1. None is a true knight unless
he is ready to sacrifice himself entirely for the honour of his Lady. The Lady
of the knights of the Order is the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, and the
honour of Our Lady is the Glory of God. On earth the Order is, in a special
way, the Court of the most Holy Virgin, just as in heaven the Angels are her
glorious escort.
2. The spiritual life of the knights is entirely entrusted
to the Holy Mother of God who is the Mother of Christ and the Church. It is her
mission to communicate divine life to them, and to bear them, even as she bore
Christ, to eternal life. She is the guardian of their fidelity to Christ, and
all address her with this traditional cry of old chivalry: Our Lady, keep us from perjury!
3. The knights will learn to know Jesus Christ through His
divine Mother; they will listen in the depths of their soul to the secrets of
holiness that Mary ceaselessly draws from the Heart of Jesus; they will not
separate the Heart of Jesus from the Heart of Mary.
4. They will love to meditate
what the Gospel, the Fathers, and the Magisterium of the Church teach us about
Mary, and will thereby give to their piety the solid foundation of catholic faith.[1]
(76)
5. For love of Our Lady, the faithful Virgin, Mirror of
divine perfection, they will try to resemble her by imitating her virtues.
These are particularly: Faith, which
receives unhesitatingly the message of divine revelations, as it is written: Blessed is she who believed[2] (77)
Purity, as of someone entirely given
up to God, without compromise with sin or the world: Humility, which recognises our condition of servant[3]
(78) and seeks self-effacement before God. Magnanimity,
with which the humble Virgin of Nazareth accepted with equal willingness
the sword of compassion[4]
(79) and the glory of divine and royal maternity, with all the privileges which
flow there from.
6. The brothers will honour the Virgin most fervently in
her sanctuary at CHARTRES, and will contribute to the splendour of her cult by
the celebration of their offices and by their chapters, and by all sorts of
good works.
In the most ancient crypt of
Notre Dame de Sous-Terre, the Virgin who
shall bear a child[5]
(80), the King of all the ages, has been pleased to establish his knights,
teaching them thereby that only the grain of wheat buried in the ground bears
much fruit[6]
(81), and that the future glory of the Kingdom of Heaven has humble and hidden
beginnings. In the same way, the brothers will honour the other sacred places
which the Order has received as Capitular churches, in the various countries in
which it has been established, and in general all the sanctuaries dedicated to
Our Lady or visited by Her in preparation for the second Comingocial
institutions. They will always defend her honour, not resigning themselves to
see neglected or forgotten the sacred titles of the Mother of God. Wherever
Mary is Queen, Jesus Christ will be King.
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