Wednesday, April 20 : Blessed Columba Marmion

What is the innermost reason of this fruitfulness of God’s Word? It is that Christ is ever living: he is ever the God who saves and quickens. (…) All proportion guarded, that which is true of the person of Jesus is true also of his word; and what was true yesterday is still true in our days. Christ lives in the soul of the just; under the infallible direction of this inner master, the soul (…) penetrates into the divine light; Christ gives it his Spirit, the first author of Holy Writ, that it may there “search into the very depths of the infinite” (cf. 1 Cor 2:10). It contemplates God’s marvels with respect to men; it measures, by faith, the divine proportions of the mystery of Jesus, and this wonderful spectacle, whereof the splendors enlighten and illuminate it, touches, draws, enraptures, uplifts, transports and transforms the soul. It experiences in its turn what the disciples of Emmaus felt when Christ Jesus himself vouchsafed to interpret to them the sacred books: “Was not our heart burning within us whilst he spoke in the way, and opened to us the Scriptures”. What is there astonishing, then, in the fact that the soul, charmed and won by this living word, “which penetrates even to the marrow” (Heb 4:12) makes the prayer of these disciples its own: “Stay with us! O Thou the incomparable Master, indefectible Light, infallible Truth, the only true Life of our souls!” Forestalling these holy desires “the Holy Spirit himself prays for us with unspeakable groanings” which constitute true prayer, these vehement desires to possess God, to live no longer save for the Father’s glory and for that of his Son Jesus. Love becomes great and burning by contact with God, takes possession of all the powers of the soul, renders it strong and generous to do perfectly all the Father’s will, to give itself up wholly to the divine good pleasure.
Roman Catholic Ordinary Calendar – rosary,team