O God, almighty Father, who called the blessed abbot Columba to the monastic way of life and opened to him the secrets of the mysteries of Christ, mercifully grant that, strengthened by his intercession, in the spirit of your adoption as sons, we may become a dwelling place worthy of your Wisdom. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the same Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever.
Deeply steeped in the Scriptures and the tradition of the Church, through the Liturgy, the Benedictine charism and St. Thomas Aquinas, Dom Marmion emphasizes the role of Jesus Christ:
…Holiness then, is a mystery of Divine life communicated and received: communicated in God from the Father to the Son by an ineffable generation; [Isaiah 52:8] communicated by the Son to humanity, which He personally unites to Himself in the Incarnation; then restored to souls by this humanity, and received by each of them in the measure of their special predestination: according to the measure of the giving of Christ [Ephesians 4:7] so that Christ is truly the life of the soul because He is the source and giver of life…
In his teaching, Dom Marmion emphasizes ‘Redemption from’, oriented toward ‘Redemption for’:
… According to our manner of speaking, holiness seems to us that it is composed of a double element: first, infinite distance from all that is imperfection, from all that is created from all that is not God Himself. This is only a ‘negative’ aspect. There is another element which consists in this: that God adheres by an innumerable and always present act of His will, to the Infinite Good, which is Himself, in order to conform Himself entirely to all that this Infinite Good is. God knows Himself perfectly. His All-Wisdom shows Him His own essence as supreme norm of all activity.
(Fr. Joseph Henchey, CSS, “A Reflection on the Hope of Dom Columba Marmion”)
The author of this blog has more on Blessed Columba, plus you may want to survey this site.
From where is this beautiful collect?
My subway reading over the past few months has been Ignatius Press compilation volume of Marmion called “Christ the Ideal of the Priest.” It has been a providential discovery.