Nihil vobis desit in ulla gratia - II

Bl Columba Marmion wrote in his masterwork Christ, the Life of the Soul:

...blessed be the Eternal Father Who has called us to Himself from all eternity to make us His children, and partakers of His own life and His own beatitude; Who, in order to fulfil His designs, has given us in Jesus Christ, all good, all riches, all treasures, so that in Him nothing is wanting to us: Ita ut nihil vobis desit in ulla gratia! (I Cor. i, 7.) [I, vii - p. 25.]

...why do we still hesitate in our faith and confidence in Jesus Christ? He has expiated all, paid all, merited all, and His merits are ours: we have been "made rich in Him", so that if we will it, "nothing is wanting to us in any grace of holiness". Divites facti estis in illo, ita ut NIHIL vobis desit in ULLA gratia. (I Cor i, 5. 7.) [III, iv - p. 58.]

Nihil vobis desit in ulla gratia

I was struck by this phrase in the Epistle at Mass on Sunday: "Nothing to you is lacking in any grace" - Nihil vobis desit in ulla gratia (I Cor. i, 7).

In ulla gratia - Bl Columba Marmion highlights this consoling truth: God's grace is showered upon us, so that nothing is wanting to us, in any grace. Even the thought of this has greatly strengthened me to persevere in doing good, striving manfully for virtue.

The Lord bestows all the grace we need, that we live as becomes saints, that one day His grace in us may flower in everlasting glory.

Bl Columba Marmion's Feast

From the Roman Martyrology, 2004 edition, for today the 30th of January:

16*.  In the monastery of St Benedict of Maredsous also in Belgium, of the blessed Columba (Joseph) Marmion, who, born in Ireland, made a priest and then made Abbot in the Order of St Benedict, that as father of cenobites and leader of souls to holiness of life, shone with spiritual doctrine and eloquence.

Bl Columba Marmion, pray for us, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Advent Reading

Vultus Christi has the excellent suggestion of reading Bl Columba Marmion's Christ in His Mysteries during Advent - a suggestion I hope to implement.

Relics - V - and Abuses Thereof

Having just said Vespers of the feria in our (still intact) chapel, I suddenly realized that atop the empty tabernacle we keep both two third-class relics (of St Pio of Pietrelcina and St Rita of Cascia) and a first class relic, a tiny fragment of the body (of the bones, I suppose) of St Paul of the Cross, Founder of the Passionists.  This I kissed and venerated in particular, calling to mind how earthly and low I am in all truth, compared to such a saint, glorified unspeakably by God in heaven.  How far it is from earth to heaven!  Only by the Ladder of the Man-God, Christ, can we hope to ascend so high.

Having returned to my room, I have just toted up my own very minor collection of third-class relics:

• a cloth touched to the relics of St Dominic;
  
• ditto, of St Pio of Pietrelcina;
  
• ditto, of St Faustina;
  
• ditto, of St Thérèse (and rose petals blessed in her honour, a sort of quasi-relic given her dying words);
  
• ditto, of Bl Maria Sagrario of St Aloysius Gonzaga, Carmelite nun, virgin and martyr of the Spanish Civil War;
  
• a piece of the religious habit of Bl Columba Marmion.
  

Unfortunately, while I used to have a third-class relic of St Martin de Porres, I left it in my pocket once and it got lost in the washing machine, mea maxima culpa...

(Which reminds me of a certain priest, zealously orthodox, who had amassed quite a collection of relics, including those of all the apostles; which he kept in a shoebox under his bed.

(Other friends of mine, both seminarians at one time, had during their time in Rome obtained far too many relics from, in their own words, "a corrupt nun at the Relics Office", who ran a roaring trade until her overgenerosity was detected and she was exiled to Iran - as happened to a certain reputed freemason...

(And of course there was the former student at the North American College within the past decade, who funded his Roman idyll by purveying for a due consideration "relics" to gullible fellow-countrymen, "relics" which it transpired he forged by grinding up animal bones!

(Indeed, along similar lines, for a lark, one of those ex-seminarian mates of mine and I invited a lecturer of ours at the John Paul II Institute to attend a Dry Mass that my friend would pretend to offer up, with elevation of such a relic - an abomination, as Fortescue averred! - but of course  this was only a joke.

(So, in answer to the unspoken question, Are the well-known abuses of the veneration of relics still about, Yes, of course, men are still fallen and sinners, but abusus non tollit usus.)

Bl Columba Marmion

Two very good posts (here and here) over at Vultus Christi alert me to the commemoration this day in some calendars of Bl Columba Marmion.

Read and savour!

Beginning of the Year of St Paul

After seeing the doctor yesterday evening, and getting some antibiotics, I feel rather better, and so have decided to brave the cold and rain of Perth mid-winter (a few showers, moderate wind, max. 18 C) for to go to Fr Rowe's 9 am Mass of the Vigil of SS Peter and Paul.

How kind of the Holy Father to decree 28th June 2008 to 29th June 2009 to be a Jubilee Year of St Paul the Apostle, that great Vessel of Election for the Conversion of the Gentiles!

I have decided to try and invoke this Apostle more (my first prayer upon awaking: St Paul, pray for us), to reread his writings and also the Acts of the Apostles, which so largely concern his missionary journeys - not to mention his marvellous conversion, the pattern for us all - and finally to take as guide Bl Columba Marmion, whose writings are redolent of the Christocentric spirituality of St Paul:

God chose us in Christ "before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and unspotted in His sight in charity. Who hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children through Jesus Christ unto Himself, according to the purpose of His Will: unto the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He hath graced us in His beloved Son (Eph. i, 4-6)".
These are the terms in which the Divine plan is set forth by the Apostle St. Paul, who had been caught up to the third heaven, and was chosen by God to bring to light, as he himself says, the economy of the mystery which hath been hidden from all eternity in God. We see the great Apostle labouring unceasingly to make known this eternal plan, established by God Himself for the sanctification of our souls. ...all the efforts of the Apostle tend, as he carefully points out, to bring to light this Divine dispensation... (Mihi data est gratia hæc... illuminare omnes, quæ sit dispensatio sacramenti absconditi a sæculis in Deo. Ephes. iii, 8-9) (Bl Columba Marmion, Christ the Life of the Soul, p.3)