In the monastery of Saint Benedict at Maredsous, also in Belgium, Blessed Columba (Joseph) Marmion, who, born in Ireland, was raised to the priesthood and afterward made abbot in the Order of Saint Benedict, and who, as father of his monastery and guide of souls, shone forth by his holiness of life, his spiritual teaching, and his eloquence.
Lifespan: 1858–1923
Beatified: 3 September 2000 by Pope John Paul II
Memoria liturgica: 30 January
“The best of all preparations for the priesthood is to live with love, wherever obedience and providence place us.”
Columba Marmion
Joseph-Aloysius Marmion was born in Dublin to an Irish father, William Marmion, and a French mother, Herminie Cordier, on 1 April 1858. Three of his sisters would become religious with the Sisters of Mercy.
Regarded by his parents as a gift from God — after the premature death of two other siblings — Joseph “was promised to God.”
He entered the diocesan Seminary of Dublin at the age of sixteen (in 1874) and would brilliantly complete his studies in theology at the College of Propaganda Fide in Rome.
He was ordained a priest at the church of Sant’Agata dei Goti on 16 June 1881.
He had dreamed of being a monk-missionary in Australia, but was captivated by the liturgical atmosphere of the newly founded Abbey of Maredsous in Belgium (founded by the Wolter brothers from Beuron in 1872), which he visited to greet a fellow student on his return from Rome in 1881. He wished to enter this monastery, but his Bishop asked him to wait and appointed him as curate at Dundrum, then professor at the Major Seminary of Clonliffe (1882–1886). As chaplain to a convent of Redemptoristine Sisters and chaplain at a women’s prison, he learned to guide souls, to hear confessions, to counsel, and even to assist the dying.
In mid-November 1886, he obtained from the Bishop permission to depart and become a monk, voluntarily detaching himself from what promised to be a distinguished ecclesiastical career. At Maredsous he was received by Dom Placid Wolter, first Abbot of this monastery still under construction.
His novitiate, lived under the austere direction of Dom Benoît D’Hondt — a strict and demanding Novice Master — alongside a group of young novices (while Marmion was already nearly thirty), was made all the harder by the fact that he had to change his habits, culture, and language. But since he affirmed that he had entered the monastery in search of obedience, he could do nothing but set his teeth and allow himself to be formed in monastic discipline, fraternal life, and choral prayer until his solemn profession on 10 February 1891. From that point he assisted the Novice Master, gave classes in the College, and above all began to preach with great success when permitted to assist the clergy in parishes near Maredsous.
His first great act of obedience came when he was appointed to join the small group of monks who were to found the Abbey of Mont-César at Louvain. Although this separation was a great sorrow to him, he gave himself to it completely, in the name of obedience. He was soon entrusted with the role of Prior alongside Father Abbot de Kerchove, as well as with spiritual responsibility and instruction for all the young monks who came to Louvain to study philosophy and theology.
It was there that he devoted himself to an intensive ministry of retreat-preaching, in Belgium and in Great Britain, and at the same time to a great number of spiritual direction relationships (especially with communities of Carmelite sisters). He would soon become confessor to Bishop Joseph Mercier, the future Cardinal.
Columba Marmion also maintained an extensive correspondence in spiritual direction. He was likewise a significant point of reference for certain faculties and institutes of the University of Louvain, where he was consulted on account of his learning and authority.
During this period, the Abbey of Maredsous was under the governance of Dom Hildebrand de Hemptine, its second Abbot, who became in 1893, at the request of Leo XIII, the first Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Confederation. His frequent stays in Rome eventually led to the request for his replacement as Abbot. Dom Columba Marmion was elected third Abbot of Maredsous on 28 September 1909 and blessed on 3 October. He thus found himself at the head of a community of more than one hundred monks, with a School of Humanities, a School of Applied Arts, a large farm, and an established reputation in research and scholarship on the origins of the faith — particularly through the Revue Bénédictine and various other publications.
These manifold local responsibilities would force Columba Marmion, despite his missionary zeal, to decline an offer put forward by the Belgian Government to Maredsous for the opening of a mission in Katanga.
The care of the community did not, however, prevent Dom Marmion from pursuing both his intensive apostolate through retreat-preaching and his numerous and regular spiritual direction relationships. It is therefore not surprising that he was asked to assist the Anglican monks of Caldey who wished to become Catholics, and to ensure the spiritual and canonical integrity of that transition.
The great trial of Abbot Marmion — who at this time was fifty-six and already suffering from several health problems — was the war of 1914–1918. His decision to shelter the younger monks in Ireland so that they might continue their formation in peace would provoke heavy burdens, perilous journeys, anxieties, and misunderstandings between the two generations of a community shaken and divided by the war. In 1920 it became necessary to establish the Belgian Congregation of the Annunciation (Maredsous, Mont-César, Saint-André de Zevenkerken).
Dom Marmion was regarded moreover as a great Abbot and a spiritual and doctrinal point of reference.
When he died during an influenza epidemic on 30 January 1923 at ten o’clock in the evening, his reputation for holiness had already been established among many of his contemporaries. A new monastery took his name as early as 1933: Marmion Abbey (U.S.A.).
For an entire generation of Catholics — and more particularly of priests, religious men and women — Dom Columba Marmion was a master of the spiritual life. By drawing Catholics back to the biblical (especially Pauline) and liturgical sources of their faith, he made them truly conscious of their life as children of God, animated by the Spirit, humble and simple in their recourse to the mercy and love of the Father. This vision was accompanied by a deep sense of participation in the Body of Christ in the Eucharist and by a strong Marian devotion, which looked to the Mother of Jesus to form Christ in all who turned to her.
Today the Church draws the attention of all the faithful to the spiritual fruitfulness of the doctrine of Columba Marmion.