Devotion to Mother Mary is of paramount importance in the life of the Church and one’s personal life. To insist the same, we have the Legion of Mary in our Parish. It is vibrant and active. Every Saturday all the members gather together and pray the Holy Rosary with the necessary prayers as mentioned by the guidelines proposed by the Guide. The prayers are offered for different intentions of the Holy Father, the local bishop, priests, the religious, and the faithful.
They collect a sum of money to spend for the poor. They spend it with the knowledge and the consent of the parish priest. They are helpful in meeting the sick, praying the Rosary in different houses, celebrating the Mission Sunday, and so on. The members are simple and loving and supporting the Priests with their prayers and service.
The Legion of Mary was founded by Frank Duff on 7 September 1921 at Myra House, Francis Street, in Dublin. His idea was to help Catholic laypeople fulfil their baptismal promises to be able to live their dedication to the Church in an organized structure, which would be supported by fraternity and prayer. The Legion draws its inspiration from Louis de Montfort's book True Devotion to Mary.
The Legion first started out by visiting women with cancer in hospitals, but it soon became active among the most destitute, notably among Dublin prostitutes. Duff subsequently laid down the system of the Legion in the Handbook of the Legion of Mary in 1928.
The Legion soon spread around the world. At first, it was often met with mistrust because of its then-unusual dedication to lay apostolate. After Pope Pius XI praised it in 1931, the Legion had its mistrust quelled.
Most prominent for spreading the legion was Edel Quinn (1907-1944) for her activities in Africa in the 1930s and the 1940s. Her dedication to the mission of the legion, even in the face of her ill health (tuberculosis) brought her great admiration inside and outside the legion. A beatification process is currently underway for the legendary Quinn, as well as for Duff and Alfie Lambe (1932–1959), the endearing Legion Envoy to South America.
On 27 March 2014, the Secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, Bishop Josef Clemens, delivered the decree in which the Legion is recognized by the Holy See as International Association of the Faithful.
The spirituality of the Legion of Mary is essentially based on the approach of Louis de Montfort, as put forward in his True Devotion to Mary. The book promotes a "total dedication" to Christ through devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, which later influenced popes such as John Paul II, who mentions it in an apostolic letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae.
Another important element that shapes its spirituality is Duff's devotion to the Holy Spirit. He promoted the adoration of the third person of the Trinity, which he considered neglected. He saw the Virgin Mary as the "visible image" of the Spirit; the Legion's introductory prayers and legion promise are directed to the Holy Spirit. The Legion's vexillium legionis bears the Holy Spirit's image in the form of a dove.
The essential aim of the Legion of Mary is the sanctification of its members through prayer, the sacraments and devotion to Mary and the Trinity, and of the whole world through the apostolate of the legion.
The idea of a Catholic lay apostolate organization where ordinary lay people in all situations of life would work for their own sanctification and for the conversion of the world was the first of its kind. After the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) promoted such ideas in its conciliar documents, this approach gained wider acceptance in the Catholic Church.
