Episode Details

Mary Stenson opens with reflections on Frank Duff’s life and death. At 91, Frank gave a lecture the week he died, going to a legionary’s funeral on his last day, and was found peacefully before the Sacred Heart picture that now hangs in Concilium. She shares news of the growing number of young catechumens entering the Church worldwide, including some from Muslim backgrounds, finding their way via the internet. The programme’s centrepiece is a quote from a homily by Fr. John Harris OP (prior of the Irish Dominicans), given at the Legion’s annual Knock pilgrimage, reflecting on the centenary of the closure of the Monto: the Legion as the community that crosses the road to Lazarus while the Church waits on the far side; and the Legion as a “school of salvation.”

Mary then plays audio of Fr. Francis Peffley introducing Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s 1966–69 address to the Legion in Rochester, New York — Sheen’s extraordinary tribute that the Legion was “the only present effective apostolate in the world,” that it anticipated Vatican II in its lay apostolate, its out-ministry, and its devotion to Mary as Mother of the Church. The show closes with the story of Fr. Francis’s parents Bill and Mary Peffley: their Legion courtship, their five-week Lourdes-and-Dublin honeymoon, their Catholic shop in Norristown Pennsylvania, Mary’s earlier work as secretary to Monsignor Fulton Sheen before Frank Duff sent her to Philadelphia, and Bill’s four Hollywood albums of songs about Jesus and Mary (among St. Mother Teresa’s favourites).

L'articolo All Things Legion – Ireland’s Newest Venerable: Fr Edward Joseph Flanagan – Mary Stenson proviene da Radio Maria.