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★ Beautify My Soul

A while back I quoted my favorite line from my Celtic prayer book. As I was looking through “A Celtic Primer: The Complete Celtic Worship Resource and Collection” (Morehouse Publishing), I found that line in its context. Here’s the fuller prayer/poem, from p.171-2 of that excellent resource:


Christ’s Bounties

O Son of God, do a miracle for me

and change my heart; taking flesh

to redeem me was more difficult

than the transformation of my sinfulness.

To help me you were scourged

by the Jews’ dear child of Mary,

You are the refined molten

metal of our forge.

It is You who have made the

sun bright, together with the ice;

it is You who created the river

and the salmon that swim therein.

It is a care skill, O Christ,

that the nut-tree should be flowering;

your craft too brings forth the kernel,

O fairest ear of wheat.

Though the children of Eve do not deserve

the bounty of bird and salmon,

it was the Immortal One

on the Cross who made them both.

He makes the sloe to blossom

through the blackthorn, and

the nut-tree to flower;

What miracle is greater than this?

– Irish, fifteenth century

2 responses to “★ Beautify My Soul”

  1. Colleen Avatar
    Colleen

    Hey Pat! I really like this prayer, I have been wanting to add more congregational prayers in our worship service. When we first started I used to do a lot of it but have fallen out of the habit recently. If you have any suggestions please send them my way. I also really enjoyed reading your journals from your classes.

    And, thanks for hanging yesterday, your input was invaluable!

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  2. Pat Avatar

    Hey Colleen!

    I like using congregational prayers too – I'm moving back this direction for my own formation, too. But for a group together, here's something we tried as our call to worship: we read together the weekly prayer from the Book of Common Prayer. http://www.io.com/~kellywp/index.html, and for each date look at RCL (revised common lectionary).

    I liked to introduce these prayers every week by reminding people that even though we were small and experimental, we were rooted in a global, historical faith tradition and living out that faith in our own neighborhood… so, with the global church we pray this together.

    I've got lots of other written stuff too – St. Patrick's Breastplate is a favorite too (of course, duh :-))

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I’m Pat

Passionate about the common good, human flourishing, lifelong learning, being a good ancestor.

Things I do: Engineering leadership; Grad Instructor in spirituality, creativity, digital personhood, pilgrimage.

Powerlifter, mountain biker, Gonzaga basketball fan, reader, urban sketcher, hiker.