Links between Brazil & Ireland
The Legion of Mary – Over 50 years in
Brazil (2001)
By Tadhg Mc Mahon
Dublin - 25/09/1901. The Legion of Mary arrived in Brazil fifty years ago and has
become one of the most vibrant Catholic apostolic organizations in the
Brazilian church with over a million and a half members active and
auxiliary. Although most of those who
set up the Legion throughout Brazil were Irish members of
the Legion, the first branch was set up by Br. John Creff, a French Brother of
the Congregation of Our Lady of Salette.
Br. John had been told about the Legion of Mary in 1950 by a French
priest who had encountered the Legion while a prisoner-of war in Germany. The first branch began with official sanction
in Rio on 27 October 1951.
Cardinal Jaime de Barros Camara had stipulated that it should function
beyond the confines of the parish of Our lady of Fatima. This limitation was lifted in 1953. The first direct contact with Ireland came in 1954 when Dublin sent first its
Philippine Envoy, Joaquina Lucas, who had already spent several years in Latin America, and the first Irish
Legionary, Alfie Lambe, who had been in Latin America since 1953. Joaquina and Alfie made the initial
foundations São Paulo, Ceará, Goiás, Paraná. Both have passed on to their eternal reward
with Alfie dying in Buenos Aires in 1959, age 26 years, whose cause for
beatification has been introduced.
Mary Clerkin, who arrived in Brazil in 1955, contributed
more than any other sent from Ireland by the Legion to the
spreading of the Legion in Brazil. This young teacher from County Monaghan spent five exhausting
years travelling throughout Brazil from Paraná to Tefe in
Amazonas, opening up the Brazilian hinterland to the Legion. Dying aged 58 after four years’ of illness may have been the cost of her task – a
cost she gladly paid. As she wrote in a
telegram to Dublin on the death of Alfie Lambe in Argentina “She with Joaquina and
Alfie are now with Edel Quinn who is venerated throughout the world for her
heroic life in Africa. Where she
died in 1944. Two others were sent to
complete the work of Legion expansion in Brazil, Tadhg McMahon,
1959-1962 and Tom Honey, 1961-64; 1965-68.
In the early years of expansion there were almost no Irish priests or
nuns but subsequently many of them gave valuable support to the organization,
and continue to do so.
During the
past 15 years or so the Legion has experienced considerable growth and
development in Brazil. Some years after the Vatican Council,
premature judgements were made as to the relevance of the Legion to the
contemporary Church, so that there was a certain decline. Its relevance was evident in its broad
commitment to the principal areas of Christian growth and service.
It seeks to
lead its members to achieve their full religious growth, a growth that involves
personal, social, spiritual, intellectual and emotional development. Members meet weekly where prayer, discussion,
planning, reporting and comradeship combine to inform inspire and motivate
those present to effective love and service of others. Each member undertakes a weekly task usually
with a companion. The tasks vary from
prison visitation, to teaching literacy classes, promotion of prayer and the
Sacraments, dialogue and prayer, if appropriate, with those not of the Catholic
or Christian faith, catechetical work for children, youths and adults. The
preferred work is visitation of homes, not to proselize or to intrude into the
lives of others, but to be of service, convinced that friendly communion with
others is the means by which God enters human life and human goodness is
realized and given its highest expression, meaning and purpose. As a Catholic organization the Legion has a
special trust in the Catholic Church and only functions in communion with it
and with the permission of its authorities.
It achieves its greatest successes when working in harmony with the
local church. It can scarcely develop
bonds of friendship and cooperation with those not of the Church if failing to
be in harmony with those who are part of the Church. It is convinced of the inestimable value of
the Church especially in its witness to the truth though the Bible and its magisterium, its prayer, its liturgical
and sacramental life, its commitment to full human happiness now and in the
hereafter. It has an uncompromising
supernatural emphasis without losing sight of real needs. Its handbook states it cannot be indifferent
to the material needs of those about them.
The training of people to earn a living as well as instruction in such
areas as child welfare, home made medicines and hygiene are some of the works
undertaken in the service of others. In Dublin and elsewhere it runs
hostels for the destitute and marginalized.
Perhaps it may do so in Brazil.
Administration. Brazil has eight principal
administrative centres all directly linked to the international administrative
centre in Dublin.
The world centre in Dublin receives reports from
all over the world and likewise seeks to pass on to each local centre. Reports from Brazil are always a source of
inspiration and enlightenment for Legion centres throughout the world. A word of gratitude to Brazilian Church and
its people that have enthusiastically made the Legion of Mary its very own.
The Legion of
Mary
De Montford House
Morning Star Avenue
Brunswick Street, Dublin
7
t. 0021 3531 872-3153
f. 0021 3531 872-6386
The Legion of Mary in Brazil
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