The Best Known Celtic Prayer
Is Hebrew: “The LORD bless thee and keep thee. The LORD make his face to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. The LORD lift up the light of his countenance upon thee and grant thee peace” (Numbers 6).
celts
Remembering the Saints in All Things
Comment: Remembering the saints in everyday, mundane things is an old custom of all Orthodox worldwide, and is sometimes obscured today by the modern megachurch approach to piety. It is good to take a lesson from the Celts in this, who remind us of something older, and more universal – more catholic – than the passive prayers, passive pray-ers, and passive saints we might sometimes imagine for ourselves. – DD
Prayer at the Guarding of Flocks
May Mary the mild keep the sheep,
May Bride the calm keep the sheep,
May Columba keep the sheep,
May Maolruba keep the sheep,
May Carmac keep the sheep,
From the fox and the wolf.
May Oran keep the kine (cattle),
May Modan keep the kine,
May Donnan keep the kine,
May Moluag keep the kine,
May Maolruan keep the kine,
On soft land and hard land.
May the Spirit of peace preserve the flocks,
May the Son of Mary Virgin preserve the flocks,
May the God of glory preserve the flocks,
May the Three preserve the flocks,
From wounding and from death-loss,
From wounding and from death-loss.
— Carmina Gaedalica
Pieties among the Celts
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.