Blessing

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,
wherever He may send you.
May He guide you through the wilderness,
protect you through the storm.
May He bring you home rejoicing
at the wonders He has shown you.
May He bring you home rejoicing
once again into our doors.

+In the name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.

-- The Northumbria Community, from Celtic Daily Prayer Book One: The Journey Begins, p. 18

The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

--Wendell Berry (1934- ), from the essay "Poetry and Marriage" in Standing By Words (1983)

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations –
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.

--Mary Oliver (1935- ), from Dream Work (1994)

Lines Written In The Days of Growing Darkness

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the world descends
into a rich mash, in order that

it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay, knowing, as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy, but what else will do 

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?
So let us go on

through the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.

--Mary Oliver (1935- ), From A Thousand Mornings, 2013

Benediction

The blessing of the Lord rest and remain on all his people,
in every land and of every tongue.
The Lord meet in mercy all who seek him.
The Lord comfort all who suffer and mourn.
The Lord hasten his coming,
and give us and all his people peace by all means.
Amen.

-- Handley Carr Glyn Moule, found at https://acollectionofprayers.wordpress.com/2016/09/10/a-blessing-5/

Last Night

Last night
I begged the Wise One to tell me
the secret of the world.
Gently, gently he whispered,
"Be quiet,
the secret cannot be spoken,
it is wrapped in silence."

--Jalal ad'Din Rumi (1207-1273), translated by Maryam Mafi and Azita Malima Kolin, from Whispers of the Beloved

The Splendor of Eternal Light

May the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is the splendor of eternal Light,
remove from your hearts the darkness of night.
Amen.

May he drive far from you
the snares of the crafty enemy,
and always give you
his angel of light to guard you.
Amen.

That you may rise to your morning praises,
kept safe in him,
in whom is all the fullness of your salvation.
Amen.

--from the Mozarabic Psalter, 8th century, found at

Doxology

To the Holy Spirit who sanctifies us,
with the Father who made and created us,
and the + Son who redeemed us,
be given all honor and glory,
now and forever.

--Thomas Cranmer, 1489-1556
SaveSave

Sarum Blessing

May the Lord direct our hearts,
this day and for ever,
in the love of God
and in the patient waiting for Christ.
The Lord bless us
and preserve us from all evil
and bring us to everlasting life;
through Jesus + Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Modified from the Sarum Rite of the 11th century; located at https://acollectionofprayers.wordpress.com/tag/blessings-and-benedictions/page/3/

Invocation at Eucharist

Heart of Jesus, think of me.
Eyes of Jesus, look on me.
Face of Jesus, comfort me.
Hands of Jesus, bless me.
Feet of Jesus, guide me.
Arms of Jesus, hold me.
Body of Jesus, feed me.
Blood of Jesus, wash me.
Jesus, make me thus your own.
Here and in the world to come.

Amen.

-- from St. Augustine's Prayer Book

God be in my head

God be in our heads, 
    and in our understanding.
God be in our eyes, 
    and in our looking;
God be in our mouths,
    and in our speaking;
God be in our heart,
    and in our thinking;
God be at our end,
    and at our departing. 

--from the Sarum Primer, ca. 1506, found in St. Augustine's Prayer Book

Embodying Jesus

Lord Jesus Christ,
I give you my hands, to do your work,
my feet to follow in your way,
my eyes to see as you see,
my tongue to speak your words;
take my mind and let my thoughts dwell always on you
and in my spirit, pray always within me.
Above all, I give you my heart;
that in me you may love your Father
and all people.
I give you myself,
that you may grow in me,
so that it is you, Lord Jesus,
who lives
and works
and prays in me.


-- attributed to Lancelot Andrewes, from St. Augustine's Prayer Book

Photo: Icon of the Emmaus encounter

Cheyenne Peace Prayer

Let us know peace.
For as long as the moon shall rise,
For as long as the rivers shall flow,
For as long as the sun shall shine,
For as long as the grass shall grow,
Let us know peace.

Amen.

Benediction for a holy life

Go forth into the world in peace;
be of good courage;
hold fast to that which is good;
render to no one evil for evil;
strengthen the fainthearted;
support the weak;
help the afflicted;
honor all people.

Love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And the blessing of God Almighty,
the Father,
the Son,
and the Holy Spirit,
be upon you and remain with you for ever.

Amen.

-- from Prayers for All Occasions

Benediction adapted from St. Patrick

May the strength of God pilot us.
May the power of God preserve us.
May the wisdom of God instruct us.
May the hand of God protect us.
May the way of God direct us.
May the shield of God defend us.

Amen.

--adapted from St. Patrick, from Prayers for All Occasions

Benediction- Fruits of the Spirit (Pentecost)

May the true God of all things, who sent forth the Holy Spirit upon the apostles in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, send the Spirit now upon you, to guard you and impart to you her bounty, that the fruits of the Spirit--

love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
generosity,
faithfulness,
gentleness,
and self-control--

may be yours, this day and forever.

Amen.

-- adapted from Cyril of Jerusalem, from Prayers for All Occasions

Photo of a window from St. Martin's Church, Ellisville

A Celtic Evening Blessing

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,
wherever He may send you.
May He guide you through the wilderness,
protect you through the storm.
May He bring you home rejoicing
at the wonders He has shown you.
May He bring you home rejoicing
once again into our doors.

+ In the name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.


found at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/10/25/a-celtic-evening-blessing/#6HhlDUfgLK82igvJ.99

Benediction- God go

God go before you to lead you,
God go behind you to protect you,
God go beneath you to support you,
God go beside you to befriend you.

Do not be afraid.
May the blessing of God:
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
be upon you. 

Amen.

--John Claypool, from https://worship.calvin.edu/resources/resource-library/neal-plantinga-on-his-god-go-before-you-blessing/

Benediction- Blessed every step

May you be blessed every step of your path
by the great God of light.
May the sun shine upon you;
may the moon move the tide of your emotions
with every grace and magic;
may your hearts sing;
may your hearth be warm;
and may your every blessed day be filled with joy.

Amen.

My Cathedral

Like two cathedral towers these stately pines
  Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones;
  The arch beneath them is not built with stones,
  Not Art but Nature traced these lovely lines,
And carved this graceful arabesque of vines;
  No organ but the wind here sighs and moans,
  No sepulchre conceals a martyr's bones.
  No marble bishop on his tomb reclines.
Enter! the pavement, carpeted with leaves,
  Gives back a softened echo to thy tread!
  Listen! the choir is singing; all the birds,
In leafy galleries beneath the eaves,
  Are singing! listen, ere the sound be fled,
  And learn there may be worship without words.

-- Henry Wordsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) from Ultima Thule

Cathedral

Songbirds live
in the old cathedral,
caged birds bought at the street market
and freed as a kind of offering.
Now doves and finches and parakeets
nest in the crooks of the nave’s highest arches,
roosting on the impossibly high
sills of stained-glass windows,
looking down into the valley of the altar
as if from cliffs.

Twice a day, you’ll hear them singing:
at dawn
when the blue light
of angels’ wings
and the yellow light of halos
flood into their nests to wake them;
and during the mass
when the organ fills
the valley below with thunder.
these birds love thunder,
never having seen a drop of rain.
They love it when the people below stand up
and sing. They fly
in mad little loops
from window to window,
from the tops of arches
down toward the candles in the tombs,
making the sign of the cross.

If you look up during mass
to the world’s light falling
to the arms of saints,
you can see birds flying
true blue columns of incense
as if it were simple wood smoke
rising from a cabin’s chimney
in a remote and hushed forest.

--Richard Jones (1953- ), from Blessings: New and Selected Poems

Sleep Blessing (Beannachadh Cadail)

BE Thy right hand, O God, under my head,
Be Thy light, O Spirit, over me shining.
And be the cross of the nine angels over me down,
    From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet,
From the crown of my head to the soles of my feet.
O Jesu without offence, crucified cruelly,
Under ban of the wicked Thou wert scourged,
The many evils done of me in the body!
That I cannot this night enumerate,
    That I cannot this night enumerate.
O Thou King of the blood of truth,
Cast me not from Thy covenant,
Exact not from me for my transgressions,
Nor omit me in Thy numbering,
    Nor omit me in Thy numbering.
Be the cross of Mary and of Michael over me in peace,
Be my soul dwelling in truth, be my heart free of guile,
Be my soul in peace with thee,
Brightness of the mountains.
Valiant Michael, meet thou my soul,
    Morn and eve, day and night. May it be so.

--from the Carmina Gadelica, translated and edited by Alexander Carmichael, 1907

God With Me Laying Down (Dia Liom a Laighe)

GOD with me lying down,
God with me rising up,
God with me in each ray of light,
Nor I a ray of joy without Him,
   Nor one ray without Him.

Christ with me sleeping,
Christ with me waking,
Christ with me watching,
Every day and night,
   Each day and night.

God with me protecting,
The Lord with me directing,
The Spirit with me strengthening,
For ever and for evermore,
   Ever and evermore, Amen.
      Chief of chiefs, Amen.

--from the Carmina Gadelica, told by Mary Macrae, edited and translated by Alexander Carmichael (1900).

Photo of the Kildalton Cross and Church, @800 CE, from wikimedia commons.

Celtic Blessing in Time of Sorrow or Trial

May you see God's light
on the path ahead
When the road you walk is dark.
May you always hear,
Even in your hour of sorrow,
The gentle singing of the lark.
When times are hard,
may hardness
Never turn your heart to stone,
May you always remember
when the shadows fall—
You do not walk alone.

my father moved through the dooms of love

my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if (so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which
floats the first who, his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep
my father’s fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.

Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead called the moon
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer’s keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly (over utmost him
so hugely) stood my father’s dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn’t creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

Scorning the Pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend
less humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is

proudly and (by octobering flame
beckoned) as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he’d laugh and build a world with snow.

My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine, passion willed,
freedom a drug that’s bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind
a heart to fear, to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull we all we taste as bright
bitter all things utterly sweet,
maggotty minus and dumb death
all we inherit, all bequeath

and nothing quite to least as truth
-- i say though hater were why men breathe--
because my father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all

--e. e cummings (1894-1962) from The Complete Poems: 1904-1962

Photo: My father (4th fro left on the back row), his twin, and his cousin and the rest of their classmates in school on southwestern Oklahoma in the 1930s. Today would have been his 95th birthday.

‘“Earth’s Crammed With Heaven,” from Aurora Leigh

TRUTH, so far, in my book;—the truth which draws
Through all things upwards,—that a twofold world
Must go to a perfect cosmos. Natural things
And spiritual,—who separates those two
In art, in morals, or the social drift	5
Tears up the bond of nature and brings death,
Paints futile pictures, writes unreal verse,
Leads vulgar days, deals ignorantly with men,
Is wrong, in short, at all points. We divide
This apple of life, and cut it through the pips,—	10
The perfect round which fitted Venus’ hand
Has perished as utterly as if we ate
Both halves. Without the spiritual, observe,
The natural’s impossible,—no form,
No motion: without sensuous, spiritual	15
Is inappreciable,—no beauty or power:
And in this twofold sphere the twofold man
(For still the artist is intensely a man)
Holds firmly by the natural, to reach
The spiritual beyond it,—fixes still	20
The type with mortal vision, to pierce through,
With eyes immortal, to the antetype
Some call the ideal,—better call the real,
And certain to be called so presently
When things shall have their names. Look long enough	25
On any peasant’s face here, coarse and lined,
You’ll catch Antinous somewhere in that clay,
As perfect featured as he yearns at Rome
From marble pale with beauty; then persist,
And, if your apprehension’s competent,	30
You’ll find some fairer angel at his back,
As much exceeding him as he the boor,
And pushing him with empyreal disdain
For ever out of sight. Aye, Carrington
Is glad of such a creed: an artist must,	35
Who paints a tree, a leaf, a common stone
With just his hand, and finds it suddenly
A-piece with and conterminous to his soul.
Why else do these things move him, leaf, or stone?
The bird’s not moved, that pecks at a spring-shoot;	40
Nor yet the horse, before a quarry, a-graze:
But man, the twofold creature, apprehends
The twofold manner, in and outwardly,
And nothing in the world comes single to him,
A mere itself,—cup, column, or candlestick,	45
All patterns of what shall be in the Mount;
The whole temporal show related royally,
And built up to eterne significance
Through the open arms of God. ‘There’s nothing great
Nor small’, has said a poet of our day,	50
Whose voice will ring beyond the curfew of eve
And not be thrown out by the matin’s bell:
And truly, I reiterate, nothing’s small!
No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee,
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;	55
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere;
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim;
And (glancing on my own thin, veinèd wrist),
In such a little tremor of the blood
The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul	60
Doth utter itself distinct. Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware	65
More and more from the first similitude.

—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1801-1861)

Opening Prayer and Thanksgiving

Thanks be to you, O God,
That I have risen this day
To the rising of this life itself.
May it be a day of blessing
O God of every gift,

A day of new beginnings given.
Help me to avoid every sin
And the source of every sin to forsake
As the mist scatters
From the crest of the hills
May each ill haze clear
From my soul, O God.

— J. Philip Newell (1953- ), from Celtic Prayers from Iona, 1997

Desires (Ruin)

May I speak each day according to Thy justice,
Each day may I show Thy chastening, O God;
May I speak each day according to Thy wisdom,
Each day and night may I be at peace with Thee.

Each day may I count the causes of Thy mercy,
May I each day give heed to Thy laws;
Each day may I compose to Thee a song,
May I harp each day Thy praise, O God.

May I each day give love to Thee, Jesu,
Each night may I do the same;
Each day and night, dark and light,
May I laud Thy goodness to me, O God.


--from the Carmina Gadelica, collected and translated by Andrew Carmichael, 1907

Celtic Benediction

May Christ and His Saints stand between you and harm.
Mary and her Son.
Patrick with his staff.
Martin with his mantle.
Brigid with her veil.
Michael with his shield.
And God over all with His strong right hand.

From John Birch's Faith and Worship

Celtic Prayer at End of Day

I lay my head to rest,
and in doing so,
lay at your feet
the faces I have seen,
the voices I have heard,
the words I have spoken,
the hands I have shaken,
the service I have given,
the joys I have shared,
the sorrows revealed,
I lay them at your feet,
and in doing so lay my head to rest.

From John Birch's Faith and Worship

A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole,
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretchd beneath the tree.

--William Blake (1757-1827)

Prayer of holy love

O God of love, we pray thee to give us love:
Love in our thinking, love in our speaking, 
Love in our doing, and love in the hidden places of our souls;
Love of our neighbours near and far;
Love of our friends, old and new;
Love of those with whom we find it hard to bear,
And love of those who find it hard to bear with us;
Love of those with whom we work,
And love of those with whom we take our ease;
Love in Joy, love in sorrow;
Love in life and love in death;
That so at length we may be worthy to dwell with thee,
Who art eternal love.

--William Temple (1881-1944), Archbishop of Canterbury 1942-1944

At a Calvary Near the Ancre (Good Friday)

One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war He too lost a limb,
But His disciples hide apart;
And now the Soldiers bear with Him.

Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,
And in their faces there is pride
That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
By whom the gentle Christ’s denied.

The scribes on all the people shove
And bawl allegiance to the state,
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate.

--Wilfred Owen (1893-1918), English poet and soldier, 1918-- killed on this day in 1918, a few short days before the war would end.



Photo: No Man's Land, Ypres, 1917.