Christ in His Mysteries
     Born in Ireland, Blessed Columba Marmion served for several years as a priest in Dublin before finding a vocation to the monastery. He eventually became the Abbot of Maredsous Abbey, Belgium. One of the foremost spiritual masters of the 20th century, his books were translated into eleven languages and sold some 1.5 million copies.     Firmly rooted in the Bible, the liturgy, and the writings of the Saints and Doctors of the Church, Marmion explores every aspect of Catholic doctrine, with penetrating insight. His writings are marked both by the remarkable clarity of their exposition, and by their keen psychological insight and sensitivity.     His particular interest in the liturgy — the chief subject ofChrist in His Mysteries— is reflected in a letter he wrote in 1917:        Liturgical prayer is the law of our faith. No other instruction is so luminous,        so perfectly adapted to the intelligence of the faithful as the prayers of the        Liturgy. During the ages of faith, although the vast majority were uneducated,        they were yet much better instructed in the mysteries of the faith than are the        men and women of our day.        The good I have been enabled to do to souls — men, women, children, rich        and poor — by revealing to them the treasures of spiritual life, of light and        facility in their relations with God, which are contained in the the Liturgy,        show me how greatly important it is for every priest, vicar, curate, everyone,        to work at making known this well-spring of the spiritual life.     But Marmion’s greatest contribution to modern spirituality was to restore Jesus Christ to His rightful place at the center of the Christian life — Christ as “the life of the soul” of every Christian: through faith, through the sacraments, and through the liturgy of the Church. Historians note that only a handful of books were universally read by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council: the Bible, the Catechism of Trent, the 1917 Code, and the writings of Columba Marmion. His doctrine is recognizable in several Vatican II documents.     In 1966 an American woman diagnosed with terminal cancer, told by her doctors she had three months to live, visited Marmion’s tomb at the suggestion of her brother, a Benedictine monk. Her miraculous cure, which she attributed to Marmion’s intercession, led to Blessed Columba’s Beatification by Pope John Paul II in 2000.     Many of his admirers believe Marmion will one day not only be canonized, but also declared a Doctor of the Church.