Emily M. Axelrod in her book, Let’s Stop Meeting Like This: Tools to Save Time and Get More Done, makes this observation: “No matter what role you play in a meeting, how you show up in that role is critical to the meeting’s success.” I would have to agree with Ms. Axelrod – with one clarification. Perhaps even more critical than HOW we show up for a meeting is THAT we show up for the meeting. Even the best prepared individual can do absolutely nothing at a meeting never attended!
Convinced of this, the Legion in its “Standing Instructions” includes not only the adjective “punctual,” but also that of “regular” in connection with “attendance at the weekly meeting of the praesidium” (H, 109). It wants members to know their duty can be compromised not just by failing to show up on time for the meeting, but even more by failing to show up at all for the meeting!
In justifying such a precept (which it terms the “primary obligation” of each legionary), the Handbook curiously does not appeal to the good effects regular attendance has on the individual member. It assumes that each understands that, just as clay only takes shape as a useful vessel when pressed and shaped continuously by the potter, so the member can only assume the form of a true soldier of Our Lady when “pressed and shaped” week after week by the Legion system. Instead, the Handbook appeals to the effects meeting attendance has on other members. It begs the legionary not to forget that, when an individual is absent from the praesidium’s meeting, absent with him or her are the prayers, insights, reports, and comments which the Holy Spirit could have used to build up members in Legion identity and for the Legion cause. Fellow members therefore are that much “less” because “more” were not sitting at the table, fulfilling their unique and essential roles.
To ratify this point in the minds of members, the Handbook presents a few fascinating images. One of these recalls how a magnifying glass can only cause a fire when the various individual rays of the sun at one’s disposal are gathered together and focused through a magnifying glass (H, 70). So it works with the Legion. Only when the various individual members at a praesidium’s disposal gather and are focused through the business of the meeting will members be set afire in holiness and for service. Faithful attendance has that much significance for the group as a whole.
Someone once said that half of life is showing up. I am not so sure about that. But I can say that so much of love is. That is why, when we “show up” regularly for Legion meetings, we are manifesting our great love for God and for our fellow Legion members in caring enough to honor our commitment. May that kind of love lived loyally at our weekly meetings ignite a fire that sets members ablaze for Jesus and Mary.
February 18, 2018/Allocutio to the Philadelphia Senatus/Rev. Frank Giuffre Reading: Handbook: Chapter 11, Number 4 (“The Primary Obligation”): pp. 70-71