Comment: Celtic prayer consistently shows a recognition of God in all things, in the mundane, and likewise the practice of the pieties, the “taking of pains”, in little things to remember God. These days those ways are sometimes thought to be a merely Russian or Eastern or particular ethnic thing. Nothing could be farther from the truth, as the prayers of these Celts, among the eldest of the world’s Orthodox, show us. – DD
Prayer at Smooring The Fire
I smoor (smother) the fire this night
As the Son of Mary would smoor it;
The compassing of God be on the fire,
The compassing of God on all the household.
Be God’s compassing about ourselves,
Be God’s compassing about us all,
Be God’s compassing upon the flock,
Be God’s compassing upon the hearth.
Who keeps watch this night?
Who but the Christ of the poor,
The bright and gentle Brigit of the kine (cattle),
The bright and gentle Mary of the ringlets.
Whole be house and herd,
Whole be son and daughter,
Whole be wife and man,
Whole be household all.
— “Little Book of Celtic Prayer ” by A Duncan.