Paradox Blessing

"Paradox Blessing"

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers,
half-truths, superficial relationships,
so that you will live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger at injustice,
oppression and exploitation of people,
so that you will work for justice, equity and peace.
May God bless you with tears to shed
for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war,
so that you will reach out your hand to comfort them
and change their pain to joy.
And may God bless you with foolishness to think
that you can make a difference in the world,
so that you will do the things which others tell you
cannot be done.

From Celtic Daily Prayer: Book Two (William Collins, 2015), 1088.

HT: Leonard Sweet

A Prayer For Forgiveness

Jesus, forgive my sins.

Forgive the sins that I can remember, and also
    the sins I have forgotten. 

Forgive the wrong actions I have committed,
    and the right actions I have omitted. 

Forgive the times I have been weak in the face
    of temptation, and those when I have been
    stubborn in the face of correction. 

Forgive the times I have been proud of my 

    own achievements, and those when I have
    failed to boast of your works. 

Forgive the harsh judgments I have made of
    others, and the leniency I have shown to
    myself. 

Forgive the lies I have told to others, and the
    truths I have avoided. 

Forgive me of the pain I have caused others,
    and the indulgence I have shown to myself.
Jesus have pity on me, and make me whole.

Anonymous Early Irish Prayer

From The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way of Everyday Joy by Calvin Miller

Praying the Parts

Well,. I think this prayer covers it all!

O God, defend me everywhere
With your impregnable power and protection.
Deliver all my mortal limbs,
Guarding each with your protective shield,
So the foul demons shall not hurl their darts
Into my side, as is their wont. 

Deliver my skull, hair- covered head, and eyes,
Mouth, tongue, teeth, and nostrils,
Neck, breast, side, and limbs,
Joints, fat, and two hands.  

Be a helmet of safety to my head,
To my crown covered with hair,
To my forehead, eyes, and triform brain,
To snout, lip, face, and temple.  

To my chin, beard, eyebrows, ears,
Chaps, cheeks, septum, nostrils,
Pupils, irises, eyelids, and the like,
To gums, breath, jaws, gullet.  

Protect my spine and ribs and their joints,
Back, ridge, and sinews with their bones;
Protect my skin and blood with kidneys,
The area of the buttocks, nates with thighs.
Protect my hams, calves, femurs,
Houghs and knees with knee- joints;
Protect my ankles and shins and heels,
Shanks, feet with their soles. 

Protect my toes growing together,
With the tips of the toes and twice five nails;
Protect my breast, collarbone and small
    breast,
Nipples, stomach, and navel. 

 Protect the whole of me with my five senses,
Together with the ten created orifices,
So that from soles of feet to crown of head I
   shall not sicken in any organ inside or out. 

The Breastplate of Laidcenn

From The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way of Everyday Joy by Calvin Miller

Eternal Threefold Exchanges

When Christ, the most high Lord, comes down
   from the heavens,
The brightest sign and standard of the Cross
   will shine forth.
The two principal lights being obscured,
The stars will fall to earth like the fruit of a fig
   tree
And the face of the world will be like the fire of
   a furnace
By the singing of hymns eagerly ringing out,
By thousands of angels rejoicing in holy
   dances,
And by the four living creatures full of eyes,
With the twenty- four joyful elders
Casting their crowns under the feet of the
   Lamb of God,
The Trinity is praised in eternal threefold
   exchanges.

The Altus Prosator, by St. Columba

From The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way to Everyday Joy, by Calvin Miller

Prayer For Favor

Let us pray to God the Father,

God the Son and to God the Holy Spirit 

Whose infinite greatness Enfolds the whole world, 

In persons three and one, 

In essence simple and triune, 

Sustaining the earth above the waters, 

Hanging the upper air with stars, 

That he may be favorable to sinners 

Who righteously justifies all who err, 

Who ever- living lives. 

May God be blessed for ages. Amen.

8th Century Celtic Prayer

From The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way to Everyday Joy by Calvin Miller

Encircled

Jesu! Only- begotten Son and Lamb of God the
    Father,
Thou didst give the wine- blood of Thy body
    to buy me from the grave.
My Christ! my Christ! my shield, my encircler,
Each day, each night, each light, each dark;
My Christ! my Christ! my Shield, my encircler,
Each day, each night, each light, each dark.
Be near me, uphold me, my treasure, my
    triumph,
In my lying, in my standing, in my watching,
    in my sleeping,
Jesu, Son of Mary! my helper, my encircler,
Jesu, Son of David! my strength everlasting;
Jesu, Son of Mary! my helper, my encircler,
Jesu, Son of David! my strength everlasting.

- A Prayer of St. Brendan the Navigator

From The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way to Everyday Joy by Calvin Miller

The Mode of Our Transport

"The key in all of our Scripture praying is to let the Word become the mode of our transport. Scripture is not just the basis or background of our praying but a prayer itself. When we are reading the Scripture, the border between Scripture and prayer become so thin that they meld into each other and we are united with God. At such times our separation is bridged, and we are transported into the very presence of the holy Trinity. Praying the Scriptures can become a way to make all areas of prayer effective. It can be used to add substance to each of the other models of prayer, providing the context that makes all forms beautiful and effective."

Calvin Miller, The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way to Everyday Joy

Bless To Me This Day

God, bless to me this day,
God bless to me this night;
Bless, O bless, Thou God of grace,
Each day and hour of my life;
    Bless, O bless, Thou God of grace,
    Each day and hour of my life.

God, bless the pathway on which I go,
God, bless the earth that is beneath my sole;
Bless, O God, and give to me Thy love,
O God of gods, bless my rest and my repose;
    Bless, O God, and give to me Thy love,
    And bless, O God of gods, my repose.

- A Prayer of St. Brendan the Navigator

From The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way to Everyday Joy by Calvin Miller

A Celtic Morning Prayer

I awake in the name of the Father who made
me.

I arise in the name of the Son who died to save Me.

I rise to greet the dawn in the name of the Spirit who fills me with life.

From The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way to Everyday Joy

by Calvin Miller

About St Patrick...

Seven things you might not know about St Patrick (that have nothing to do with beer).

1. He was one of the greatest missionaries who ever lived.
2. He considered himself “a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful, and most contemptible too many.”
3. He was actually more of a blue man (not sad, but the color), than a green one.
4. As a teenager, he was stolen from his home and sold into slavery for six years in Ireland. He would later return to preach the gospel there.
5. Satan attacked him violently in his sleep to the point where he couldn’t move.
6. Legend has it that he contextualized and used shamrocks (an already-sacred symbol in Ireland) to teach people about the Trinity.
7. He begged God to grant him to die a martyr’s death, even if it meant being torn limb from limb by dogs or pecked to death by birds. (Maybe St. Patrick inspired Alfred Hitchcock?)

Rediscovering Patrick

Most of the things popular culture says about St. Patrick are not true (no snakes). However, from what we do know, the real guy behind the image was a true Christian hero.  Phillip Jenkins has some details.

What makes Patrick stand out from his contemporaries, though, is that we can know him through his own unquestioned words, rather than the embellishments of later hagiographers and hero-worshipers. Somewhere around 450, he heard of attacks being made on him by bishops in Britain and Gaul. They had heard of his missionary successes, but were dubious about the means he was using to win them.

Anyone familiar with contemporary missions will recognize the picture – deep suspicion for someone working outside the mainstream agencies and churches, going off on his own, rumors of dubious financial practices. Why was he making such lavish gifts? Was he buying converts?

In response, Patrick composed a Confession, which translates best as a Declaration. In the modern sense of the word, he confessed nothing, beyond admitting his sinful and ignorant state. Point by point, though, he answered his critics. He tells the famous story of how Irish raiders abducted him from his British home. He escaped, but returned as a missionary. He offers a wonderful account of what mission actually meant in those days, in a situation where the bishop could not count on any aid from the Roman Empire or the secular power, beyond the kings or chieftains whose favor he could win.

In a society like that, gifts were an absolute foundation of social life and interaction, and to refuse them was to cut yourself off from any hope of success. Certainly, he tried to be careful about the appearance of corruption. He tells us for instance of “the pious women who of their own accord made me gifts and laid on the altar some of their ornaments and I gave them back to them, and they were offended that I did so.” It was a delicate balance.

Love Me Through My Journey

Oh Father, Who Keeps My Journey

Father of all humankind,
who keeps my journey
and marks the horizon of my destiny,
love me through my journey toward tomorrow.

Son of God,
leader and keeper of the maps,
show me not the whole road at once,
but give me the distance to be gained in single steps.

Spirit of God,
who holds my inner compass,
may your presence on the journey
awaken trust within me
when I don’t know what lies around the bend.

- Calvin Miller, The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way to Everyday Joy

Hat Tip: Trevin Wax

Learning from Saint Patrick

Dr. Russell Moore tells us What Evangelicals Can Learn from Saint Patrick

...As we watch the annual drunken parades and pop-culture consumerism of the March holiday, no one could seem more removed from biblical Christianity than Patrick. And yet, Patrick’s life was closer to a revival meeting than to a shamrock-decorated drinking party named in his honor.

In his volume, St. Patrick of Ireland: A Biography, Philip Freeman, a professor of classics at Washington University in St. Louis, lays out a compelling portrait of Patrick, the theologian-evangelist. In accomplishing this, Freeman attempts to reconstruct Patrick’s cultural milieu—that of a world that had “ended” with the fall of Rome in 410 A.D. This collapse of Roman power had unleashed savagery in the British Isles, as thieves and slave-traders were unhinged from the restraining power of Caesar’s sword. Patrick’s ministry was shaped by this new world, not least of which by Patrick’s capture and escape from slavery....

...The rest of the narrative demonstrates the ways in which Patrick carried the Christian mission into the frontiers of the British Isles—confronting a hostile culture and institutionalized heresy along the way. With this the case, the life of Patrick is a testimony to Great Commission fervor, not to the Irish nationalism most often associated with the saint. As a matter of fact, Freeman points out that Patrick’s love for the Irish was an act of obedience to Jesus’ command to love enemies and to pray for persecutors.

This biography gives contemporary evangelicals more than a pious evangelist to emulate. It also reconstructs a Christian engagement with a pagan culture, in ways that are strikingly contemporary to evangelicals seeking to engage a post-Christian America.

Also: Driscoll on Patrick