The Path of Celtic Prayer

In The Path of Celtic Prayer Calvin Miller offers the gift of intimate communication with God distilled through years of suffering. As they experienced uncertain and dangerous days of high infant-mortality rates, leprosy, and plagues, the Celts uttered candid prayers to God.

We, too, live in a time of uncertainty and danger: thirty one killed in a school shooting, a town totally destroyed by a tornado, thousands of people killed in war. The Path of Celtic Prayer offers us a glimpse into the prayer life of our Celtic Christian ancestors as instruction for our own prayers in difficult times.

Mr. Miller traveled to the British Isles to research Celtic prayer traditions. Using historical examples throughout, Mr. Miller’s book includes a chapter on each of the five unique types of Celtic prayer. Trinity prayer expresses love for God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Scripture prayer uses the Bible to communicate with God. The “Celtic long, wondering prayer” is presented as a means of experiencing life as a single, unending prayer. Nature prayer uses nature, poetry, and ordinary life to communicate with God. The fifth Celtic prayer type that Mr. Miller introduces is Lorica prayer, a plea to God for protection. Mr. Miller concludes the book with a chapter on prayers of confession.

The reader is invited to pray out of the circumstances and uncertainties of life and connect more deeply to God. But Mr. Miller reminds us that God responded to the prayers of the Celts beyond the requests of the individual. “Long ago, when the Celts built their own rustic kingdom of God in what would later be the British Isles, their fervor in prayer washed their world in a vital revival.”

For more information on this book, visit InterVarsity Press.