Columba Marmion > Quotes

“The Protestant does not submit to any authority, he is dependent only on himself. The Catholic receives Christ, with all that He has taught and founded. Christianity is, in practice, submission to Christ in the person of the Sovereign Pontiff and the pastors united to him; submission of the intellect to their teachings, submission of the the will to what they command.This way is sure, for Our Lord is with His Apostles “all days, even unto the consummation of the world,” and He has prayed for Peter and Peter’s successors that their faith “fail not".”
― Columba Marmion, Christ, the Life of the Soul

“It is in the depths of the heart that the true intensity of the Christian life lies, it is there that God dwells, adored and served by faith, recollection, humility, obedience, simplicity, labour, and love.”
― Columba Marmion, With Christ: An Anthology of the Writings of Blessed Columba Marmion

“The most precious talents, the most sublime thoughts, the most generous and splendid actions are without merit for eternal life if not vivified by sanctifying grace. The passing world may admire and applaud them; eternal life neither accepts them nor holds them of account.”
― Columba Marmion, With Christ: An Anthology of the Writings of Blessed Columba Marmion

“My soul is sorrowful even unto death”: Tristis est anima mea usque ad mortem. This is not forbidden; but to be ever craving from creatures what they are unable to give us, leaves us weak and restless; while there is no light and strength that we cannot find in Christ Jesus.”
― Columba Marmion, With Christ: An Anthology of the Writings of Blessed Columba Marmion

“We shall truly only bear fruit outwardly according to the measure of the supernatural intensity of our inner life.”
― Columba Marmion, With Christ: An Anthology of the Writings of Blessed Columba Marmion

“I rejoice that you have quite decided to refuse nothing to our Lord Who, certainly, is calling you to great union with Him. To arrive at this union, we must pass through many sorrows and trials and, above all, that of feeling how weak we are in ourselves.”
― Columba Marmion, With Christ: An Anthology of the Writings of Blessed Columba Marmion

“We shall, however, succeed in it by no other means than those employed by our Divine Head. Let us be thoroughly convinced that we shall do more work for the good of the Church, the salvation of souls, the glory of our Heavenly Father, in seeking first of all to remain united to God by a life of love and faith of which He is alone the object, than by a devouring and feverish activity which leaves us no leisure to find God again in solitude, recollection, prayer, and self-detachment.”
― Columba Marmion, With Christ: An Anthology of the Writings of Blessed Columba Marmion

“La vida sobrenatural no es cuestión de sentimentalismo. Si Dios nos hace sentir la suavidad de su servicio hasta en las facultades sensibles, debemos agradecérselo y servirnos de ese don inferior como de una escala para subir más arriba, como de un medio para aumentar nuestra fidelidad, pero no apegarnos a él, y, sobre todo, no fundar nuestra vida interior en esa devoción sensible; esa base sería, en efecto, muy inestable. Tanto podemos estar en el error creyendo que hacemos grandes progresos en la vía de la perfección porque nuestra devoción sensible es muy intensa, como si nos imaginamos que no hacemos ningún progreso, porque el alma está en la mayor aridez espiritual. ¿Cuál es, pues, la verdadera base de nuestra vida sobrenatural? Es la fe y la fe es una virtud que se ejercita con las facultades superiores, inteligencia y voluntad. Y bien: ¿qué nos dice la fe? Que Jesús es Dios al mismo tiempo que Hombre, que su humanidad es la humanidad de un Dios, la humanidad del ser que es la infinita sabiduría, el amor mismo y la misma omnipotencia.”
― Columba Marmion, Christ the Life of the Soul

“Enter more and more into the great silence. Silence: (a) of the tongue; (b) of the movements of the passions; (c) of reasons and reflections on the manner in which others act. Leave that to our Heavenly Father. I am finding great peace of soul now that I do not allow myself to be concerned with the doings of others, as far as my duty as abbot permits. I speak of these things to the Heavenly Father, as the Psalmist constantly does. Then that becomes a prayer which makes peace and silence only the more profound.”
― Columba Marmion, With Christ: An Anthology of the Writings of Blessed Columba Marmion