I. PERSONAL HOLINESS. II. CATHOLIC ACTION.
“THE Sodality of Our Lady is a religious body which aims at fostering in its members an ardent devotion, reverence and filial love towards the Blessed Virgin Mary, and through this devotion and the protection of so good a Mother, it seeks to make the faithful, gathered together under her name, good Catholics sincerely bent on sanctifying themselves, each in his own state of life, and zealous, as far as their condition in life permits, to save and sanctify their neighbour and to defend the Church of Jesus Christ against the attacks of the wicked.”
The above is the first and primary rule of the Sodality and sets forth its essential aims: personal holiness and Catholic Action; including work for the salvation and sanctification of one’s neighbour, and the spread and defence of the Church. The Sodality is a society whose members realise that religion is not merely a subject for the class-room or the pulpit, but a life that must be lived. The Sodality is the link between Catholic education and Catholic action. It demands of its member’s personal interest in their faith and the realisation that, as Catholics, they have the obligation of sharing wonderfully great gifts with others.
The Sodality is an organisation devoted to a full Catholic life. It is concerned first and foremost with the personal holiness of its members. Then it demands of its members lives of apostolic zeal. Personal holiness is essential. The Sodality believes that apostles who are not themselves good are simply a peril to the Church and a lie to the world.
It knows that a person can do little good for others if he be not himself good. We cannot give others a love of God unless we love God. We cannot preach purity with impure lips. So the Sodality insists on personal holiness. It offers to its members as the vital springs of personal holiness the love of the world’s two most important persons, Christ and His Mother. Loyalty to Christ, the Son of Mary, especially in His Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, is fundamental in the Sodality. Then, as the Sodalist seeks the one person who perfectly served Christ, his eyes fall upon Mary. He determines to serve Christ as Mary did. Under her patronage the Sodalist builds the noble edifice of his spiritual life. Because of Mary purity is an essential Sodality virtue. Respect for womanhood is inevitable in the life of one who has looked with love upon the supreme type of womanhood. The girl knows that in Christ’s eyes she is really another Mary. The young man knows that he must prove himself worthy of the Mother who has accepted him as her son.
United to these two fundamental devotions is the devotion to the patron saint of the particular Sodality. For each Sodality has a secondary patron (Mary, under some special title, is always its primary patron); it chooses some noble hero or heroine of God for its second model. Upon Christ, Our Lady and their patron saint the Sodalists model their personal holiness. Consequently, a life beyond the ordinary is expected of them. They are not to be commonplace Catholics. They are to be Catholics who serve the King generously, honour the Queen Mother with deep affection and follow the difficult footsteps of God’s heroes and heroines. Mary is the Mediatrix of All Grace, distributing with generous hand the graces, which her Son has merited for all mankind. Sodalists in their life of Catholic Action co-operate with their Queen and Patroness in bringing grace into the lives of others. They are the servants of grace.
