Patrick.07                                                              March 18, 2007

The teenage Patrick did not volunteer
        for a life of solitary prayer.
He was kidnaped from his English home
        and sold into slavery in Ireland.
His master put him to work as a shepherd,
        one of the loneliest jobs in the world.
Shepherds don’t speak with another human soul
        for months on end.

This happened at the stage of life
        when friends and social activity are most urgent.
But no mixers, keggers, or tailgate parties for Patrick.
He spent his adolescence alone in the Irish wilderness.

Since there was no one else to talk to,
        Patrick talked to God.
Eventually, prayer became his habitual way of being.

He later recalled,

        “More and more did my love of God,
        and my awe of him, and my faith, increase.
        My spirit was moved so that in a single day
        I would say as many as a hundred prayers
                and in the night a like number,
                even when I was standing in the woods
                and on the mountain.

        I used to rise before dawn for prayer,
                and in snow, and frost, and rain,
                and I used to feel no ill effect . . .

        (T)here was no slackness in me. . .
        (I)t was because the Spirit was glowing in me.”

In the more established parts of the world,
        monks perfected the life of prayer.
Patrick was not a monk,
        so he perfected the prayerful life instead.
And Celtic Christianity followed his lead.
Prayer was intertwined with daily life
        like the chords of a Celtic knot.
Esther de Waal says,

        “Praying and living were not set apart . . .
        At the heart of (Celtic Spirituality) is a deep sense
                 of the Presence of God. –
        God here and now, with me, close at hand,
        a God present in life and work,
                 immediate and accessible.”

The prayers of Ancient Ireland, Scotland, and Wales
        reflect this way of life, this way of being with God.
They aren’t church prayers like the Te Deum Laudamus.

They are short petitions and thanksgivings,
        usually in the form of poetry
                because that made them easy to memorize

        – and they are set in the most ordinary events of the day

        – like making the bed.

Here’s a prayer for making an Irish bed:

        “I make this bed
        In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
        In the name of the night we were conceived.
        In the name of the night we were born,
        In the name of the day we were baptized,
        In the name of each night, each day,
        Each angel that is in the heavens.”

While milking a cow, they would pray:

        “Bless, O God, my little cow,
                 Bless, O God, my desire;
        Bless Thou my partnership
                 and the milking of my hands, O God.”

While churning butter:

        “Come, thou Brigit, handmaid calm,
                 Hasten the butter on the cream;
        Seest thou impatient Peter yonder
        waiting the buttered bannock white and yellow.
        Come thou Mary Mother mild
                 Hasten the butter on the cream;
        Seest thou Paul and John and Jesus
                 waiting the gracious butter yonder.”

While weaving:

         “Bless thou Chief of generous chiefs
         My loom and everything a-near me,
         Bless thou me in my every action.
         Keep me safe while I live.”

There were prayers for walking, like this one:

         “Bless to me, O God
                The earth beneath my foot,
         Bless to me, O God,
                the path whereon I go;
         Bless to me O God,
                the thing of my desire;
                Thou Evermore of evermore,
         Bless Thou to me my rest.”

One began the day by splashing her face with water,
         not randomly, but three times in the name of the Blessed Trinity:

         “The palmful of the God of life;
         The palmful of the Christ of Love,
         The palmful of the Spirit of Peace
                  Triune of grace.”

At day’s end, one smoored the fire in the hearth, saying,

          “As I save this fire tonight
                 Even so may Christ save me,
          On top of the house let Mary
                 let Bride in its middle be.

          Let eight of the mightiest angels
                 Round the throne of the Trinity
          Protect this house and its people
                 Til the dawn of the day shall be.”

Weaving prayer into the fabric of each day
          changes our perspective.
It may not change what happens to us,
          but it changes what happens in us,
                  changes the eye which beholds each event.

George McLeod, founder of the Iona Community,
          penned this prayer which sums up
                  the point of all Celtic prayers,

          “Show us the glory in the gray.”//

Celtic Christianity evolved into the holy worldliness,
          the spirituality of ordinariness we call Anglicanism.
But this model of the prayerful life did not stay in Great Britain.
It spread as Celtic Missionaries carried Christianity
         back into Holland, Germany, Spain,
                   and even part of Italy.

Humble attentiveness to ordinary grace
         showed up in all sort so places

         – among the Brothers of the Common Life
                   in Holland;

         – among the Rhineland mystics;

         – and among a quirky bunch of folk-singing Italians
                  who called themselves, the Friars Minor,
                           or the Franciscans.

So Patrick’s sheep herding kind of prayer
         is important to us because
         it shaped both Anglicanism and the way of our patron.
And it also showed up, of all places, in the prayers
         of Martin Luther.

In his Short Catechism, Luther taught his followers
         that the first thing they should do
                   when they got out of bed each day was this:
         Make the sign of the cross, and say:

         “May the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
                   watch over me this day.”
         Then recite the Apostle’s Creed.

Not a bad idea, but I think the Our Father
         would be better than a Creed.
Prayer doesn’t always come easily,
         so a few routine prayers help us get started.
Prayer sanctifies action.
         What we hope for is a sanctified life.

The sanctified life looks a lot like any other life.
We still make the bed and wash the dishes.
But prayer can change the meaning of each little action.
It makes the ordinary holy by inviting God into it.
Brothers and sisters, Christianity is only a little
         about Church;
         only a little about special acts of mercy and mission.
Most of Christianity is about making the bed
         and washing the dishes.
Most of Christianity is about seeing God in little things,
         hearing God in little things,
         and serving God in the smallest of actions.

Patrick’s model of prayerful life,
         forged in the lonely Irish hills,
         can open our hearts
         and make holy the humblest work of our hands.

                                                             Amen.