Daily Guidance for the Practice of Prayer

I often am asked about helpful Celtic Christian prayer practices.   

I’d like to offer some suggestions. 

I was about to write “for MY daily practice …” but then I realized that I wanted to be more authentic …   
I look toward guidance and inspiration for my prayerful and meditative practice on a regular basis but I want to be truthful about that practice. I have found that a daily practice is grounding, informative, and gaze-orienting. By “gaze-orienting,” I mean that I want to participate in a regular way of organizing and focusing my attention and intentions as a grounding and inspiring experience. I believe that it is our responsible response to Divine love and embrace to posture ourselves in and toward oneness, love, awe, and participation. Daily contemplative and prayerful practice is one way to posture ourselves with open arms to receive and participate in God’s beautiful movement through me and all of Creation at all times and everywhere.     

That is my belief. But if you followed me around you would see a usually dedicated and sometimes haphazard commitment to that prayerful practice. Part of me wishes to claim that I follow my daily routine with monk-like precision.  Something about that seems “right”. But the real truth is that life rarely travels along that precise and controlled path, at least life outside of monastic routine. So I am trying to learn to live into Divine grace and invitation and stumble along in mostly disciplined dedication with a strong dose of laughable lapses. To borrow from our Buddhist brothers and sisters, I appreciate the idea of “beginning again” as often as is necessary. 

In beginning again, we are re-introduced over and over again to the wonder that a child feels as she or he is brought to new experience. Grace, love, beauty, oneness, and in-spiriation (in-spiriting) are new every morning even if those mornings aren’t experienced every day.   

With all of that said, here are three suggestions for guidance for Celtic Christian prayer and practice:

• Celtic Daily Prayer, Books 1 and 2, from the Northumbria Community

• The Celtic Book of Days, Ray Simpson

• The Carmina Gadelica (compiled by Alexander Carmichael)

  • This is not a daily prayer guide but instead it is a beautiful compendium of prayers from the Celtic tradition over centuries.    

May disciplined and undisciplined prayer and contemplation invite you often to your Ground. 

Kirk Webb
(Director of The Celtic Center)