Christ, The Life of the Soul

by Blessed Columba Marmion

Zaccheus Press, 2005

532 pages

To order: (800) 776-4569

zaccheuspress.com

Blessed Benedictine Columba Marmion (1858-1923) was an Irish priest who became a monk at the Maredsous Abbey in Belgium. He was abbot there from 1909 until his death from influenza.

As a monk, Father Marmion quickly became a sought-out spiritual director. His many retreats would form the basis for a trilogy of spiritual writings, Christ, the Life of the Soul (1917), Christ in His Mysteries (1919) and Christ, the Ideal of the Monk (1922). A fourth book, Christ, the Ideal of the Priest, was posthumously published in 1952 (and has since been republished by Ignatius Press, in 2005). He was beatified in 2000 by Pope John Paul II.

Although Blessed Mar­mion’s spiritual writings received acclaim in the first half of the 20th century and were translated into several languages, they had been largely forgotten by the English-speaking world in recent decades. Now the riches of Christ, the Life of the Soul, believed by many to be his masterpiece, are available again through the efforts of translator Alan Bancroft and Zaccheus Press. This work communicates, in a masterful mixture of theological richness and conversational clarity, the heart of Blessed Marmion’s thought. This combined an emphasis on the centrality of Christ with an unswerving focus on our divine adoption — the belief that, as he writes, “the holiness to which God calls us through super-natural adoption is a participation in the divine life brought by Christ Jesus.”

In all of this, as Franciscan Father Benedict Groeschel notes in the foreword to this new edition, Blessed Columba draws upon the thought of Sts. Paul, Ignatius of Antioch and Augustine, as well as many other great Christian writers.

The Irish monk shows that God is a Father who has begotten a Son so that he might communicate his divine life through the Holy Spirit. Man is called to share in this divine life; this is accomplished by the Son uniting himself in time to human nature so that he can give this life to man. This, in turn, is realized through the Church, which is the body of the Son, who is the head.

Within this core structure, Blessed Marmion reflects on the nature and mission of the Church, the meaning of faith, the purpose and work of the sacraments (especially baptism, confession and the Eucharist), the mystery of sin, prayer and the rightful role of the Blessed Mother.

The beauty of this master’s writing is its ability to communicate dense theological insights to people with zero theological training. He seamlessly cites Scripture, conciliar decrees and writings from the doctors of the Church, all with a pastor’s warmth and care. 

“Contemplation of Our Lord is not only holy; it makes us holy,” he writes. “Doing no more than thinking of him, gazing on him with faith and love, sanctifies us. For certain souls, the life of Christ Jesus is one subject of meditation among many others; this is not enough. Christ is not one of the means of the spiritual life; he is all our spiritual life.”

This profound Christology, Father Groeschel notes, “is an antidote to the many confusing Christologies of our time, which range, sadly enough, from excessive humanism to thinly disguised adoptionism and Unitarianism.”

Translator Bancroft provides a number of helpful notes, and the appendixes include information about Blessed Marmion’s cause for canonization, as well as a chronology of his life. Zaccheus Press is to be commended for offering a new generation the opportunity of sitting at the feet of one of the great spiritual masters of modern times.

Carl E. Olson is editor of

IgnatiusInsight.com.