Beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 3, 2000, Columba was one of the most popular[1] and influential[2] Catholic authors of the 20th century.
[3] Columba was born in Queen Street, Dublin, Ireland on 1 April 1858, into a large and very religious family; three of his sisters became nuns.
[12] On his journey back to Ireland, he passed through Maredsous, Belgium – a monastery founded in 1872 by Benedictine monks from the Abbey of Beuron, Germany.
Marmion's work as a parish priest "daily brought him into contact with a cross-section of humanity", and he was "called upon to advise, teach, console and give every kind of spiritual and material aid".
[16] In September 1882, he was appointed Professor of Metaphysics at Holy Cross College at Clonliffe, the Dublin diocesan seminary where Marmion himself had studied.
[21] He 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.
[26] Rather than presenting "revealed truths like mere theorems of geometry having no bearing on the interior life",[27] Marmion sought to inspire his students to "live in and by the mysteries he set forth to them".
[28] In addition to teaching, Marmion was the spiritual director of the Carmelite nuns in Louvain, visiting them weekly to hear confessions and give conferences.
The pope allowed him to remain as the abbot of Maredsous, though the position required de Hemptinne to spend most of his time in Rome.
[31] De Hemptinne had difficulty fulfilling both roles, and in 1905 Marmion's name began to be mentioned as a possible successor as abbot of Maredsous.
[36] In December 1909, the government of Belgium asked Maredsous to consider founding a Benedictine monastery in Katanga, in the Belgian Congo.
[38] In February 1913, 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.
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.
When he arrived in England, he was at first turned away for lack of a passport but managed to convince a fellow Irishman customs officer to allow him entry.
[56] In contrast to the literature of the time, which was a mere "rehash... of pious thoughts",[57] Marmion's work was described as "revolutionary",[57] initiating "a profound spiritual revival".
[59] 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".
[61][62] Sources for Marmion's thought include, preeminently, the Bible (especially St. Paul and St. John), the Church Fathers, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Liturgy (i.e., the Mass, the Divine Office, the sacraments), as well as St. Francis de Sales and Msgr.
Thanks to Dom Raymond Thibaut, his secretary, the central teachings of Columba, delivered orally in French,[72] were memorialized in writing as follows: These were translated into English, respectively, as follows: