Lecture - Marmion's Vocation and our own

DOM MARMION SEMINAR

Dom Marmion House, Dundrum, Dublin 14

11 October 2003

MARMION'S VOCATION AND OUR OWN

By

Rev Dr Kevin Kennedy, PP, D Eccles H.

Every man, every woman, is an image of God, unique and unrepeatable. In some immeasurable way we are, each of us, like God. God reveals himself to us in those around us, showing us His mystery and His wonder, which is why each human being is mysterious, and in a way immeasurable.

God calls each one of us in life. Every one of us has a vocation. In the first place, God calls each one of us into existence. And then he calls each one of us to be what he wants us to be in life, and to do what he wants each one of us to do. The saints are those he calls to be an example to the rest of us. Their role is to teach us, by what they say and do, how to imitate Christ in our own time and circumstances. Christ is the complete pattern for all of us, in his fulfillment of the Father's will. The saints show us how to recognise this pattern in our own world. It is through the circumstances of every day that God leads us to the following of this pattern in our own time and place.

There is a photograph of Joseph Marmion's family, taken when he was a young boy, which is reproduced in Father Mark Tiemey's biography. All the members of the family have been carefully arranged, most likely in a photographer's studio, the parents dignified - the father clearly smiling and in good humour, with a degree of relaxation which is not common in photos of the time. The children are attractive and lovable as only young people can be, the girls elegant in elaborate and voluminous dresses. The three boys are the youngest in the group, Joseph, the eldest of these, clearly dressed in the black he always wore, because it was already decided that he would prepare for the priesthood. All through Europe it was a time of economic progress and development for the middle classes, and they took themselves seriously everywhere. Irish Catholics took their religious practise with great seriousness. Their faith was strong, and the memory of persecution, and second-class status on account of it, was very recent. Their Catholic faith influenced their outlook on every detail of their lives in a way which would surprise most of us today. My own great-grandfather, who would have been an exact contemporary of Joseph Marmion's father, like him too, a countryman come to Dublin, and like him comfortably prosperous in business, would not buy a house because he believed, in St. Paul's words, that we have no lasting city in this life, and he equally rejected the idea of life insurance, which was new at that time, because he considered that to insure one’s life was to bet against God, which would not be right. He clearly remembered the news of Catholic Emancipation when it was first passed in Parliament. They counted their blessings carefully in those days. Infant mortality was high in all classes. The illusion of security which we enjoy through modern medicine was unknown to any of them. Joseph Marmion studied for the priesthood, and studied well, and was seen as promising material for a life of learning, and perhaps much higher things, as time went on. Who could tell?

Our interest at this moment is in Joe Marmion' s vocation, and I think we need to take stock how he has got to this stage. To begin with, we have that surprising fact, surprising at least to a modern mind, that his parents dressed him all life long in black, because they were convinced that he would study for the priesthood. That seems a chancy sort of thing. Anyone who has ever been concerned with preparing candidates for the priesthood, knows how difficult it can be to discern a vocation, in other words how difficult to decide whether a genuine, free, and conscious choice has been made by the student Does he know what he is doing? And is the choice his own? If too much influence has been exercised by either parent, or both, even with the best intentions, it may not make for happiness and understanding later on. God's ways are mysterious, but we must not presume. God wants us to use our commonsense in the ordinary way, even where holy things are concerned. Most vocations do come through the home, and therefore through the parents, even if they are only made clear in later life. The atmosphere of the home is the parents' doing, and their faith will be the background which God's will can be most clearly recognised and learned. From centuries back, in medieval times, religious houses were well used to "pueri oblati" - "offered children, whose parents had given them to monasteries and convents at a very early age, hoping, and in many cases presuming, that they would fit in successfully in those surroundings all their lives It often worked - there is no doubt of that. But in more modern times even when Joe Marmion was at school, his parents seem almost to have been pushing things a bit There is some evidence that his clothes caused some comment from his companions. But he took it well, and seems to have been contented with what was already planned for him. In fact God was clearly increasing his faith from an early age.

Joe seems to have thought often about life in a religious community, even though he studied for the diocesan priesthood. The result was that he had an awareness of both ways of doing things, the individual work of the priest in a parish and diocesan affairs as well as the experience and understanding of religious life which was to be so thoroughly complete by the time he could even write a classic study of it such as 'Christ the life of the Monk' Nonetheless we could be tempted to think of his entering Clonliffe as a sort of diversion from his true path, a distraction from the main road he was called to follow. This is where we would be mistaken, both concerning Joe Marmion's vocation, and our own While we cannot presume to read God's thoughts, I believe it is essential to recognise the purpose of what 'happens to us', as we might think of it, in life, and to learn to appreciate the extent to which the faithful soul is guided in decisions and choices in order to contribute to the ultimate fulfilment of God's will and the completion of the work intended for the life of each one. I am thinking here of the 'Faithful Soul', by whom I mean the ordinary man or woman who does their best to serve God faithfully, and to carry out God's will. In other words the vast majority of ordinary Catholics. It is not necessary, and in fact it is not at all helpful, to see the lives of those who in later times have been recognised as saints, in terms of constantly heroic decisions and initiatives. We must all grow up, and in life we must all be lead. That's how life works. Any young person who fell completely outside this pattern would be something of a freak. Joe Marmion was a thoroughly natural boy. Joe was accepted as a student for Clonliffe at the age of fifteen and a half. That was quite normal. Third-level education, in whatever form, usually begun in those days at the age of sixteen.

Joe was apparently awarded a 'scholarship'. It would be interesting to know what this amounted to. Was it simply an admission to the college, or did it mean that he didn't have to pay fees? Or rather, that his family didn't have to pay fees? The point is important. The Marmion family was comfortably off, but they were not rich. During Joe's time in Clonliffe his father died. From then on there would have been constant concern about money. Three of his sisters entered religious life, and dowries of some sort were probably expected. In Clonliffe there was always a concern to help student' families by alleviation of fees as far as possible, reducing them progressively as ordination approached. No doubt these factors were weighed when Joe was sent to Rome, halfway through his theology course, as endowments might have been available to help out there.

In all, Joe spent scarcely two years in Rome. Arriving in Clonliffe with a good grounding in Latin and Greek from Belvedere, he had done well in his studies, and he was considered in Rome to be among the better students. Immediately after ordination, at the age of twenty-three, he was called back to Dublin. There seems to have been some concern about his health, but he must have been keen to see his family again, after two years' absence, and the diocese had need of his services. It was at this time that he first came in contact with Benedictine monasticism, first on a visit to Monte Cassino, and then on a visit to Maredsous in Belgium, while journeying home to Dublin. Maredsous made a deep impression on him. His inclination to community life received a new impetus at that time.