Blessed Columba Marmion

I cannot deny that I love Jesus, love Him passionately, love Him with every fibre of my heart. He knows it, too, since He has asked me to do many things for Him, which have cost me more than I should like to say, yet which with His grace were sweet and easy in a sense. He knows that my longing, at least, even if the strength and courage are wanting, is to do and suffer much more for Him, and that were He tomorrow to ask for the sacrifice of every living friend, I would not refuse Him. Yet with all that, with the intense longing to make Him known and loved, I have never yet been able to speak of Him to others as I want to.

COMMENT: The intense love of Christ was a central aspect of the spirit of Fr Doyle. The centrality of Christ was also central to another Irishman whose feast we would celebrate today if it were not a Sunday.

Blessed Columba Marmion was born in Dublin and was a priest of the Dublin diocese, acting as a seminary professor, chaplain to the Redemptoristine Convent in Drumcondra and as a curate in the parish of Dundrum in the south of Dublin. However, we felt the call to the monastic life and entered the Benedictine monastery of Maredsous in Belgium, ending up as abbot. He was a renowned spiritual writer and spiritual director, and the love of Christ, and our divine adoption as children of God were central to his teaching and spirituality.

As he wrote in his classic book Christ in His Mysteries:

It is, then, upon Christ that all our gaze ought to be concentrated.  Open the Gospel: you will there see that three times only does the Eternal Father cause His Voice to be heard by the world.  And what does this Divine Voice say to us?  Each time the Eternal Father tells us to contemplate His Son, to listen to Him, that He way be thereby glorified: “This is my beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased.  Hear ye Him”. All that the Father asks of us is to contemplate Jesus, His Son, to listen to Him, so as to love and imitate Him, because Jesus, Being His Son, is equally God.

Blessed Columba is the last Irish person to be beatified. In fact, very few Irish people who were not martyred have been beatified or canonised since the Council of Trent, despite many excellent candidates, of which Fr Doyle must stand in the first rank.

Let us continue to pray and work that more Irish examples of holiness may be recognised and raised to the altars in order to act as positive examples for the much needed renewal of this country.