36 Facts About Columba Marmion

Columba Marmion was born in Queen Street, Dublin, Ireland on 1 April 1858, into a large and very religious family; three of his sisters became nuns.

Columba Marmion received his secondary education at the Jesuit Belvedere College in Dublin.

At the age of 16, Columba Marmion entered the diocesan seminary at Holy Cross College in Clonliffe.

Columba Marmion travelled to Rome in December 1879 to complete his studies at the Pontifical Irish College.

Columba Marmion was ordained in Rome on 16 June 1881, and celebrated his first Mass the next day.

Columba Marmion was impressed with the community and considered whether his vocation might lie there.

Columba Marmion "possessed an extraordinary facility for adapting himself to other people", and above all "in comforting others and putting them at their ease".

In September 1882, he was appointed Professor of Metaphysics at Holy Cross College at Clonliffe, the Dublin diocesan seminary where Columba Marmion himself had studied.

Columba Marmion joined the monastic community at Maredsous in November 1886, having received his archbishop's approval.

Columba Marmion had a difficult time adjusting to the novitiate.

Columba Marmion suffered from loneliness, being older than his fellow novices and already a priest, and he was not fluent in French.

When this proved too difficult for him, Columba Marmion instead was appointed to teach philosophy to the monks in formation.

Columba Marmion became well-known in the area for his preaching after a sermon given at a local parish a few days after his profession.

Columba Marmion was appointed the rector of a new college founded at Maredsous, but was not successful and was removed from the position after a year and made a professor of English instead.

Columba Marmion acted as assistant to the novice master and continued to teach philosophy to the junior monks.

In 1899, Columba Marmion helped to found the Abbey of Mont Cesar, Louvain, Belgium, and became its first prior and prefect of clerics, positions which he held until he left Mont Cesar in 1909.

Columba Marmion taught dogmatic theology at Louvain, following the thought of Thomas Aquinas.

Columba Marmion's lectures were distinguished by, "on the one hand, his extreme clearness, and on the other his happy and fluent application of doctrine to the inner life".

Rather than presenting "revealed truths like mere theorems of geometry having no bearing on the interior life", Columba Marmion sought to inspire his students to "live in and by the mysteries he set forth to them".

Columba Marmion became spiritual director to many other communities and gave frequent retreats in Belgium, Ireland, and England.

De Hemptinne had difficulty fulfilling both roles, and in 1905 Columba Marmion's name began to be mentioned as a possible successor as abbot of Maredsous.

Columba Marmion had the abbey equipped with electricity and central heating, facilities rarely to be found in monasteries at that time.

Columba Marmion consulted the monks of Maredsous who, though sympathetic, opposed the offer due to the lack of available monks.

In February 1913, Columba Marmion was invited to give a retreat to the Anglican monks of Caldey Abbey and nuns of Milford Haven to prepare for their reception into the Catholic Church; the following June, he celebrated Mass for them on the occasion of their being established as a Benedictine monastery.

Columba Marmion decided to travel to England in September 1914 to find accommodations for the younger monks there or in Ireland, so that their studies would not be interrupted.

Between the difficulties of setting up the house, reassuring others that it was not meant to be permanent, and his own health problems, Columba Marmion was not able to return to Maredsous until May 1916.

The chaplain of the occupying Allied forces wrote to Columba Marmion, asking what was to be done with the monastery.

Columba Marmion obtained permission from Pope Benedict XV, who had originally planned to send monks from another abbey, but Cardinal Gasparri, the pope's Secretary of State, required that the occupation be temporary.

Columba Marmion was struck during a flu epidemic and died on 30 January 1923.

In 1895, Columba Marmion gave a retreat for a small group of nuns.

Dom Raymond Thibaut, a monk of Maredsous, was chosen by the prior to assemble the book from conferences that Columba Marmion gave, with some input from Columba Marmion himself.

Columba Marmion did not originate this idea, but "it would be difficult to find another who had given the mystery such preeminence, making it, as he does, the beginning and the end of the spiritual life".

Columba Marmion's writings have received formal and informal endorsements from multiple popes, including Benedict XV, Pius XI, Pius XII, Paul VI, and John Paul II.

Columba Marmion's body was found to be incorrupt after more than 40 years.

Dom Columba Marmion was beatified on 3 September 2000 by Pope John Paul II, on the same occasion as Pope John XXIII, Pope Pius IX, Tommaso Reggio, and William Chaminade.

Thanks to Dom Raymond Thibaut, his secretary, the central teachings of Dom Columba Marmion, delivered orally in French, were memorialized in writing as follows:.