Lessons:
Psalm 66:1-8
Isaiah 66:10-14
Galatians 6:1-6, 7-16
Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
“The Kingdom of God
has come near to you…
The Kingdom of God
has come near.”
Jesus sends out
seventy evangelists
to spread the good
news.
He tells them to say,
“The Kingdom has come near”
to those who accept
the good news
as well as to those
who do not.
Celtic Christians
lived every moment of their lives
believing God was
near them.
At the remote western
reaches of the Roman empire,
the native peoples of
the British Isles
were converted by the
Roman Christians
in the 2nd
century after Christ.
When the Roman
legions abandoned England in 410
the Celtic Christians
kept and spread the faith.
St. Patrick was among
the English Celts
who took the good
news to Ireland in that same century.
The Celtic Christians
recognized God in nature,
in each other, in
their daily tasks,
in all the trials and
joys of life,
and they called on
God’s presence at all times.
They heeded the words
of Paul in his first letter
to the Thessalonians:
“Pray without ceasing.”
Psalm 66 includes
these beautiful words, praising God:
“All the earth bows
down before you,
sings to you, sings
out your name.
Bless our God you
peoples,
make the voice of his
praise to be heard,
Who holds our souls
in life,
and will not allow
our feet to slip.”
These words from the
psalm could very well be
the model for a
Celtic prayer.
For every activity of
the day,
from the splashing of
water for the morning bath,
or the churning of
cream to make butter,
to the plowing and
planting of a field,
the Celtic people had
a prayer for every occasion.
They continuously
invoked the presence of God
and praised God’s
name.
What Isaiah says
about the Lord’s loving care of his people,
suggests what the
Celts believed:
“Thus says the Lord,
I will extend prosperity to her
(to Jerusalem) like a
river, and you shall nurse
and be carried on her
arm,
and dandled on her
knees.
As a mother comforts
her child, so I will comfort you.
You shall see, and
your heart shall rejoice;
your bodies shall
flourish like the grass;
and it shall be known
that the hand of the Lord
is with his
servants.”
These words of Isaiah
would have resonated deeply
with the Celtic
people, who surrendered their children
to God at the moment
of their birth.
The midwife who
delivered a Celtic baby
was called a
womb-woman.
As soon as an infant
was born,
the womb-woman
sprinkled water on the baby’s head,
what they called a
“birthing baptism,”
as she said,
“A small drop of
water
to thy forehead,
beloved,
fit for the Father,
Son and Spirit,
the Triune of power.
A small drop of water
to encompass my
beloved,
fit for Father, Son,
and Spirit,
the Triune of power.
A small drop of water
to fill thee with
each grace,
fit for Father, Son
and Spirit,
the Triune of power.”
Later the baby would
also have an official baptism.
In living their lives
as an ongoing conversation
with God, the Celts
achieved a seeming intimacy
with the Holy
that modern
Christians might envy.
But we shouldn’t be
deceived and imagine
that such intimacy
lacked the proper awe.
If anything, their
nearness to God
inspired in the Celts
a greater reverence
for the Divine.
May we learn to
follow their example
living our lives in
prayer.
The Kingdom of God is
very near. Amen.
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