would care for its own, the sick or the widows of those who had been members). They insured ethics and quality in their fields. They were quasi educational institutions for the young. If a guild member had a son, who wanted to enter another profession, deals could be struck between guilds to allow that son to be educated in the other guild.
Further, the guilds were also, naturally, involved in church in a very close relationship with the clergy of the place. The guilds understood their role in the terms of the Old Testament figure of Bezalel. In the Book of Exodus, Moses was the government of the nascent Israel, both civil and ecclesiastical. Yet, the Lord told Moses that He had filled Bezalel with the wisdom to create and make things according to God's design. Thus, the guilds would take on parish projects, conduct repairs to church buildings, endow monuments, sponsor men studying for Holy Orders. Each guild had a patron saint, and the feast days of those saints were the occasions of processions and celebrations funded by the guilds. Each of these celebrations included largesse for the needy.
The guilds also exercised care for the poor in other ways. The most significant of these ways is the endowing of "chapels of ease." A chapel of ease was a freestanding chapel, dependant on the parish church, in a country place. The chapel was endowed for the sake of the maintenance of one priest, who would live there and offer Masses for the deceased. Any amount over and above the priest's stipends was distributed to the poor as alms. These chapels formed an intricate and reliable welfare system over entire regions. In fact, it is said by many experts that closing such chapels at the time of the Reformation was a main cause of the horrible poverty seen in countries like England in succeeding generations. With their assistance having been taken away, the poor, who up to that time had been able to subsist in rural places, moved increasingly into the cities, hoping, mostly in vain, to find work there.
In the system presented in the handbook, it is clear that the Legion of Mary focuses with great attention upon particular works to be done in the furtherance of the Faith. It is these works that are reported on in the context of every praesidium meeting. And yet, the works themselves are substantially an entree to a life that is completely transformed in Christ. Legionaries are meant by means of their works to sanctify every aspect of their life and relationships in just the same way that we saw the guild system do. The example of the guilds, with its authentic mission of evangelization and Incarnational transformation, should put us on guard against compartmentalism. The work cannot be separated from the rest of our life and kept in a locked room, opened only by a key that we hold in the place and time that is convenient to us. In a very real sense, the work must become our life. This part of our life must imbue the rest of our experience with its meaning and direction. The member of the guild was not just participating in a professional organization whenever it held meetings or functions. Through the culture of the guild, the guild was changing the world beginning with the heart of every one of its members.
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