Rosemary Power, “Celtic Quest; A
Contemporary Spirituality”, The Columba Press 2010, £12.99
My bookshelf contains a selection of
books of “Celtic spirituality” by authors such as Esther de Waal,
Ray Simpson and David Adam but I only had a vague idea of how this
strand of Christian writing emerged from the misty bogs of the far
north and west in the latter half of the twentieth century. The term
Celtic spirituality would not have meant much before 1970. Now there
is a live Celtic Christian tradition in each of the Celtic nations
and also in England which may require a stretch of the imagination to
be considered Celtic.
Contemporary writers claim to have
found in the Celtic traditions new insights that are helpful for
Christians today. Looking at the popularity of their devotional
material they seem to have struck a chord with many Christians who
find a freshness in this way of looking at the world. Specifically
the Celtic authors emphasise the trinity, and the rhythm of life in
which all is sacred. It venerates the natural world and has many
stories about the faith of the saints. They give prominence to
sacred and holy places and also to the pilgrimages needed to visit
these. It values community and hospitality. It comes from the edge of
the European civilised world and as such appeals to people living on
the edge today. This list reveals many resonances that these Celtic
writers have found especially for Christians living on the edge of
the traditional church. Some of the modern Celtic writers have had an
explicit evangelical aim of reaching people on the fringes through
this re-presentation of the Christian message in a new yet
traditional form.
Now having read Rosemary Power's
book,“Celtic Quest”, I know how the tradition evolved. She shows
how the earliest Celtic texts in ancient languages were translated
and popularised and then used to fill gaps in the spiritual diet of
mainstream Christianity. In the process she notes that the
translators were highly selective of their sources and chose texts
that said what they wanted to express. Most of the current
translations date from the late nineteenth century. These edited and
hand-picked texts became a canon which most contemporary Celtic
writers treat as a primary source but are nothing of the sort. The
translations are sometimes used in ways far from the meaning intended
by the original writers (where this is known) or as an inspiration
for modern writers producing creative prayers and poems in a similar
form. There is nothing wrong with either except the lack of honesty
if the jumps from the original to what is now presented as Celtic is
not acknowledged. The Victorian translators saw the texts sometimes
with a highly romantic lens and at other times with a lens of
nationalistic polemic. The nineteenth century Celtic revival in
Ireland is sometimes seen as part of the cultural preparation for the
Easter uprising of 1916.
Contemporary Celtic spirituality
writing has come from both protestant and catholic authors, both of
whom see it as a way into a past golden age: for one a past
unsullied by the excesses of Rome and the other a purer form of
Catholicism. Such myths surrounding Celtic spirituality are scythed
through by Rosemary Power in this scholarly and readable book.
As a member of the Iona Community Power
uses this as a case study of a contemporary religious community based
upon one of the most iconic of Celtic Christian buildings Iona Abbey.
She describes how the Community are continually struggling with the
ambiguity of what Celtic Christianity means in the contemporary
world. Their founder, George Macleod, used the phrase Celtic to give
authority to his pronouncements when it suited his autocratic style
of leadership. Power shows that some of the ancient Celtic traditions
revived by Macleod are his own inventions.
She concludes that Celtic spirituality
with its emphasis on community, liminality (being on the edge)
ecology and immanence has much to offer the contemporary church but
it still needs further theological development because it is often
superficial.
Power shows her scholarship, knowledge
of the historical background and of the subject and the wide range of
contemporary expressions of Celtic spirituality found today. I highly
recommend this book.
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