The Current features a monthly series exploring some of the spiritual wisdom of the Benedictine tradition. The Benedictine Columba Marmion, who helped to found the monastery of Mont Cesar in Louvain and was its first prior, also served as abbot of Maredous from 1909 to his death in 1923. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2000. In his homliy at that Mass, John Paul said: "Throughout his life Blessed Columba was a n outstandin g spiritual director, having particular care for the interior life of priests and religious. To a young man preparing for ordination he once wrote: "The best of all preparations for the priesthood is to live each day with love, wherever obedience and Providence place us" (Letter, 27 December 1915). May a widespread rediscovery of the spiritual writings of Blessed Columba Marmion help priests, religious and laity to grow in union with Christ and bear faithful witness to him through ardent love of God and generous service of their brothers and sisters."

September 2019

BLESSED COLUMBA MARMION QUOTATIONS

​​​​​​​GOOD ZEAL
…Good zeal knows not this excess; it is not eager to impose its personal conceptions of perfection upon others, nor is it full of the sense of duty accomplished, nor of inconsiderate, violent impulses, but of the love of God, pure, humble, full of sweetness. Let us see how the holy Patriarch would have us manifest it. As for the forms of the good zeal of the monk towards his brethren, St. Benedict reduces them to three: respect, patience, and promptitude in rendering service. Our Lawgiver requires first of all respect: “let monks see to it that in honor they prefer one another.” These words are borrowed from Saint Paul (Rm 12:10: Honor one another above yourselves.) There are some who think that respect acts as a constraint to love, while in fact these two sentiments can be perfectly allied to one another: respect safeguards love. (Ideal of the Monk, 400)
 
MONASTIC LIFE IS CHRISTIAN LIFE
When we examine the Rule of St. Benedict, we see very clearly that he presents it only as an abridgment of Christianity, and a means of practicing the Christian Life in its fulness and perfection. We find the great Patriarch declaring from the first lines of the Prologue of his Rule, that he addresses only those who wish to return to God under Christ’s leadership. And in ending the monastic code, he declares that he proposes the accomplishment of this rule to whomsoever, through the help of Christ, hasteneth to the heavenly country: “Are you hastening toward your heavenly home? Then with Christ’s help, keep this little rule that we have written for beginners.” (Rule, 72). To his mind, the Rule is but a simple and very safe guide for leading to God. In writing it, St. Benedict does not wish to institute anything beyond or beside the Christian life: he does not assign to his monks any special work as a particular end to be pursued; the end is, as he says, “to seek God.” (Ideal of the Monk, 1-2)
 
 
A PERSONAL PRAYER
I have the custom of going every day at noon to make a short visit to the Blessed Sacrament, and there, putting everything else out of my mind, I say to our Lord: “My Jesus, tomorrow I am to receive you into my heart, and I wish to receive You perfectly. But I am all together incapable of this. You have Yourself said: “Without me you can do nothing.“ O Eternal Wisdom, do You Yourself prepare my soul to become your temple. I offer you, with this intention, my actions and sufferings of this day, in order that You may render them pleasing in Your divine eyes and that You may verify your words: The Most High has sanctified His tabernacle” (Ps. 65:5). Such a prayer is excellent; the day is thus directed towards union with Christ; love, principle of Union, envelops our actions; far from murmuring at anything disagreeable or troublesome that happens to us, we offer it to Jesus with a feeling of love, and the soul thus finds itself, as it were quite naturally, prepared when the moment comes to receive its God. (Abbot Columba Marmion, ch. 18)

For further reading:
- Christ: The Ideal of the Monk
- "Bl. Columba Marmion: A Spiritual Master for Our Time," R. Jared Staudt
- Biographical article from CatholicIreland.net
- Stations of the Cross derived from Marmion