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Biography

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Joseph Aloysius Marmion was born in Dublin on 1 April 1858, the son of William Marmion, who was Irish, and Herminie Cordier, who was French. He grew up in a devout Catholic household and was educated at the Jesuit Belvedere College in Dublin. He then entered Holy Cross College at Clonliffe, the Dublin diocesan seminary, and continued his studies at the Pontifical Irish College in Rome. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Dublin on 16 June 1881.

After ordination he served as a curate in Dundrum and as a professor of philosophy at Holy Cross College, Clonliffe. He also acted as chaplain to religious sisters and to prisoners. Although he was regarded as a capable diocesan priest, he discerned a vocation to Benedictine monasticism. In 1886 he entered Maredsous Abbey in Belgium, receiving the religious name Columba after the early medieval Irish monk. He made his solemn profession as a Benedictine in 1891 and was employed in teaching and in the formation of younger monks.

In 1899 he was sent as prior to the newly founded Mont César Abbey (Keizersberg) in Leuven, where he taught theology and became known as a preacher and spiritual director. In 1909 the monks of Maredsous elected him their third abbot, an office he held until his death. He governed the community through the First World War, during which the German occupation of Belgium led him to spend a period in Ireland and Britain. As abbot he was noted for liturgical seriousness, care for monastic formation, and conferences given to monks, clergy, and lay people.

Marmion’s reputation as a spiritual writer rests on conferences later published as books, especially Christ, the Life of the Soul (1917), Christ in His Mysteries, and Christ, the Ideal of the Monk; Christ, the Ideal of the Priest appeared after his death. His teaching stressed incorporation into Christ, divine adoption, and the call of the baptized to holiness. He died at Maredsous Abbey on 30 January 1923. Pope John Paul II beatified him in Saint Peter’s Square on 3 September 2000. Blessed Columba Marmion is commemorated on 3 October.

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