Daniel Ng and Ca-Mie De Souza
On Saturday 1 June 2024, nearly 50 former members of the Legion of Mary in Catholic Junior College came together for a celebration in anticipation of next year’s 50th anniversary of its founding.
Since its inception, the Legion in CJC has played a pivotal role in the supply of legionaries in Singapore. It accomplished this by continuing the faith formation of its members who hail from CJC’s feeder secondary schools, and passing them onwards to presidia in tertiary institutions and thereafter, in the workplace.
The effect of this consistent faith formation through active participation in the Legion is long lasting. As an attendee and still active legionary Francisca Tan reflected, “Legion has made me want to live simply and humbly, and to be of service to others. Even till today, my closest friends are from the Legion.”
Besides going on to serve the Church as active members of the laity, a number of legionaries have chosen to dedicate their lives entirely to the Lord by becoming priests and religious. These included LaSalle Br Nicholas Seet and Gabrielite Br Dominic Yeo Koh who founded a presidium each in CJC in 1975.
While the Legion in CJC stopped in 2015 after rendering 40 years of service, the spirit of camaraderie was evident across different generations of legionaries at this gathering which began with Holy Mass celebrated by Fr Adrian Danker SJ. Fr Danker himself was a CJC alumnus and former teacher. In his sermon, Fr Adrian drew attention to the fact that by choosing CJC and the Legion, all present shared another thing in common – their deep desire to be with the Lord.
Mass was followed by fellowship over lunch as the alumni caught up with old friends, made new ones and reacquainted themselves with the premises which was home for their two years of junior college education .
Looking ahead to next year’s celebration, the attendees hope to reconnect with even more former members. Estimated to be in the hundreds, many of these members have been out of contact as social media and personal hand phones only caught on in later years. May the Legion’s outreach bear fruit in the coming year so that Mother Mary, Our Queen, may again see her soldiers gathered in battle array, ready again to work together in doing the Lord’s work .
If you are a CJC legionary alumni, do connect with us for next year’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2025 via email：cjc.lom1975@gmail.com. Totus Tuus!
