Membership

The Praetorian (The Praetorian Guard was the picked regiment of the Roman army degree is a higher grade of active membership, consisting of those who to the ordinary obligations of membership undertake to add:-

1. The daily recitation of all the prayers comprised in the tessera of the Legion;
2. daily Mass and daily Holy Communion. No one should be deterred from undertaking the praetorian degree by fears that he will not succeed in attending Mass or receiving Holy Communion absolutely every day. No one can be certain of such exact regularity as this. Anyone, who does not fail normally more often than once or twice a week, may register with confidence as a praetorian;
3. the daily recitation of an Office approved by the Church, especially the Divine Office or a substantial part of it, for example Morning and Evening Prayer. A shorter breviary containing these hours with night prayer has been approved for use.

The active work of the legionary is a participation in the official apostolate of the Church. Praetorian membership aims at immersing him still deeper in the corporate life of the Church. Obviously it must prescribe Mass and Holy Communion, because these are the central ceremonies of the Church, renewing daily the paramount Christian act.That is why an Office, and not meditation, is a condition of praetorian membership. “As grace develops in us, our love must take on new forms,” said Archbishop Leen to his legionaries. The reciting of the entire Divine Office, for those in a position to do it, would represent such an expansion of love. The following is to be understood:-

1. This is only a degree of membership and not a separate unit of organisation. Thus, separate praesidia of praetorians shall not be set up;
2. the praetorian degree of membership is to be regarded as no more than a private contract of the individual legionary;

you must; I know it; it is your destiny; it is the necessity of the Catholic name; it is the prerogative of the Apostolic heritage. But a material extension without a corresponding moral manifestation, it is almost awful to anticipate.” (Cardinal Newman: Present Position of Catholics)

The Primary Degree: The Auxiliaries

This degree, named the auxiliaries, is the left wing of the Legion’s praying army. Its service consists in the daily recitation of the prayers comprised in the tessera, namely: the invocation and prayer of the Holy Spirit; five decades of the rosary and the invocations which follow them; the Catena; and the prayers described as “concluding prayers”. These may be divided throughout the day, as convenient. Persons who are already saying a daily rosary for any intention whatsoever may become auxiliaries without obligation to say an additional rosary. “He who prays helps all the souls of men. He helps his brethren by the saving and powerful magnetism of a soul that believes, knows,and wills. He supplies what St. Paul demands from us above all things: prayers, supplications, and acts of thanksgiving on behalf of all men. ‘Cease not to pray and to make supplication at all times in the Holy Spirit.’ (Eph 6:18) And does it not seem that if you cease to watch, to insist, to make efforts, to hold fast, everything will relax, the world will relapse, your brethren will feel in themselves less strength and support ? Yes, surely it is so. Each one of us in a measure bears up the world, and those who cease to work and to watch overburden the rest.” (Gratry: Les Sources)

The Higher Degree: The Adjutorians

This is the right wing of the praying Legion. It comprises those who will (a) recite daily all the prayers of the tessera and in addition (b) agree to attend Mass and receive Holy Communion daily, and to recite daily an Office approved by the Church. See the reference in praetorian membership to the special value of an Office. Accordingly adjutorian membership is to the ordinary auxiliary membership what the praetorian membership is to the ordinary active membership. The additional duties are the same. Failure once or twice a week to fulfil the required conditions would not be regarded as a notable failure in the duty of membership. An Office is not required from religious who are not bound by their Rule to say one. The effort should be made to lead on the ordinary auxiliary to adjutorian membership, for it offers a veritable way of life. What is said in the section on the praetorians in regard to the uniting of the legionary to the prayer of the Church, and to the special value of an Office, applies likewise to the adjutorians. Special appeal is addressed to priests and religious to become adjutorians. The Legion earnestly desires union with this consecrated class, which has been specially deputed to lead lives of prayer and close intimacy with God, and which forms in the Church a glorious power-station of spiritual energy. Effectively linked up with that power-station, legionary machinery would pulsate with an irresistible force. Consideration will show how little this membership would add on to their existing obligations – no more, indeed, than the Catena, the Legion prayer, and some invocations: a matter of some minutes only. But through that bond with the Legion they have it in their power to become the driving force of the Legion. “Give me,” said Archimedes of old, “a lever and a support for it, and I will lift the Earth itself.” United to the Legion, the adjutorians will find in it that essential support on which to rest the long lever of their holy prayers, which then become omnipotent to uplift the burdened souls of the entire world and move away its mountainous problems. “In the Cenacle, where by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit the Church was definitely founded, Mary begins to exercise visibly, in the midst of the apostles and the disciples gathered together, a role which she will continue ever after to exercise in a more secret and intimate manner: that of uniting hearts in prayer and of giving life to souls through the merit of her all-powerful intercession: ‘All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with the women and Mary the Mother of Jesus and with his brethren’. (Acts I, 14)” (Mura: Le Corps Mystique du Christ)