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CAM
'CORDER
Anselm once wrote; “God is within Himself a sweet society!”
Consider the Trinity!
St. Patrick, it is said, once picked up a shamrock and noticing that it was a single leaf with three distinct parts or sections endowed Celtic Christianity with a very bold trinitarianism which is very much a part of the Celtic tradition today. Roman Catholics and Protestants affirm Patrick’s view of the triune God. While most Christians accept the paradox of the Trinity as central to our faith, we have acquired the habit from our Mediterranean tradition of praying to only one person of the Trinity at a time. To know God is to talk to God. To know God is to talk to God as God is. God has revealed Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is not just one or three, but the three in one. To the Celtic Christian mind, if Son and Holy Spirit are both God, like the Father, wouldn’t it make sense for us to talk to all three as one God when we pray?
When we pray we have a habit of praying to only one person of the Trinity at a time. Normally we pray to God the Father through God the Son by God the Holy Spirit. Generally we tend to thank the Father and pray to Him for the big stuff in life. To Jesus, perhaps, we delegate the work of our own personal affairs, especially in terms of those times of great need. The Holy Spirit may get slighted in our prayers. The Spirit is the most invisible of the three. We have no definite image of Him. Biblical images of fire and the dove just do not help us much. The Spirit may indwell us, but it rarely occurs to us to pray to Him. Perhaps we make the mistake of considering Him more of a supporting actor in the divine drama than the powerful person He truly is.
One thing the Celtic Christian tradition challenges us with is to think about the Trinity as a complete dynamic in our spiritual lives. For Celts, God is always triune. They never allow the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to become separate. Celts think of God as the “3 of my love.” The Trinity then orders all life and pervades all of creation. The Trinity, while transcendent, is also very imminent. God cares about our ordinary concerns and the simple things of our lives. Celts express a delightful assumption that God is present, cares, and is totally involved in their lives. It is not enough to pray in the name of the Trinity but to become comfortable spending time in communion with the Trinity. In talking to God in His completeness, we become complete.
Please note the following four prayers as examples:
Simple morning prayer:
I awake in the name of the Father who made me.
I arise in the name of the Son who died to save me.
I rise to greet the dawn in the name of the Spirit who fills me with life
A typical evening prayer would be:
I lay me down in the love of my Father.
I surrender my body to rest in the love of my Saviour.
I trust my life in sleep to the Spirit who fills me with life.
Another Celtic Trinitarian prayer goes:
I am bending my knee
In the eye of the Father who created me,
In the eye of the Son who purchased me,
In the eye of the Spirit who cleansed me,
In friendship and affection.
Through Thine own Anointed One, O God,
Bestow upon us fullness in our need.
And yet another and final example:
We come to you Father of our Lord Jesus
We bow to you Father of our Lord Jesus
We praise you Son of Mary, and yet Son of God
We call our Hallelujahs to your Jesus Son of our God
We await your presence in our hearts Spirit eternal.
We offer you our hearts to be your home O spirit everlasting.
Learning to love the all of God and to pray to God as the great 3 in 1, may help revolutionize our prayer life and deepen our relationship with His Majesty. Try it!
Cordially,
Cam
PS to Cam’corder
To follow up on the Cam’corder from the winter my latest blood work indicated a 66-point drop in cholesterol with a 65-point drop in the LDL. This has placed me back into the “satisfactory” category with my physician telling me to “just keep on doing what you are doing!” Thanks for your concern, encouragement, and prayers.
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