Celtic Way of Prayer: The Recovery of the Religious Imagination Book

A lovely exploration of the Celtic tradition of prayer. Part anthology, part meditation, this is a lovely introduction for those curious about Celtic spirituality. I use the Northumbria Community's Celtic Daily Prayer anthology, and was pleased to come across many of the sources. The Celtic Way of Prayer enriches my experience of using Celtic Daily Prayer.

De Waal grew up in what sounds like a high church, heavily liturgical tradition, and felt a sense of freedom and continuity when she discovered and began practicing Celtic spirituality. I grew up in a proudly low church, even anti-liturgical tradition, and felt that same freedom and continuity when I learned the creeds and started following the liturgical year, and now choosing a very liturgical/high church community to join. De Waal specifically mentions the creeds as something that made Christianity more intellectual than personal to her, as she grew up memorizing them. It was the opposite for me, because they were fresh. Similarly, Celtic spirituality is also fresh to me, but has some of that intimacy that I know from evangelicalism.

The best word I can find to describe Celtic spirituality is "infused," and that's not because I read a chapter every morning while drinking a cup of tea. The Celtic worldview sees nature, community, and the human soul as infused with the divine. It's a bit mystic, a bit woo-woo for this evangelical, but absolutely entrancing all the same. "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it," after all. Celtic Christianity is decidedly different from Rome-flavored Christianity (Protestantism, too!), because the Celts made Christianity their own, maintaining and redeeming aspects of their pre-Christian culture, building a different sense of Christianity altogether, though just as wonderful as Roman Christianity.

I'd highly recommend this book to those who are curious about Celtic spirituality, or want some good resources to dig into it. I knocked off a star because the format leaves me unsure of how to use the book in the long run. The prayers are not titled, and I don't cotton to the idea of flipping through the text to find the right prayer at the right time. Of course, I'll be reading this again, but it's not quite a full anthology nor an explanatory text. Supplementary materials, like anthologies of Celtic prayers, are essential for those looking to incorporate practices into their spiritual lives.