Celtic Benediction: Morning and Night Prayer

By J. Philip Newell

This lavishly illustrated daily prayer book draws on the great spiritual insights and wisdom of the Celtic church, offering prayers and Scripture readings for every morning and evening of the week.

Each day Celtic Benediction invites readers to meditate on a different aspect of the creation story from Genesis. On Sunday the theme is light. In the morning, the prayers and readings lead us to seek the light of the life of God in all his creatures. At night, we meditate on the light that no darkness can overcome as we bring the world and its needs to God. And so on through each day of the week: water, the fruitful earth, the animal world, humanity, playful rest, and all that God has made draw us into intimate prayer. Related Scripture readings are also given for each day of the year, making this a book to use constantly.

Illustrated throughout with colored panels from the Lindisfarne Gospels, Celtic Benediction offers contemporary Christians a unique devotional experience to treasure for a lifetime.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Oct 12, 2000
• ISBN: 9781467464604

J. Philip Newell

 John Philip Newell is a poet, scholar, teacher, and Church of Scotland minister recognized for his work in Celtic spirituality and passionate about seeking peace in the world and harmony between its great spiritual traditions. His books include Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality, Sounds of the Eternal: A Celtic Psalter, and Christ of the Celts: The Healing of Creation. For more information about Newell visit his website at www.jphilipnewell.com.

Book preview

Front Cover of Celtic BenedictionHalf Title of Celtic BenedictionBook Title of Celtic Benediction

To my eldest son

Brendan William Douglas

and to the Artist in him

Copyright © 2000 by J. Philip Newell

All rights reserved

Illustrations from the Lindisfarne Gospels by permission of the British Library

Originally published in 2000 in the U.K. by The Canterbury Press

This edition published 2000 in the United States of America

by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

2140 Oak Industrial Drive NE, Grand Rapids, MI 49505

Design and Typesetting by Vera Brice

Cover design by Leigh Hurlock

Printed in China

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ISBN 978 0 8028 3904 6

Contents

PREFACE

Sunday Prayers

Monday Prayers

Tuesday Prayers

Wednesday Prayers

Thursday Prayers

Friday Prayers

Saturday Prayers

APPENDIX: Celtic Art Illustrations

Preface

It was during my years on Iona, the little holy island of Scotland in the Western Isles, that I was alerted to the richness of the stream of prayer that flows deep in the Celtic tradition. For centuries prayers chanted at the rising of the sun and its setting, or intoned at the birth of a child or the death of a loved one, had been passed down in the oral tradition from one generation to the next. These prayers of the past spoke to me of a way of seeing that was lost and needed to be recovered again. They communicated a sense of the interweaving of what is seen with what is unseen, of the spiritual world and the world of matter conjoined. There is a yearning among people all over the western world today for a renewed depth of relationship between spirituality and the mystery of creation. Here in our