Column A special grace from overlooked beatification
By ROBERT F. DRINAN
When I learned in the summer of 2000
that Benedictine Abbot Columba Marmion (1858-1923) was to be beatified I
rejoiced. Finally I related personally and strongly to one of the 996 persons
that have been beatified by Pope John Paul II.
When I was 22 and a Jesuit novice I discovered the three books of
Marmion. They informed and inspired me. I copied paragraphs from them in a
notebook. I prayed over many of the sentences. I remember vividly today the
sense of discovery and elation I experienced as I tried to assimilate
Marmions synthesis of the gospels, the 13 epistles of St. Paul and the
church fathers.
The three books Christ: The Life of a Soul, Christ in His
Mysteries and Christ the Ideal of the Monk were put together by the
Benedictine monks who listened to the conferences Marmion presented at his
monastery in Belgium.
One of the many striking things emphasized in Marmions books
was the directive of Christ at the Last Supper: Love one another as I
have loved you. I have tried to adapt that in speaking to countless
audiences. I was pleased to learn that these beautiful words are on the
tombstone of Mother Teresa.
After I read of his beatification Sept. 3, I borrowed one of
Marmions books from the Georgetown University library. The same rich
material was there, but the magic I experienced years ago did not return. I
knew this material well. It constitutes the basic ingredients of Christian
spirituality.
But I am still very happy that a priest whose works and writings
had meant so much to me is now beatified. I was also pleased to learn that it
was the Irish Jesuits, whose school in Dublin Marmion attended, that initiated
the move in 1936 for his canonization.
Joseph Marmion was born in Ireland in 1858 of a prosperous
merchant and a French mother. His father met his future wife when she was an
official in the French embassy in Ireland. The couple had nine children, three
of whom became nuns. Joseph became a diocesan priest and a professor at a
seminary but at the age of 30 joined the Benedictines in Belgium. There was no
Benedictine abbey at that time in Ireland. He took the name Columba after the
famous Irish saint.
Marmions books, which came towards the end of his career,
were translated into 15 languages and went into many editions; they had a
preface made up of the enthusiastic approval of Pope Benedict XV, Cardinal
Bourne of Westminster and Cardinal Mercier of Belgium.
John Paul II put it well at the beatification when he said that
Marmion left an authentic treasury of spiritual truth.
The Benedictines understood the exceptional quality of Marmion.
Ten years after his death, a Benedictine monastery named Marmion was
established in Aurora, Ill. The miracle cited for the beatification came in
1966 when a woman from St. Cloud, Minn., visited Marmions tomb in Belgium
and was cured of terminal cancer.
The beatification of Marmion was for me a special grace. I am not
sure what to think of the fact that John Paul II has beatified and canonized
more people than all his predecessors combined. One observer has said that the
present pope has lessened the dignity and majesty of creating saints.
The beatification of Marmion was almost obliterated by the
attention to Pope John XXIII and the uproar over Pius IX. The other two men
beatified that day -- Italian bishop Tomasso Reggio and Guillaume-Joseph
Chaminade -- were also overshadowed. Beatifications should be for one person.
Bringing together five widely different individuals obscures the whole ceremony
and sends out clashing and even contradictory signals.
The beatification of an intellectual and a theologian like Abbot
Marmion raises the hope that the Holy See will soon act on the cause of
Cardinal John Henry Newman. The Vatican did not act on the occasion of the
centennial of his death. Can we hope that soon we will be able to pray to
Newman as to we can now pray to Blessed Columba Marmion?
Jesuit Fr. Robert Drinan is a professor at Georgetown
University Law Center. His e-mail address is
drinan@law.georgetown.edu
National Catholic Reporter, November 3,
2000
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