The Joy of Praying

from Rev. Hamish Christie-Johnston

 

A few Sunday’s ago the reading was on Jacob’s experience when he saw messengers of God ascending and descending a ladder to heaven.  It led me to reflect with the congregation about the idea of ‘thin’ places where the sense of the presence of God is very great – the veil that separates us is thin.  I went on to reflect on the ways in which Celtic Christians of 150 years ago had been constant in their sense of the presence of God.  Some of you said you would like copies of the prayers I used.

They had prayers for every imaginable circumstance.  This is the prayer which I referred to as the one the people said each morning when they went outside to begin the day.

The path of right

My walk this day with God,

My walk this day with Christ,

My walk this day with Spirit,

The Threefold all-kindly:

Ho! ho! ho! the Threefold all-kindly.

My shielding this day from ill,

My shielding this night from harm,

Ho! ho! both my soul and my body,

Be by Father, by Son, by Holy Spirit:

By Father, by Son, by Holy Spirit.

Be the Father shielding me,

Be the Son shielding me,

Be the Spirit shielding me,

As Three and as One:

Ho! ho! ho! as Three and as One.

 

I included the following quotation from a book I have at home, published by Esther de Waal on prayers and blessings from the Outer Hebrides entitled THE CELTIC VISION.  In it she draws on the six volumes of what is known as Carmina Gadelica, a collection gathered by Alexander Carmichael in extensive travel throughout Western Scotland a hundred and fifty to two hundred years ago.

A woman called Catherine Maclennan told him (and I can almost hear the lilt in her voice):

“My mother would be asking us to sing our morning song to God down in the back-house, as Mary's lark was singing it up in the clouds and as Christ's mavis was singing it yonder in the tree, giving glory to the God of the creatures for the repose of the night, for the light of the day, and for the joy of life.  She would tell us that every creature on the earth here below and in the ocean beneath and in the air above was giving glory to the great God of the creatures and the worlds, of the virtues and the blessings, and would we be dumb!”

As she gave him the prayer 'Bless to me, O God' Catherine Maclennan added, 'My mother taught us what we should ask for in the prayer, as she heard it from her own mother, and as she again heard it from the one who was before her.'  All that Alexander Carmichael collected had in fact been handed down from generation to generation.

 

Bless to me, O God

Bless to me, O God,

Each thing mine eye sees;

Bless to me, O God,

Each sound mine ear hears;

Bless to me, O God,

Each odour that goes to my nostrils;

Bless to me, O God,

Each taste that goes to my lips;

Each note that goes to my song

Each ray that guides my way,

Each thing that I pursue,

Each lure that tempts my will,

The zeal that seeks my living soul,

The Three that seek my heart,

The zeal that seeks my living soul,

The Three that seek my heart

 

I used the following prayer at the time of the offering

Bless, O God, the thing on which mine eye doth rest,

Bless, O God, the thing on which my hope doth rest,

Bless, O God, my reason and my purpose,

Bless, O bless Thou them, Thou God of life;

Bless, O God, my reason and my purpose,

Bless, O bless Thou them, Thou God of life.

 

One I didn’t use but which you might like.

Prayer at dressing

Bless to me, O God,

My soul and my body;

Bless to me, O God,

My belief and my condition;

Bless to me, O God,

My heart and my speech,

And bless to me, O God,

The handling of my hand;

Strength and busyness of morning,

Habit and temper of modesty,

Force and wisdom of thought,

And Thine own path, O God of virtues, Till I go to sleep this night;

Thine own path, O God of virtues, Till I go to sleep this night.

The practice of such prayers can stimulate the sense of a thin place!