Celtic Studies & Spirituality

This downloadable pdf contains the Colman daily readings from CDP2 (Further Up and Further In) for the month of July.

Columba and his exile.

This month we hear the story of Columba (or Colum Cille 'the dove of the church')and his exile.  We start with excerpts from The Magnificent Gael by Reginald Hale, from which we have pictures of Columba's training in monastic life and his early foundations.  During his middle years Columba became involved in a dispute over a Psalter that led to a pitched battle at Culdremny in which many men were killed.  In penance, he resolved to leave Ireland for good. The story of Columba's exile and subsequent work from the island base of Iona is continued in excerpts from The First Exile, an epic by Irish poet Robert Farren, in which he shows how Columba eventually conquers the fierce temper and hot resentment which had previously caused so much strife. When you complete your purchase, you will receive an email with a link (CDP2_dailyreadings_Colman_June.pdf) to download your pdf.  The link will expire in 3 days, although we imagine you will have downloaded it long before then!

This downloadable pdf contains the Eata daily readings from CDP2 (Further Up and Further In) for the month of May Contemplative awareness This month of readings encourages us to be open to the sacrament of the present moment. This openness can be fostered by letting go of our own fantasies and fictions and moving toward reality and truth, seeing things as they really are. In this effort, we are aided along the way by those poets, prophets, mystics and ordinary people who bear witness to what they see and help us attend to God’s grace in our own lives. When you complete your purchase, you will receive an email with a link to download your pdf.  The link will expire in 3 days, although we imagine you will have downloaded it long before then!

This downloadable pdf contains the Aidan daily readings from CDP1 (The Journey Begins) for the month of March: Look for the old Paths   When you complete your purchase, you will receive an email with a link (CDP1_dailyreadings_Aidan_March.pdf) to download your pdf.  The link will expire in 3 days, although we imagine you will have downloaded it long before then!

This downloadable pdf contains the Colman daily readings from CDP2 (Further Up and Further In) for the month of January. Monastic Diseases: Monastic diseases are coping mechanisms - attitudes and actions that can bring dis-ease to ourselves and to others around us.  All of us have the potential to catch any and all of the diseases - the main problem lies in denial or wrong diagnosis or no diagnosis at all, i.e. being unaware of them.  Monastic diseases are closely related to the logismoi, those repetitive thoughts and preoccupations that can distract us from the spiritual path, and which inflame the inner monsters of our negative memories, moods and secrets triggered by all sorts of people, issues and situations, as well as our desire for comfort and consolation; all of which find expression in false expectations and unrealistic ambitions which are basically egotistical. There is so much in us of anger, aggression, selfishness, hurt, deception and damage that can only be rooted out by patient, faithful loving commitment to seeing God and knowing self, our limitations, boundaries and weaknesses, for only then can we deal with them.  When you complete your purchase, you will receive an email with a link (CDP2_dailyreadings_Colman_January.pdf) to download your pdf.  The link will expire in 3 days, although we imagine you will have downloaded it long before then!

This downloadable pdf contains the Colman daily readings from CDP2 (Further Up and Further In) for the month of November. Living The Questions: One of our heart-felt convictions as a Community is that each of us should learn to ‘embrace the Heretical Imperative’, to question everything boldly in order to understand something deeper about who God is, who we are, and what our purpose is in the work of God in the world, alone and together. Some truth can only be found, fought for, and embraced by asking questions. When we are faced with the reality of lives that are complex, messy and full of paradox, in the context of a rapidly changing world, quick answers are often at best unhelpful. If we choose a different approach, we find ourselves living the questions. This month of daily readings is a collection of questions, thoughts, and provocations that reflect something of life back to us and urge us to ponder our spiritual awakening and growth.   When you complete your purchase, you will receive an email with a link (CDP2_dailyreadings_Colman_November.pdf) to download your pdf.  The link will expire in 3 days, although we imagine you will have downloaded it long before then!

This downloadable pdf contains the Colman daily readings from CDP2 (Further Up and Further In) for the month of September. Hospitality: When we say YES to the practice of hospitality, do we immediately think of inviting our friends around for a meal with a good bottle of wine? Does hospitality for us mean a pleasant social setting, food and drink shared with people we like and in places where we are comfortable? Our understanding and lifestyle may have become quite limited, for hospitality has far broader possibilities than these! This month of readings will hopefully help us to expand our narrow definitions of hospitality and encourage us into far more radical ways of opening ourselves to others. In reading the Gospels we find that Christ did indeed share plenty of meals and some wine too with people, but in a way that was out of keeping with the polite practices of the day, that even disturbed polite society. And his practice of hospitality extended beyond the meal table and the home and out onto the roads and waysides, where he journeyed in anticipation of personal encounter with individuals and with crowds, always with an attitude of openness and welcome, available, always vulnerable. These words invite us to re-think our understanding of hospitality, to become braver, let down some barriers, let go of our prejudices, walk headlong into true availability and vulnerability by extending a hospitality of heart.   When you complete your purchase, you will receive an email with a link (CDP2_dailyreadings_Colman_September.pdf) to download your pdf.  The link will expire in 3 days, although we imagine you will have downloaded it long before then!

This is a downloadable pdf of the booklet "City without a Church" by Henry Drummond, which has been produced as one in a series of booklets exploring responses to one of the basic questions of the Northumbria Community: "How Then Shall We Live?" The city without a church The City Without a Church is a meditation by Henry Drummond on a selection of verses from Revelation chapters 21 (verses 2 and 22) and 22 (verses 2 and 3). Extracts from it feature in the Finan series of readings for July in Celtic Daily Prayer and it has become an important text for the Northumbria Community because it deals with ‘church without walls’ and ‘kingdom in the streets’. Although this meditation is framed in the muscular, self-confident language of the Victorian era, its underlying message to us is as fresh as if it was written yesterday. The message is this: the institutional churches have ‘stolen Christ from the people’. What struck Drummond about John’s vision of the New Jerusalem was not just that he saw a city (rather than some kind of pastoral idyll) but that he saw no temple (or church) there. Although Drummond has hard words for the institutional church, he is by no means anti-church: he just wants it to wake up to the realities of real faith and get its priorities right. For Drummond, this involves getting out of our church buildings and getting totally involved in the concrete realities of our streets − starting right where we are, with the mess of real life all around us. He says that ‘it is only because the secular is so intensely sacred that so many eyes are blind before it.’ When you complete your purchase, you will receive an email with a link to download your pdf.  The link will expire in 3 days, although we imagine you will have downloaded it long before then!

This downloadable pdf contains the Eata daily readings from CDP2 (Further Up and Further In) for the month of June. Sermon on the Mount Once upon a time two women were musing over an idea. What would Jesus do with a group who gathered not for Bible study, not for prayer, not for ministry but just to sit at His feet ... to learn? Meanwhile, unaware of this idea, a third woman had a dream while on holiday. One Wednesday morning the idea and the dream fused over coffee. What eventually transpired was a year-long engagement with the Sermon on the Mount as twelve women wrestled with the words – first memorising them, then pondering them, then staging them as a dramatic presentation. Twenty years later we are still under their spell and trying to put them into practice. This month’s meditations, written by Sarah Berry, are stories, experiences, little pieces of wisdom – and the questions that have come from the adventure of walking with Jesus through this sermon. When you complete your purchase, you will receive an email with a link to download your pdf.  The link will expire in 3 days, although we imagine you will have downloaded it long before then!

This downloadable pdf contains the Colman daily readings from CDP2 (Further Up and Further In) for the month of April. Buechner's ABC This month’s readings go through the Alphabet and draw from the words of Frederick Buechner (pronounced BEEK-ner). Buechner’s work has often been praised for its ability to inspire readers to see the grace in their daily lives. In three of his books Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who; Wishful Thinking: A Seeker’s ABC and Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter’s Dictionary, he tries to dust-off and put the colour back into Biblical characters, religious words, and ordinary words, respectively. Our daily meditations will draw from all three of these books. When you complete your purchase, you will receive an email with a link (CDP2_dailyreadings_Colman_April.pdf) to download your pdf.  The link will expire in 3 days, although we imagine you will have downloaded it long before then!