The Path of Celtic Prayer

Calvin Miller, IVP Books

The Celts were “early adopters” of Christianity, when it was offered by Patrick and others in the 500s. It led to distinctive but linked traditions of Irish, Welsh, Scots, Breton, Cornish and Manx churches.

The converts and the missionaries created a culture of worship based in various monasteries and worship centres, but reaching out through the ordinary life of the community of the faithful.

Latin phrases came with the Roman church and were mixed with local Celtic language terms to form a way of thinking, speaking and singing that amounted to private and public prayer in a constant Christian way of life.

It gave birth to Iona and related communities.

Miller explains the practices of Celtic worship and the various forms of prayer integrated with the rustic life of Ireland and Scotland that then seeped into England and continental Europe with the [Irish] Hiberno-Scottish Mission under Saint Columba and his successors.

His six chapters explain the Trinity Prayer (loving all of God), Scripture Prayer (praying the Bible to its Author), Long/Wandering Prayer (life as an unending prayer), Nature Prayer (poetry and praise in ordinary life), Lorica Prayer (asking God’s protection) and Confessional Prayer (living in agreement with God).

Numerous examples can be readily used by readers and adapted for their own circumstances.

This is a practical book with which I fell easily in tune as it affirmed my own practice of “praying where I am”.

A separate DVD with six Bible studies is available directly from the author’s website, calvinmillerauthor.com. Dr Calvin Miller was an American Baptist pastor, theologian, writer of over 40 books, and academic, who died in August 2012, aged 75.

Peter Ellis