Colmba Marmion -
A Blessed Dubliner
Up to the Vatican II era, Marmion’s books were perhaps the most widely read in religious houses of formation. Recalling the reader to the person of Our Lord himself, they were different from the jejune fare on offer hitherto, and were for many their first taste of theology.
Marmion read the Scriptures through the eyes of the Fathers. There is even an affinity with the writing of the Anglican Newman - in, for instance, Marmion’s holding firmly to what has been described as the “oldest and truest expression of the philosophy of the Incarnation” : the principle that the Sacred Humanity of Jesus had no human personality. And there is an opening to ecumenical spirituality in his sending readers directly to Christ as their mediator.
Marmion had the gift of going straight to the centre : he rendered the full sweep and meaning of St. John and St. Paul; he highlighted baptism and its consequences as the focus from which everything radiated and to which everything returned.
Placid Murray, OSB is a Benedictine Monk of Glenstal Abbey.
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