Introduction

The writer of these letters, Dom Columba Marmion, third Abbot of Maredsous of the Order of St. Benedict, is perhaps the greatest spiritual master of the past century. Among many other indications of the range of his influence, an American abbey bears his name, and a translation of his biography has just (in 1960) appeared in Japanese — not to mention the extraordinary proliferation of his works in more than twelve languages, European and Oriental, during the last forty years.

The great and profound good he has wrought in souls throughout the world has convinced many of his readers that he must have been a saint. But of course this title cannot technically be conferred on anyone without official or “canonical” investigation. The first steps in this process were undertaken in 1957 by the episcopal curia of Namur, Belgium, the diocese in whose territory Dom Marmion lived and died.

Before initiating this official process it was necessary to assemble all extant writings of the “servant of God” and submit them to the diocesan tribunal. ‘This was the occasion for gathering together a veritable treasure, a collection of 1,700 letters, of which several hundred had been completely unknown. Among these letters over three hundred were written in English.

Letters are the most sincere and least studied expressions of the soul, and this is especially true of familiar letters, among which should be included letters of spiritual direction. When there is real friendship and rapport between the letter-writers, neither correspondent attempts to dissimulate his true self; he says what he is doing, what he is thinking, and what he feels. Dom Marmion was already well known through his vast personal influence and vast responsibilities, but it has remained for those who had not known him in life to verify the recollections of those who had. Those who knew him could see that xl he lived what he believed, what he taught. For those who did not know him, these letters will reveal better than anything else the degree to which his soul was penetrated with his teaching and how much it inspired his life.

Son of an Irish father and a French mother, Joseph Marmion was born in Dublin on April 1, 1858, with the most Christian blood of the Western world in his veins. Before he was seventeen he entered Holy Cross Seminary at Clonliffe, there to study philosophy and to begin theology by way of preparing for the priesthood. He pursued and finished his theology brilliantly at the Irish College in Rome (1879-81), where he was ordained priest.

After several years of pastoral work and seminary teaching in Ireland, he answered a call to the monastic life which he had felt strongly during his visits to the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino in Italy and to the abbey of Maredsous in Belgium. It was.to Maredsous that in 1886 he came to ask for the habit of the “monks of the West.” There he pronounced his religious vows on February 10, 1888.

His contemplative soul had found a favorable climate for its development. His professors at the Propaganda (whose classes the Irish College students attended) had given him a solid basis of classical theology. In the regular life of monastic silence marked by the canonical hours, he was to elaborate this material into a personal doctrine by his prayer and his life. Soon, however, various invitations to preach came his way, and these became more numerous as the years went by, stimulating him to build up a living synthesis that could be imparted to others.

It was at Louvain especially that these claims became more pressing; there, close to the Catholic University, the Maredsous community had founded in 1899 an abbey of which Dom Columba was one of the pioneer members. For ten years he was prior, and professor of theology to the young monks, as well as being responsible for their spiritual formation. He received many invitations from Belgium, England, Ireland, and France to preach retreats to seminarians, diocesan priests, religious, both men and women, of different congregations. He devoted to this work (to which he felt himself called more than to any other) all the time that his vow of obedience and

Xil his other monastic responsibilities allowed. It was at this time that he gained the confidence and friendship of the illustrious Désiré Cardinal Mercier, who had chosen him as his confessor, an example that was followed by many priests and professors of the university city. His outstanding qualities were soon to be given official recognition by his brethren of Maredsous.

This was seen when in September, 1909, Dom Hildebrand de Hemptinne resigned the abbacy of Maredsous to devote himself wholly to his duties as abbot-primate, and the monks of the abbey elected Dom Columba, prior of Louvain, to succeed him. From that moment he assumed the place and the role of Christ in a large community of monks, first and foremost as director of souls, then as administrator of a complete monastery with its different departments, each having its various tasks and obligations. He himself admitted to being at times “overwhelmed.” And again, the years of his abbacy included the First World War (1914-18), a particularly anxious and dificult time. He was forced to seek a refuge in Ireland for the younger members of his community, and himself to stay there for nearly two years, far from his beloved abbey. For more than four years Belgium was occupied by an enemy that became more exacting as defeat drew near. And this separation of his flock into two parts was to have lasting consequences.

During the war, as throughout his priestly life, he never lessened his retreat work; this at one and the same time prevented him from being wholly immersed in material cares and kept him in that spiritual atmosphere where he felt truly at home. No one could seriously believe that he would have done better to confine his burning apostolic zeal strictly to the limits of his monastery.

He was to survive the war by only a few years. The Armistice was signed on 11 November, 1918, and the abbot of Maredsous died on January 30, 1923. He was not quite sixty-five, but his life had been a full one.

It is of the nature of great souls to be aware of the needs and aspirations of their time. For a writer or for an orator this is the secret of his influence and of his success. We should not be mistaken in describing Dom Marmion’s time as one of Catholic renewal in search

Xi of “authenticity.” It has been said, and with some justification, that the spirituality in vogue before he began preaching was one of waiting for Christ. That is to say, Christians had to be made aware of their membership in Christ, of the reality of their divine adoption by Christ, and of the exacting moral claim that Christ makes on them. Their souls had to be aroused to the echoes of the “mysteries” of Christ. The risen Christ had to be shown them, Christ still alive in the Church, a truth which St. Paul and St. John had already proclaimed, but which had so strangely been forgotten. Abbot Marmion adopted the teaching of this great doctrine, putting his hearers and his correspondents in direct contact with Sacred Scripture. He drew also on the liturgy with its revelation of Christ, who was at the heart of all his teaching. “Tt is only passions which make oratory convincing,” said La Rochefoucauld; why not the love of Christ? And in this is the source of Dom Marmion’s influence. He could have written books and built up a synthesis in the calm of a monastic cell; as it happened, however, circumstances demanded of him a great number of spiritual conferences, which led him to work out and assemble the elements of his spiritual synthesis.

Dom Marmion did his work by the spoken rather than by the written word. The strength of his convictions, the liveliness of his faith, the warmth of this speech struck all who heard him. Whether he spoke in French, which he learned when young, or in English, his mother tongue, he spoke with the temperament of an Irishman, with his sensitiveness, his good nature, and his sense of humor. One was compelled to listen to him, and he moved his hearers. He spoke “from his overflowing heart.” The only writing he did in advance was by way of plans, sketches, outlines. Such notes will help the editors of his books, even though they use as their chief sources the work of those monks and nuns who faithfully recorded his words. For it was soon noticed at Maredsous that his teaching was so striking by its freshness and its depth that it deserved to be recorded and published.

This was the genesis of the now-classic Christ, the Life of the Soul (1918), Christ in His Mysteries (1919), Christ, the Ideal of the Monk (1922), Sponsa Verbi (1923), and, long after the author’s death but based on original manuscripts, CArist, the Ideal of the Priest (1951).

From the copious surviving correspondence, a small number o his letters has already been published zm extenso, in the biography of Abbot Marmion by Raymond Thibaut, O.S.B. Moreover, a fairly extensive anthology of the best spiritual passages of the letters known at that time was published in French in 1933: Union with God, According to the Letters of Direction of Dom Marmion. Soon afterward this was translated into English (1934). But in this work, which we owe also to Dom Thibaut, the extracts from the letters are skillfully worked into a systematic exposition of his spirituality. (It is noteworthy that the English translation of these two books benefited from the use of the original text of the English letters.)

To complement these well-known publications there is now need of something further. Our times have a taste for original documents, presented as they come from the pen and the heart of their author, and with the least possible textual editing. It is this that we have endeavored to do here: to reveal an original personality in the setting of his daily life, allowing him to speak in his own words to his intimate friends. And so we offer, in all their fresh spontaneity and their living background, the letters written in English first by Father Joseph Marmion, then by the monk and abbot, Columba Marmion. It is interesting to note that this is the first time original writings of Dom Marmion in the English language have been published. As will be seen, these letters are arranged in chronological order covering the whole of his priestly and monastic life.

It is still too soon to be able to prepare a complete and scholarly edition of the letters. Nevertheless, of all the letters judged suitable for publication we have endeavored to give the whole text; and it is with regret that we have had, here and there, for reasons of discretion, to make a few omissions, especially in certain series of letters where the preservation of the anonymity of the correspondents has been insisted upon. We are sure that the reader will understand this and accept it. We can state that the passages omitted are insignificant or too personal for publication. The text of the letters is always given according to the autographs, except in a few instances where the originals have been lost. The dates in brackets have been conjectured from events mentioned in the letters, for Abbot Marmion often forgot to give the complete date.

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All the letters to the same correspondent are grouped in chronological order and bear a number in roman numerals. The different groups of letters follow one another, as far as possible, in the same chronological order, but with some unavoidable overlapping in the time sequence.

A great many spiritual letters are included in this collection. In them is to be found the most faithful reflection of his contemplative soul, of his loving heart. As with the Epistles of St. Paul (the main source of his inspiration), they speak with authority in spite of his personal humility. We find also a clear understanding of a great mission, the art of arts, as says St. Gregory the Great — that of leading souls to God. But Dom Marmion has a clear road, he follows an unfailing light: Jesus Christ.

But in order to reveal a prominent feature of a personality which made such a notable impact on those who knew him —that is, his tender and deeply human heart—we have also reproduced here a number of familiar, simple, friendly letters. Even in his letters of direction, however, the great soul of Dom Marmion does not divorce friendship from direction, for direction is not for him merely the relation of a father to his spiritual child in which he is the only giver, but a true, authentic, and friendly exchange, one from which he himself expects to receive something, too. It is a dialogue, a joint enterprise.

We wish to thank Anne Schuyler-Lighthall who has given us diligent and indispensable help in the English wording of the introductions and notes, and also in the preparation of the text of the letters; as well as Mary Ellen Evans, who added some notes for American readers. Likewise we are indebted to Doms Cuthbert McCann, O.S.B., of Downside Abbey, and Martin Varley, O.S.B., of Douai Abbey for their useful advice.

Finally, we are happy to entrust the publication of this work to our dear brethren of the American Benedictine Academy, whom we thank most fraternally.