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
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