Dorthy Day (1897 - 1980 )

Dorthy Speaks: On Love

“When it comes down to it, even on the natural plane, it is much happier and more enlivening to love than to be loved.”

 “True love is delicate and kind, full of gentle perception and understanding, full of beauty and grace, full of joy unutterable.There should be some flavor of this in all our love for others. We are all one. We are one flesh in the Mystical Body as man and woman are said to be one flesh in marriage.

With such a love one would see all things new; we would begin to see people as they really are, as God sees them.”

“I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.”

  “To love with understanding and without understanding. To love blindly, and to folly. To see only what is loveable. To think only of these things. To see the best in everyone around, their virtues rather than their faults. To see Christ in them!”

"As Dostoevski said: 'Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.”

“Love and ever more love is the only solution to every problem that comes up.
If we love each other enough, we will bear with each other's faults and burdens.
If we love enough, we are going to light a fire in the hearts of others.
And it is love that will burn out the sins and hatreds that sadden us. It is love that will make us want to do great things for each other. No sacrifice and no suffering will then seem too much.”

“The final word is love.”

Gregory of Siani ( died 1346 )

Born in Smyrna, he was captured by Turks as a young man. He was eventually ransomed to Cyprus and became a monk at Saint Cathrine monastery on Mount Sinai. Later  he moved to Crete where he learned the practice of the Jesus prayer and hesychasm from the monk Arsenios. 

Eventuallyi n 1310 he moved to Hount Athos  to the Magoula skete near Phileotho Monestary  where he remained until 1335. Thus, having gained the experience of many centuries of the monastic life from the ancient monasteries, Gregory settled down in a solitary place for the purpose of pursuing "hesychia" (stillness doing the Jesus Prayer). 

With his contemporary Gregory of Palamas, he helped to establish Mount Athos as a center of hesychasm. From there he wrote and traveled widely teaching this approach to contemplation as a method of union with God.

Concerned with spreading of monasticism, Gregory founded several cells on Mount Athos, as well as four monasteries in Thrace.

Increasing Muslim raids on Athos pushed Gregory and some disciples into the Bulgarian empire, where he would find protection under Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Alexander and where he founded a monastery near Paroria, Strnadzah mountains in south east Bulgaria where he died on November 27th 1346.

 The Philokalia includes five works in Greek by Gregory,

• On Commandments and Doctrines, Warnings and Promises; on Thoughts, Passions and Virtues, and also on Stillness and Prayer: 137 Texts
• Further Texts
• On the Signs of Grace and Delusion, Written for the Confessor Longinos: Ten Texts
• On Stillness: Fifteen Texts
• On Prayer: Seven Texts

Monasticism (13)

Irish Monasticism  part 1

The ‘Catalogue of the Saints of Ireland’ divided the Saints of Ireland into three orders. The first contains all those bishops deemed to have received their ministry from St Patrick. The second lists monks who had received their ministry from Britain. The third consists of hermits. But the document is of 9C or even 10C and is clearly designed to boost the prestige of Patrick and his bishops over against the monks and hermits. But these orders were not consecutive but contemporary one with another and should be dated to the 6C. This century was one of great expansion which saw not only bishops, but monks and hermits, spreading everywhere in Ireland. The result was that the monasteries became the de facto centres of the church.  Monasticism, with its multiple forms, had great appeal because its adaptability.

The traditional founder of the monastic movement is said to have been St Finnian of Clonard (548) who had received training in Wales. He was undoubtedly a great founder and teacher. But there were many before him. Patrick’s relation to the monastic life is unclear though interesting. Some deny he founded any monasteries on the grounds that bishops came first and monks later. Yet St Patrick was firmly in favour of the dedicated life; he refers to it four times. Most explicit is his statement that, ‘The sons of the Irish and the daughters of their kings are monks and brides of Christ’. But even if this only referred to individuals not communities – and this is not clear- for a bishop in the 5th C to be so positive is unusual. His companion St Tassach (470), founder of the church at Raholp just 2 miles from Saul, is said to have spent 7 years on Rathlin O’Birne off the coast of Donegal with other hermits before 500. If so this is of extraordinary interest. St Enda (530) spent many years first as a hermit, founder of a monastery and teacher of many on Inishmore, the main island of Aran Co Galway. St Donard (507) at Maghera Co Down is said to have had a hermit’s cell on top of Slieve Donard in the Mountains of Mourne. St Forthchern (5C), who is said to have been a bishop and then a hermit in Meath, may have been the teacher of Finnian. St Buite (523) founded Monasterboice in Co Louth. St Senan (546) evangelised West and South Clare and he and his disciples founded many places around the Clare coast and on the islands of the Shannon estuary. There are also several remarkable women saints from the early period, St Gobnait (5C) at Ballyvourney (Co Cork), St Arraght (5C) at Killaracht and Monasteraden (both Co Sligo), St Monnina at Killevy (Co Armagh) (517), St Brigit (524) at Kildare, St Bronagh at Kilbroney, Rostrevor (Co Down) and St Ita (570) at Killeedy (Co Limerick).

St Columba (597) was perhaps the most prolific founder of monasteries of all. Born at Garten in Co Donegal, he was of royal blood, of commanding stature and evidently of great charisma. He eventually left Ireland for Scotland where, from this base on Iona, he evangelised among the Picts. His ‘Life’ written by St Adamnan gives a vivid picture of an Irish saint and Irish  monasticism..

Columbanus (543 - 615)

From the Instructions of St Columban

You, God, are everything to us

My brethren, let us follow this call. We are called to the source and fountain of life, by the Life who is not just the fountain of living water but also the fountain of eternal life, the fountain of light, the fountain and source of glory. From this Life comes everything: wisdom, life, eternal light. The Creator of life is the fountain from which life springs; the Creator of light is the fountain of light. So let us leave this world of visible things. Let us leave this world of time and head for the heavens. Like fish seeking water, like wise and rational fish let us seek the fountain of light, the fountain of life, the fountain of living water. Let us swim in, let us drink from the water of the spring welling up into eternal life.

  Merciful God, righteous Lord, grant that I may reach that fountain. There let me join the others who thirst for you, drinking living water from the living stream that flows from the fountain of life. Overwhelmed by its sweetness let me cling close to it and say “How sweet is the spring of living water that never runs dry, the spring that wells up into eternal life!.”

  O Lord, you yourself are that spring, always and for ever to be desired, always and for ever to be drunk from. Christ our Lord, give us this water as the Samarian woman once asked you, so that in us also it can be a spring of living water welling up into eternal life. It is an enormous gift I am asking – everyone knows that – but you, King of glory, have given great gifts in the past and made great promises. Nothing, after all, is greater than you; and yet you have given yourself to us and given yourself for us.

  Therefore we beg you that we should come to full knowledge of the thing that we love; for we pray to be given nothing other than you yourself. You are everything to us, our life, our light, our health and strength, our food, our drink, our God. Jesus, our Jesus, I beg you to fill our hearts with the breath of your Spirit. Pierce our souls with the sword of your love so that each of us can say truthfully in his heart, “Show me the one with whom my soul is in love, for by love I am wounded.”

  Lord, let me bear such wounds in my soul. Blessed is the soul that is wounded by such love and, thus wounded, seeks the fountain and drinks, thirsts even while it drinks: it seeks by loving, and the very wound of love brings it healing. May Jesus Christ, our righteous God and Lord, our true and healing doctor, deign to wound our innermost hearts with that healing wound. With the Father and the Holy Spirit he is one, for ever and for ever. 

Amen.

Saint Columban—the dove ( The name means dove or little dove in Latin. )of Christ The Irish missionary monk St. Columban (ca. 543-615) who traveled throughout Europe. He founded influential monasteries in France, Switzerland, and Italy.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/st-columban#ixzz2CgzaFhVB

graphics: top left Bibbio Italy

The Irish monks with their new, forceful kind of Christianity, stressing self-discipline and purity of life, presented a striking contrast to the complacent churchmen already living among the Franks. Columban spoke out repeatedly against the cruelty and self-indulgence of the kings and royal families, stressing the necessity of penance and introducing a new custom of frequent personal confession.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/st-columban#ixzz2CgzaFhVB

               bottom right. statue of St Columbanus in Bibbio

The Irish monks with their new, forceful kind of Christianity, stressing self-discipline and purity of life, presented a striking contrast to the complacent churchmen already living among the Franks. Columban spoke out repeatedly against the cruelty and self-indulgence of the kings and royal families, stressing the necessity of penance and introducing a new custom of frequent personal confession.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/st-columban#ixzz2CgzaFhVB

mystical verse (3)

The Blessed Journey

Let Him lead thee blindfold onwards,

Love needs not to know;

Children whom the Father leadeth

Ask not where they go.

Though the path be all unknown,

Over moors and mountains lone.

Give no ear to reason’s questions:

Let the blind man hold

That the sun is but a fable

Men believed of old.

At the breast the babe will grow;

Whence the milk he need not know.

                 Gerhard Tersteegeen 1697 - 1769

Jakop Boehme ( 1575 - 1624 )

This German protestant mystic and theologian, was born in the East German town of Goerlitz in 1575. He had little in the way of a formal education and made his living as a shoemaker; he married and had four children.  He is considered an original thinker within the Lutheran tradition, his thought drew from  a wide range of  interests including Paracelsus, the Kabbala, alchemy and the Hermetic tradition. 

 Böhme had a number of mystical experiences throughout his youth, culminating in a vision in 1600 as one day he focused his attention onto the exquisite beauty of a beam of sunlight reflected in a pewter dish. He believed this vision revealed to him the spiritual structure of the world, as well as the relationship between God and man, and good and evil. At the time he chose not to speak of this experience openly, preferring instead to continue his work and raise a family

 In 1610 Böhme experienced another inner vision in which he further understood the unity of the cosmos and felt that he had received a special vocation from God.

 Twelve years after the vision in 1600, Böhme began to write his first book, Die Morgenroete im Aufgang (The rising of Dawn). The book was given the name Aurora by a friend; however, Böhme originally wrote the book for himself and it was never completed. A manuscript copy of the unfinished work was loaned to Karl von Ender, a nobleman, who had copies made and began to circulate them. . Like Eckhart and others, Boehme's thought drew fire from the church authorities, who silenced him for five years. In 1618 Boehme began writing again, this time in secrecy  after the persistent  insistence of friends who had read Aurora,

In 1619 Böhme wrote "De Tribus Principiis" or "On the Three Principles of Divine Being". It took him two years to finish his second book, which was followed by many other treatises, all of which were copied by hand and circulated only among friends. In 1620 Böhme wrote "The Threefold Life of Man", "Forty Questions on the Soul", "The Incarnation of Jesus Christ", "The Six Theosophical Points", "The Six Mystical Points". 

In 1622 Böhme wrote "De Signatura Rerum". In 1623 Böhme wrote "On Election to Grace", "On Christ's Testaments", "Mysterium Magnum", "Clavis (Key)". The year 1622 saw Böhme write some short works all of which were subsequently included in his first published book on New Year's Day 1624, under the title Weg zu Christo The Way to Christ.

 He again raised the cockles of church authorities, and he was banished from his home. He died soon thereafter, in 1624, after returning home from Dresden. His last words spoken, as he was surrounded by his family, were reported to be, "Now I go hence into Paradise."

Poets such as John Milton, Ludwig Tiack, Novalis and William blake found inspiration in Böhme's writings.  His thought influenced  major figures in philosophy, especially German Romantics such as   Baader, Schelling and Hegel. Hegel.went as far as to say that Böhme was "the first German philosopher."   

Indirectly, his influence can be traced to the work of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Hartmann, Bergson, and Heidegger.  Paul Tillich and Martin Buber drew heavily from his work -- as did the psychologist, Carl Jung, who made numerous references to Boehme in his writings. Hegel, Baader, and Schelling. . Further,

compiled from several sources


 graphic:upper left cover pagefor one of Boehme's tracts
             bottom right, from The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme. by Franz Hartmann

Teaching of the Early Church: Theosis (2)

Irenaus and Primary Purpose of the Atonement.

“For [God] promised, that in the last times He would pour Him [the Spirit] upon [His] servants and handmaids, that they might prophesy; wherefore He did also descend upon the Son of God, made the Son of man, becoming accustomed in fellowship with Him to dwell in the human race, to rest with human beings, and to dwell in the workmanship of God, working the will of the Father in them, and renewing them from their old habits into the newness of Christ” (Against the Heresies, III.17.1). theosis

“For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God” (Against the Heresies, III.19.1). theosis

“…the Word of God, who dwelt in man, and became the Son of man, that He might accustom man to receive God, and God to dwell in man, according to the good pleasure of the Father” (Against the Heresies, III.20.2). theosis

“…our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself” (Against the Heresies, V. Preface). theosis

“But we do now receive a certain portion of His Spirit, tending towards perfection, and preparing us for incorruption, being little by little accustomed to receive and bear God…” (Against the Heresies, V.7.1). theosis

Hesychasm

Hesychasm

Hesychasm or "prayer of the heart as it was known and taught by Gregory Palamas is a form of constant purposeful prayer or experiential prayer, explicitly referred to as contemplation. It is to focus ones mind on God and pray to God unceasingly. Under church tradition the practice of Hesychasm has it beginnings in the bible, Matthew 6:6 and is expounded on in the Philokalia. The tradition of contemplation with inner silence or tranquility is shared by all Eastern ascetisim having its roots in the Egyptian traditions of monasticism exemplified by such Orthodox monastics as St Anthony of Egypt.desert fathers

In the early 14th century, Gregory of Sinai learned hesychasm from Arsenius of Crete and spread the doctrine, bringing it to the monks on Mount Athos The terms Hesychasm and Hesychast were used by the monks on Mount Athos to refer to the practice and to the practitioner of a method of mental ascesis that involves the use of the Jesus Prayer assisted by certain psychophysical techniques. The hesychasts stated that at higher stages of their prayer practice they reached the actual contemplative union with the Tabor light, i.e., Uncreated Divine Light or photomos seen by the apostles in the event of the Transfiguration of Christ and Saint Paul while on the road to Damascus.

compiled from several Orthodox sources

Hilda (614–680)

 

St Hilda's Three Monasteries

We do not know where Hilda began her life as a nun, except that it was on the North bank of the River Wear. Here with a few companions, she learned the traditions of Celtic monasticism which Aidan brought from Iona. After a year, Aidan appointed Hilda second Abbess of Hartlepool. No trace remains of this abbey, but the monastic cemetery has been found near the present St. Hilda’s Church. In 657 Hilda became the founding abbess of a new monastery at Whitby (then known as Streonshalh); she remained there until her death in 680.

Monasticism (12)

The Skete

A Skete, is a monastic style community that allows relative isolation for monks, but also allows for communal services and the safety of shared resources and protection. It is one of three early monastic orders along with eremitic and coenobitic that became popular during the early formation of the Christian Church.

Skete communities usually consist of a number of small cells or caves that act as the living quarters with a centralized church or chapel. These communities are thought of as a bridge between strict hermetic lifestyle and communal lifestyles since it was a blend of the two. These communities were a direct response to the ascetic lifestyle that early Christians aspired to live. Skete communities were often a bridge to a stricter form of hermitage or to martyrdom. The term Skete is most likely a reference to the Scetis valley region of Egypt where Skete communities first appear, but a few scholars have argued that it instead is a stylized spelling of the word ascetic.

graphic: St. Anna's Skete, Mount Athos

Roque Gonzales (1576 -1628)

Father Roque González de Santa Cruz was born in  Paraguay to a family of Spanish nobles.He spoke Guarani fluently from an early age. 

At the age of 22 he was ordained a priest. In 1609, he became a Jesuit, beginning his work as a missionary among the indigenous people of the region. He became the first European  to enter the region known today as the Brazilian State of Rio du Sol

His arrival in the area only happened after his developing delicate relationships of trust with local indigenous leaders, some of whom feared that the priests were preparing the way for the arrival of masses of Europeans in their land.

While Spanish conquistadors brutalized the natives of Paraguay and raped their culture Gonzales responded by leading Jesuits to create politically independent Indian villages of several thousand persons.  More than thirty such communal farming communities were formed, some which became the sights of present day cities in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil.

He and two helpers were killed by natives when they attempted to establish a community in southern Brazil.

Celtic Advent Begins

The Celtic Advent period lasts for forty days. Nov. 15-Dec. 24.  The Dates are the same for Eastern Orthodox Advent (Nativity Fast, Winter Lent, or the Christmas Lent).

During the time of ancient Celtic Christianity, the entire Church, both Western (including the Celtic Christians), and Eastern (the Orthodox Communions, Oriental Churches, and Eastern Rite Roman Catholics) all celebrated a longer Advent Season as a lesser Lenten fast.  Advent seems to have been a result of the observance of the Celtic monks in Gaul,

It began on the same date every year on November 15th (Orthodox Churches still observe it as beginning on this day Observance of Advent appears to have taken place since the 4th Century (300's A.D.)  Like Lent, it originally was a season when new Christians studied in preparation for being baptized.  In the early Middle Ages Advent was the Season of preparing oneself for the Second Coming of Christ.  It was a season of repentance and dedication to prayer.

a short Northumbrian Advent compline that can be used nightly until the 17th of December and the begining of the Advent Antiphons

 Celtic Advent liturgy that can be used Sundays leading up to christmas

 Living Water Acient Well explanation of Advent 

Graphic:this is the  Celtic advent wreath we lit through out the advent season

Living water classic re-post

Gregory Palamas ((1296–1359)

Gregory was born in Constantinople. His father was a courtier of the Byzantine emperor Andronikas II, but he died soon after Gregory was born. The Emperor himself groomed the the fatherless boy he would devote himself to government service.

 Despite the Emperor's ambitions for him, Gregory, then barely twenty years old, withdrew to Mount Athos  becaming a novice. Eventually, he was tonsured a monk, and continued his life of asceticism

Gregory spent eight years of spiritual struggle and eventually transferred to the Great Larva on Mount Athos, where he served the brethren in the refectory and  as a cantor. Wishing to devote himself more fully to prayer and asceticism he entered a skete called Glossia, where he taught the ancient practice of contemplative prayer known as "prayer of the heart" or Hesychasm.

 Barlaam an Italian born convert to Eastern Orthodoxy was scandalized by hesychasm after he encountered contemplatives during a visit to Mount Athos. Trained in the mode of Western Scholastic Theology, Barlaam propounded a more intellectual and propositional approach to the knowledge of God than that of the Contemplatives. He began to combat hesychasm both orally and in his writings

On the Hesychast side,  Palamas was asked by his fellow monks on Mt Athos to defend hesychasm from the attacks of Barlaam. Palamas was well-educated in Greek philosophy. In response to Barlaam's attacks, Palamas wrote nine treatises entitled "Triads For The Defense of Those Who Practice Sacred Quietude". The treatises are called "Triads" because they were organized as three sets of three treatises. He also  defended hesychasm at six different synods in Constantinople where finally in 1351Barlaam's opposition to Hesychasm was finally ended.

Palamas's opponents in the Hesychast controversy spread slanderous accusations against him, and in 1344  imprisoned him for four years.Gregory was released from prison and became the Bishop of  Thessaloniki

However, since the conflict with Barlaam had not been settled at that point, the people of Thessalonika did not accept him, and he was forced to live in a number of places. It was not until 1350 that he was able to serve as Bishop In 1354, during a voyage to Constantinople, the ship he was in fell into the hands of Turkish pirates; he was imprisoned and beaten. He was obliged to spend a year in detention at the Ottoman court where he was well treated. Eventually his ransom was paid and he returned to Thessaloniki, where he served as Archbishop for the last three years of his life.

Palamas died on November 14, 1359. His dying words were, "To the heights! To the heights!" He was canonized a saint of the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1368 

compiled from several sources

graphics: upper left ancient Icon of Gregory. bottom right; the triads, the classics of western spirituality series

Josaphat & Charles Simeon

Ironical today marks the feast days of two  men who suffered greatly while working toward understanding  and tolerance in the family of Christ.

Josaphat (1580-1623)

An orthodox monk who believed the schism between the eastern and western church should be bridged. After his ordination he became eloquent on the issue. Once elected archbishop he focused on clerical and lay reform. Fear of Rome lead a group of bishops to oppose him, stirring up controversy. As an act of conciliation he visited the churches that opposed him. It was while preaching at one of these that an angry mob grabbed him, smashed his skull and threw his body in o the river. he was canonized in1876 as a martyr for Christian unity

 Charles Simeon (1759-1836)

His professional adult life was spent  serving as a chaplain at Cambridge University. Through out he remained deeply rooted in both the Anglican church and in the evangelical experience he had as an undergraduate.

He suffered greatly even physically at the hands of both the high church and the evangelicals. Ironically he garnered the love of those who were seekers.

Remembrance Day

An Ancient Celtic Peace Blessing

If there is righteousness in the heart,
there will be beauty in the character.
If there is beauty in the character,
there will be harmony in the home.
If there is harmony in the home,
there will be order in the nation.

If there is order in the nation,
there will be peace in the world.
So let it be.
 

—Scottish Blessing

Martin of Tours (316-397)

Martin of Tours and Celtic Monasticism

By the 4th century an ascetic/monastic revival was occurring throughout Christendom, and in the West this revival was being led by St. Martin. The Monastery of Marmoutier which St. Martin founded near Tours (on the Loire in western France) served as the training ground for generations of monastic aspirants drawn from the Romano-Celtic nobility. It was also the spiritual school that bred the first great missionaries to the British Isles. The way of life led at Marmoutier harmonized perfectly with the Celtic soul. Martin and his followers were contemplatives, yet they alternated their times of silence and prayer with periods of active labor out of love for their neighbor.

Some of the monks who were formed in St. Martin’s “school” brought this pattern back to their Celtic homelands in Britain, Scotland and Wales. Such missionaries included Publicius, a son of the Roman emperor Maximus who was converted by St. Martin, and who went on to found the Llanbeblig Monastery in Wales—among the first of over 500 Welsh monasteries. Another famous disciple of St. Martin was St. Ninian, who traveled to Gaul to receive monastic training at St. Martin’s feet, and then returned to Scotland, where he established Candida Casa at Whithorn, with its church dedicated to St. Martin. The waterways between Ireland and Britain had been continually traversed by Celtic merchants, travelers, raiders and slave-traders for many centuries past, so the Irish immediately heard the Good News brought to Wales and Scotland by these disciples of Ninian.

Blessing For Hearth-Keepers

As the cooler days settle in upon us I thought it would be fitting to share this Celtic Blessing for the Keeper  of the  Hearth

Brigid of the Mantle, encompass us,

Lady of the Lambs, protect us,

Keeper of the Hearth, kindle us.

Beneath your mantle, gather us, And restore us to memory.

Mothers of our mother, Foremothers strong.

Guide our hands in yours,

Remind us how To kindle the hearth.

To keep it bright, To preserve the flame.

Your hands upon ours, Our hands within yours,

To kindle the light, Both day and night.

The Mantle of Brigid about us,

The Memory of Brigid within us,

The Protection of Brigid keeping us From harm,

from ignorance, from heartlessness.

This day and night, From dawn till dark, From dark till dawn.

(Brigid is the Irish saint whose following draws strongly upon the Celtic Goddess of the same name; as hearth-keeper, she is venerated throughout the Celtic world.)

Feast Day of Irish Saints

The Litany of Irish Saints

Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, have mercy on us.

Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, hear us.

Christ, graciously hear us.

God the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.

God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.

God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity one God, have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, pray for us

Holy Mother of God,

Holy Virgin of virgins,

St. Joseph,

St. Killian, pray for us

St. Rumold,

St. Livinus,

Blessed Oliver,

All ye Holy Martyrs,

St. Celestine,pray for us

St. Patrick,

St. Malachy,

St. Macnise,

St. Finnian,

St. Mel

St. Macartan,

St. Eugene,

St. Colman,

St. Felim,

St. Eunan,

St. Laurence,

St. Conleth,

St. Laserian,

St. Aidan,

St. Kieran,

St. Albert,

St. Ailbe,

St. Colman,

St. Finnbarr,

St. Flannan,

St. Munchin,

St. Fachtna,

St. Otteran,

St. Carthage,

St. Jarlath,

St. Nathy,

St. Asicus,

St. Nicholas,

St. Colman,

St. Muredach,

St. Declan,

St. Virgilius,

St. Senan,

St. Frigidian,

St. Cuthbert,

St. Rupert,

St. Celsus,

St. Cataldus,

St. Donatus,

Blessed Thaddaeus,

All ye Holy Pontiffs and Confessors,

St. Columba,pray for us

St. Kevin,

St. Brendan,

St. Canice,

St. Kieran,

St. Columbanus,

St. Gall,

St. Fursey,

St. Fintan,

St. Comgall,

St. Fiacre,

All ye Holy Monks and Hermits,

St. Brigid, pray for us

St. Ita,

St. Attracta,

St. Dympna,

St. Lelia,

All ye Holy Virgins,

All ye Holy Saints of God, Intercede for us.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, Spare us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, Graciously hear us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, Have mercy on us.

V. Pray for us, all you Saints of Ireland.

R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray

Grant, O Lord, an increase of Thy Grace to us who celebrate the memory of all the Saints of our Island ; that as, on earth, we rejoice to be one with them in race, so,in Heaven, we may deserve to share with them an inheritance of bliss. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen. 

The Origins: In the early 1920's  Pope Benedict XV instituted a feast day  on November the 6th in honor of All the Saints of Ireland. Indeed the Litany of the Irish Saints was authorized for public, as opposed to purely private, recitation. This  translation was published in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record for 1921


Top Graphic: Icon of the Litany of the Saints

Bottom Graphic: Regensburg fragment, a page from the 12th century Litany of the Irish Saints

The House that John Built

A Celtic Litany of the Saints

John, beloved disciples of the Lord:
pray with us.

Fathers and mothers of the Desert,
people of prayer and bringer of wisdom:
pray with us.

Martin, saint of Tours,
builder of communities of hermits,
living simply, loving God;
Martin, soldier of Christ:
pray with us.

Ninian of Whithorn,
apostle and example:
pray with us.

Patrick of Britain,
missionary to the land of Ireland:
pray with us.

Brigid, compulsive giver,
lover of the poor, Brigid of Kildare:
pray with us.

Columba of Iona, exiled from Ireland,
abbot and scribe, lover of Christ;
Columba now the gentle;
Columba of the Church:
pray with us.

Oswald, king and saint,
willing interpreter of the Gospel truth;
Oswald, man of prayer:
pray with us.

Aidan, emissary from Iona;
gentle and straightforward;
torchbearer; liberator of slaves;
Aidan of Lindisfarne:
pray with us.

Hild of Whitby,
firm leader of both men and women;
renowned for your counsel and insight,
releasing others in their giftedness;
Hild, woman of courage and faith:
pray with us.

Cuthbert of Northumbria,
hermit and joyous worshipper;
man of prayer and spiritual warfare;
patient minister of reconciliation;
Cuthbert of the people:
pray with us.

A Living Water From An Ancient Well Reprint

All Souls Day

The 16th century reformers refused to distinguish "all saints from "all souls" insisting along with the New Testament all faithful Christians are saints. This day puts the emphasis on the"little ones" the every day children of God, largely unknown except to the Creator..

All Saints Day (4)

Litany of the Celtic Saints

God of Eternal Majesty
have mercy upon us
God of the Incarnate Word    have mercy upon us
God of the Abiding Spirit
   have mercy upon us

St. Aidan of Lindisfarne
   St. Aidan pray for us
St. Bede the Venerable
   St. Bede pray for us
St. Brendan the Navigator
   St. Brendan pray for us
St. Brigid of Kildare
   St. Brigid pray for us
St. Kieran of Clonmacnoise
   St. Kieran pray for us
St. Columba of Iona
   St. Columba pray for us
St. Finian of Clonard
   St. Finian pray for us
St. Francis of Assisi
   St. Francis pray for us
St. Hilda of Whitby
   St. Hilda pray for us
St. Ita, Foster Mother of the Saints
   St. Ita pray for us
St. Killian the Missionary
   St. Killian pray for us
St. Martin of Tours
   St. Martin pray for us
St. Patrick the Enlightener
   St. Patrick pray for us
 
All Saints of the Green Martyrdom
Green Matyrs, pray for us
All Celtic Saints Beloved of Christ
Beloved Celtic Saints, pray for us
Lord Have Mercy
Christ Have Mercy
Lord Have Mercy

Source: Patmos Abbey: the order of  St Columba