ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA

Dear Friends,

I believe that any reflection on Abbot Marmion will eventually lead us to a reflection on Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. For this reason, permit me to begin by greeting you with the first words of this Letter: "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."

It is a joy to be here. It is a joy to participate in this colloquium honoring Blessed Columba Marmion. It is a joy to reflect that now for over five years he has been honored by the Church with the title Blessed. For myself personally, it has been an outstanding grace in my life to have become acquainted years ago with Dom Columba Marmion. His writings have truly influenced my way of thinking. I am deeply grateful for this great grace and I am grateful to the person who first introduced me to the works of Abbot Marmion. I cannot pinpoint the exact year, but I know that it was at the beginning of my studies in the minor seminary. It is now more than fifty-five years that I have been reading Abbot Marmion.

I had always hoped to be able to assist at his Beatification. Five years ago, on September 3rd in the Jubilee Year 2000, I had that great opportunity when he was beatified by Pope John Paul II, together with Pope Pius IX, Pope John XXIII, Archbishop Tommaso Reggio of Genoa and Father William Joseph Chaminade.

It is a privilege now to speak of Blessed Columba Marmion: Doctor of Divine Adoption. I am convinced that he merits the title which, as a matter of fact, has been used for a number of years. I know it was used as early as 1946 by Dom Thibaut, Monk of Maredsous, in his splendid work, L'Idée Maîtresse de la Doctrine de Dom Marmion. In that work reference is made to Dom Van Houtryve and to a work of his, L'esprit de Dom Marmion. I am very grateful to Father Mark Tierney, O.S.B., Vice-Postulator for the Cause of the Canonization of Dom Columba Marmion, for having recently given me a copy of this splendid work, which has helped me in the preparation of this presentation today.

In the Foreword to his great work, Christ the Life of the Soul, Abbot Marmion writes the following words: "My object in these, as in all my other instructions, is to fix the eyes and the hearts of my readers on Jesus Christ and on His word. He is the Alpha and Omega of all sanctity and His word is the divine seed, from which all sanctity springs. In the first ages of the Church these two divine principles, untrammelled in their action, produced wonders of sanctity, but, little by little, men, not content with the simplicity of the divine message, mingled their own conceptions with those of God.

"I felt convinced that if I could deliver God’s message in His own words, according to the divine simplicity of His plan, these same effects would follow, and I must say that my hopes have not been disappointed" (p. 13).

Abbot Marmion speaks of the simplicity of God’s message. He identifies this divine simplicity to a great extent with the gift of divine adoption and this gift of divine adoption becomes, for him, the summary of divine revelation.

Let us return to the first chapter of Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved" (Eph 1:3-6).

It is the opinion of Dom Thibaut that the entire doctrine of Dom Marmion is indeed summarized in this text: God has predestined us: there is a divine decree; to become his adopted children: and this is the object as far as we are concerned of this predestination; through Jesus Christ: this is the way that was chosen by God to realize his plan (cf. L'Idée Maîtresse, p. 20). In the thought of Dom Marmion, and this is indicated by Dom Thibaut, there exists an eternal decree which controls and regulates God’s entire work of salvation and holiness, a decree which at the same time affects us and which, if we accept it, elevates us to a participation in divinity. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have predestined us to participate in their divine life, to enter into their communion. And this takes place through the grace of adoption, which makes us God’s children and the heirs of His glory. This eternal predestination is realized, in time, through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Father before all ages. Jesus Christ assumes personally through the Incarnation a human nature which belongs to Him alone. Through this humanity, the Son of God communicates to those who accept Him, a participation in His divine filiation. It is indeed to establish the Kingdom of the children of God, in which He will be the elder brother, that the Son has come among us, and that He has effected our redemption. The work of salvation and sanctification continue in the Church throughout all ages under the action of the Holy Spirit. This is the thought of Dom Marmion—his "idée maîtresse." This is the summary of the divine plan. All of God’s actions in the world are related to this plan. For this reason, Dom Marmion makes divine adoption in Christ Jesus the center of his teaching. Everything he says leads us to this central idea, leads us to the fact that God destined us for adoption to Himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of His will, for the praise of the glory of His grace that He granted us in His beloved Son.

In this teaching on divine filiation, adoptive filiation, we find the substance of revelation. Here we find the fundamental dogma of the divine paternity of God and of our adoption in His Son Jesus Christ. We find the Three Persons of the Most Blessed Trinity: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We find the elevation of man at his creation to a supernatural state as a child of God. We see the influence of original sin and the marvelous restoration of the divine plan through the Incarnation, which makes Christ our elder brother and, through the redemption, which, in restoring our eternal heritage, establishes Christ as Head of the Mystical Body, the Church, and as the universal dispenser of all grace—a divine work that is prolonged throughout the centuries by the Church and which the life-giving Spirit incessantly renders fruitful by his action (cf. L'Idée Maîtresse, pp. 21, 53).

Columba Marmion emphasized the eternal decree of adoption in Christ Jesus whereby, according to the Letter to the Ephesians, we become one in the Son of God, in Jesus Christ. But Dom Marmion was also intent on emphasizing another aspect of the divine plan whereby the only begotten Son of God becomes the Firstborn among many brothers and sisters. He is very fond of Saint Paul’s reference in the Letter to the Romans where it is stated: "For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined he also called; and those he called he also justified; and those he justified he also glorified" (Rm 8:29-30). In Christ the Life of the Soul, Abbot Marmion emphasizes the eternal act of God’s predestination whereby we are led to participate in the divine sonship of Jesus. The realization of this divine plan is entrusted to Jesus Christ Himself and is accomplished through His sacred humanity. Blessed Columba Marmion says: "The Divine Sonship which is in Christ by nature, and makes Him God’s own and only Son...is to be extended to us by grace, so that in the thought of God, Christ is the First-born of many brethren, who are by grace what He is by nature, sons of God....

"We are here at the central point of the Divine Plan: it is from Jesus Christ, it is through Jesus Christ that we receive the Divine adoption. ‘God sent His Son’, said Saint Paul, ‘that we might receive the adoption of sons’" ( p. 35).

In even greater detail, Abbot Marmion summarizes this divine plan of our adoption. He says: "God is a Father. Eternally, long before the created light rose upon the world, God begets a Son to Whom He communicates His Nature, His perfections, His beatitude, His life, for to beget is to communicate being and life.... In God then is life, life communicated by the Father and received by the Son. This Son, like in all things to the Father, is the only Son of God.... He is so because he has, with the Father, one same and indivisible Divine Nature, and both, although distinct from one another (on account of their personal properties "of being Father" and "of being Son"), are united in a powerful, substantial embrace of love, whence proceeds that Third Person, Whom Revelation calls by a mysterious name: the Holy Ghost.

"Such is, as far as faith can know it, the secret of the inmost life of God; the fulness and the fruitfulness of this life are the source of the incommensurable bliss that the ineffable society of the three Divine Persons possesses.

"And now God–not in order to add to His plentitude, but by it to enrich other beings–extends, as it were, His Paternity. God decrees to call creatures to share this Divine life, so transcendent that God alone has the right to live it, this eternal life communicated by the Father to the Only Son, and by them to the Holy Spirit. In a transport of love which has its source in the fulness of Being and Good that God is, this life overflows from the bosom of the Divinity to reach and beatify beings drawn out of nothingness, by lifting them above their nature. To these mere creatures God will give the condition and sweet name of children. By nature God has only one Son; by love, He wills to have an innumerable multitude: that is the grace of supernatural adoption" (ibid., pp. 23-24).

And this is what Blessed Columba Marmion taught, this was l'idée maîtresse of his teaching, beautifully and consistently presented throughout all his works, and this is why he is respectfully presented to the determining judgment of the Church as the Doctor of Divine Adoption.

It should be noted that the life that is received by the Son, by the eternal Word, and that is shared with humanity when the Unigenitus Dei Filius, the only begotten Son of God, becomes the Primogenitus in multis fratribus, the firstborn of many brothers and sisters, leads to glory. The Second Vatican Council will arrange its teaching on the Church in such a way that the next to last chapter of Lumen Gentium will draw attention to the eschatological dimension of the Church in which all the children of God share eternal life with Christ in the communion of the Blessed Trinity.

The teaching on divine adoption, for Blessed Columba Marmion, summarizes the Church’s teaching on the Most Blessed Trinity. It takes into account the action of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is, by its nature, profoundly Trinitarian. But it is likewise profoundly Christological, because every human being who is configured to Christ, every human being who is granted the privilege of entering into the sonship of Jesus, is radically related to Him.

Blessed Columba Marmion explains in great detail how Christ is the life of the soul, how Christ is the model of all Christian living, the model of the human activity and virtues of all those who are destined to be His brothers and sisters through divine adoption. Jesus Christ is also the meritorious cause of salvation. By His Death on the Cross, Jesus Christ has merited the great gift of reestablishing humanity in the relationship of divine filiation with the Son. And Jesus Christ is the one, in the thought of Columba Marmion, who is indeed the efficient cause, the one who personally brings it about, that the individual human being is configured to Christ and receives a participation in His divine filiation. This filiation is brought about by Jesus Christ who is the exemplary cause, the meritorious cause and the efficient cause of all holiness. Through His sacraments, Jesus Christ works to bring about in each human being what He has initially brought about for all humanity through His Death on the Cross.

The Second Vatican Council has insisted that God’s plan of salvation and sanctification does not involve us as disconnected individuals, but that we are all destined to be incorporated into the Church, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. And it is in this Mystical Body of Christ that the whole divine plan is realized: God’s plan of incorporating us into Christ, God’s plan of making us His children and having us share with one another the dignity of the children of God.

In presenting the divine plan of our adoption in Christ, Blessed Columba Marmion, in accord with the most sacred tradition of the Church, outlines the work of the Holy Spirit. This is in keeping with the teaching of the Church, both in the East and the West. Blessed Columba beautifully explains the role of the Holy Spirit in the Most Blessed Trinity. He explains the operations of the Holy Spirit in Christ. He explains the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church and the action of the Holy Spirit in souls. It is impossible to understand how the gift of divine adoption is effected by the Father, apart from Christ and apart from the action of the Holy Spirit.

When we speak about the great love of God that has made it possible for us to be His children, we must, of necessity, speak about the role of the Holy Spirit. And Abbot Marmion does this very effectively. He explains that the Holy Trinity acts in the world as one and the same cause. And, yet, he shows how the Church attributes to one or other of the Divine Persons certain actions which are produced in the world and, although common to the Three Persons, have a special relation or an intimate affinity with the place which this Person occupies in the Blessed Trinity, and with the attributes which are particularly and exclusively His own. And, so, Abbot Marmion explains that the Holy Spirit is the ultimate term of the divine operations of the life of God in Himself. The Holy Spirit closes, so to speak, the cycle of the intimate divine life: it is His personal property to proceed from both the Father and the Son by way of love. This is why all that is a work of achievement, of perfection, all that is a work of love, of union, and, consequently, of holiness—for our holiness is measured by our degree of union with God—is attributed to the Holy Spirit (cf. Christ the Life of the Soul, pp. 108-109).

In this way, the Church can attribute divine adoption to the action of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the substantial love of the Father and the Son. The love of the Father and the Son causes us to become children of God. And Saint Paul says that this love is poured out by the Holy Spirit. Holiness is the complete expression of our divine adoption and the Holy Spirit perfects in us the interior transformation to the image of Christ, the Son of God. To the Holy Spirit, then, is attributed every work of sanctification, of completion, of achievement. The sublime end to which all the operations of the Holy Spirit in the soul tend is to perfect the interior transformation to the image of Christ, the Son of God. In presenting to us the teaching on divine filiation, divine adoption, Columba Marmion leads us into the mystery and action of the Holy Spirit and thereby into a deeper understanding of the whole mystery of the Most Blessed Trinity.

In Part II of Christ the Life of the Soul, Abbot Marmion presents the foundation and double aspect of the Christian life. And he presents these as the response of Christians to the grace of divine adoption. For Abbot Marmion, the response to the divine plan is Christian living and this Christian living involves both death to sin and life to God. The two fundamental aspects of Christian living are faith and Baptism. Blessed Columba Marmion reminds us that faith is the foundation of all Christian life. He reminds us of Saint Paul’s words: "For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:26). He reminds us that faith is the acceptance of Jesus Christ and that it "embraces, as its primordial object, the Divinity of Jesus sent by the Eternal Father to work out our salvation. From this principal object, faith radiates on everything referring to Christ: the Sacraments, the Church, individual souls, the whole of revelation and, when it culminates in love and adoration yielding all our being to the full accomplishment to the will of Jesus and His Father, faith reaches its perfection" (Christ the Life of the Soul, p. 151). For Abbot Marmion, Christianity is nothing more than the acceptance in all its consequences, both doctrinal and practical, of the divinity of Christ in the Incarnation.

Faith is the free and firm acceptance of God’s revealed truth by the human intellect, under the impulse of the will, and aided by grace. And the truth of God that we must accept by faith can be summarized in this way: Jesus Christ is His only Son sent for our salvation and given for our sanctification. Hence, faith is what the eternal Father Himself demands of us when He presents Jesus to us saying: "This is my beloved Son; listen to him."

Abbot Marmion recommends to those who want to live the fullness of Christian life to join in the confession of faith that is made by Peter to Jesus: "You are the Christ the Son of the living God." This confession of faith, for Abbot Marmion, is meant to be an act that engages our entire being and all our existence. At this point, I would like to share with you a personal experience of mine last April. It was in the Sistine Chapel, just moments after Pope Benedict XVI had been elected Pope. The conclave came to an end officially when the new Pope accepted his election at the hands of the College of Cardinals. As soon as he said yes, the confidentiality of the conclave was lifted. And right after that, after he had explained the reasons for the name that he had chosen, namely, Benedict—and one of them was the fact that Saint Benedict had told his disciples to prefer nothing to the love of Christ—then Pope Benedict XVI went to the sacristy to change his cassock. He returned in the papal white cassock and took his place before the backdrop of The Last Supper in the Sistine Chapel. It was at this moment that one of the first significant acts in the new pontificate was performed by the senior Cardinal Deacon. It was he, Cardinal Medina, who was charged to approach the new Pope and to proclaim to him the sixteenth chapter of the Gospel of Saint Matthew. At the very beginning of his pontificate, Benedict XVI was reminded, through the proclamation of God’s revealed word, that his predecessor Peter had confessed and proclaimed Jesus as the Son of the living God, and that Jesus Himself had proclaimed Peter to be the foundation rock of His Church. The faith of Peter is something that his successor must consistently proclaim and, in proclaiming it, he shares with all of us the opportunity to engage in this act of faith, to repeat this assent to Jesus Christ, which is at the foundation of all Christian life.

According to Christ’s will, however, the Christian life rests not only on the profession of faith, but on the sacrament of faith, which is Baptism. According to the will of Christ, Baptism is the efficacious sign of our divine adoption. It is through Baptism that we truly become children of God and are incorporated into Christ Jesus. Baptism is, therefore, the sacrament of divine adoption. It is the sacrament of Christian initiation. It is the sacrament that incorporates us into the death and life of Christ.

In Christ the Life of the Soul, Abbot Marmion places in perspective everything else that relates to the great gift of divine filiation, the great gift of divine adoption. Abbot Marmion reminds us that all our holiness is summarized in participating by grace in the divine filiation of Christ Jesus and in being, by supernatural adoption, what Christ is by nature.

For Abbot Marmion, to receive Christ in the Eucharist, to participate in the Eucharistic action is indeed to make the most elevated act of faith and to participate in the greatest measure possible in the divine filiation of Jesus. This constant doctrine of Blessed Columba Marmion, so intimately placed within the structure of divine adoption, is totally consonant with the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that the Eucharist is "the source and summit of our Christian life." Our Baptism is fully actuated in our Eucharistic participation.

And while the Eucharist is indeed the most sublime form of prayer, Blessed Columba Marmion explains to us the full role of prayer as it relates to the life of one who has been given divine adoption. Prayer, in general, therefore, becomes the expression of our intimate life as children of God. It is the fruit of our divine filiation in Christ. How aptly Jesus taught His Apostles, when they asked Him to teach them to pray, that they should say: "Our Father who art in Heaven."

For Blessed Columba Marmion, the Christ to whom we are united by divine filiation is both the Son of the living God and the Son of Mary. For this reason, Blessed Columba tells us: "To separate Christ from His Mother in our piety, is to divide Christ; it is to lose sight of the essential mission of His Sacred Humanity in the distribution of Divine grace" (Christ the Life of the Soul, p. 340). He reminds us that "if Jesus Christ is our Savior, our Mediator, our Elder Brother, because He has taken upon Himself our human nature, how can we love Him truly, how can we resemble Him perfectly, without having a special devotion to her from whom He took His human nature?" (ibid.).

Citing Blessed Pius IX, Blessed Columba tells us that the eternal Father, in His divine thoughts, does not separate Mary from Christ. He comprehends, in the same act of love, the Virgin who is to be the Mother of Christ and the humanity of His Son in whom He is well pleased (cf. Ineffabilis Deus).

According to the divine plan, life is only given to mankind through Christ, the man God. But Christ is given to the world only through Mary: Et incarnatus est ex Maria Virgine.

The final chapter of Christ the Life of the Soul, like the next to final chapter of the Church’s Constitution on the Church, brings us to eternal life. Abbot Marmion concludes his great work, Christ the Life of the Soul, saying: "Let no pain, no suffering cast you down.... Let no temptation hold you back, for if you are found faithful in the hour of trial, the hour will come when you will receive the crown which will be given to you on entering into the true life ‘which God hath promised to them that love Him’" (ibid., p. 367).

His other works are likewise faithful to the development of his great theme. Christ in His Mysteries takes up again the theme of divine adoption and shows how essential it is for the Christian to imitate Christ and to be, by grace, what Jesus is by nature.

Christ The Ideal of the Monk, insists upon the importance of divine filiation. It shows the monastic life as a special development of the life of Baptism. In this work, Abbot Marmion shows also that the invitation to share, through divine adoption the Sonship of Christ Jesus, is the source of all divine mercy.

In his work Union With God, which is a collection of his letters, Abbot Marmion develops at great length his understanding of divine mercy. It is very interesting to recall that the first chapter of Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, which speaks about divine adoption, speaks immediately afterwards about "redemption by his blood and the forgiveness of transgression" (Eph 1:7).

Abbot Marmion expresses great confidence in the mercy of the heavenly Father. Confidence in the Father’s mercy is an essential aspect of the filial spirit that is proper to divine adoption. For Dom Marmion, human misery is a title to receive the mercy of God. In Christ the Life of the Soul, Dom Columba had already given an extraordinary definition of mercy, saying: "Now God is goodness itself and infinite love. Deus caritas est; and in the presence of misery His goodness and love become mercy" (Christ the Life of the Soul, p. 182). I believe that this definition of mercy is one that will hold up in the entire theology of mercy that is so beautifully being developed in this our age.

Abbot Marmion loves to extol "the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation." And he shows that the special glory which God wants from us, by reason of our eternal adoptive predestination, is the glorification of His merciful love (cf. L'Idée Maîtresse, p. 160). Blessed Columba Marmion gives us, finally, a magnificent personal testimony, in regard to God’s mercy. He says: "For some time past God has been making me see in a magnificent light that His Majesty’s whole plan, His whole ‘economy’ towards us is an economy of mercy. It is our miseries which, united to Christ’s sufferings and infirmities, draw down all the graces He gives us.

"God has been giving me for some time past," he says again, "a strong light, and this light is shed over my whole life. When God looks upon this poor world, upon this multitude of the miserable, incredulous and sinful, what does He feel? Misereor super turbam, ‘I have compassion on the multitude.’ Our miseries excite His mercy. Not only that, but as we, through our baptism, are members of Christ, our miseries are His. He has taken them all upon Him. He has assumed them and rendered them divine, and the Father, in looking upon our miseries and weaknesses, sees those of His Son which cry out to him for mercy" (Union with God, pp. 126-127).

And finally, in January 1923, just fifteen days before his death, Blessed Columba Marmion, expressed a magnificent testimony of confidence in the face of divine mercy, saying: "For me, at this moment, all my spiritual life is to stretch out my misery before him" (L'Idée Maîtresse, p. 165).

* * *

To complete our vision of this Doctor of Divine Adoption, it is necessary to go back for a moment once again to Christ the Life of the Soul, to show that the divine fatherhood of God is, for Columba Marmion, the source and motive of human solidarity. This is a very important point, in presenting the full measure of his spirituality. In his chapter, "Love One Another," Blessed Columba says that "the commandment of the love of our brethren is the supreme wish of Christ: it is so much His desire that He makes of it, not a counsel, but a commandment, His commandment, and He makes a fulfilment of it the infallible sign by which His disciples shall be recognized" (pp. 324-325). He adds, "There are souls that seek God in Jesus Christ and accept the humanity of Christ, but stop there. That is not sufficient: we must accept the Incarnation with all the consequences that it involves: we must not let the gift of ourselves stop at Christ’s own humanity, but extend it to His Mystical Body. That is why—never forget this, for it is one of the most important points of the supernatural life—to abandon the least of our brethren is to abandon Christ Himself."

The final and supreme criterion for fraternal love that is presented by Blessed Columba Marmion is taken from Jesus’ words in the 17th chapter of Saint John. Jesus says: "I pray for them...for the ones you have given me, because they are yours" (Jn 17:9). This phrase—"because they are yours"—brings us back to our theme of divine adoption. Humanity has been assumed by Christ and, through His own sacred humanity, he has uplifted His brothers and sisters. The gift of divine adoption that we have received compels us to love one another, and this love is the final measure in which we respond to the gift of our own divine adoption in Christ Jesus.

I believe that this message is consonant with the words spoken by Pope John Paul II on September 3, 2000. At the Beatification of Blessed Columba Marmion, he said: "Dom Marmion left us an authentic treasure of spiritual teaching for the Church of our time. In his writings, he teaches a simple yet demanding way of holiness for all the faithful, whom God has destined in love to be his adopted children through Christ Jesus (cf. Ep 1:5)." And then he expresses the wish which is certainly our own today: "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."