Celebrating Ten Years of
The Celtic Spirituality at All Saints Parish

St. John's Cross, Iona
(Photo by Anne-Marie Ellis)

• Love of nature and a passion for the wild and elemental as a reminder of God's gift.
• Love and respect for art and poetry.
• Love and respect for the great stories and higher learning.
• Sense of God and the saints as a continuing, personal, helpful presence.
• Theologically orthodox, yet with heavy emphasis on the Trinity, and a love and respect for Mary, the Incarnation of Christ, and liturgy.
• Thin boundaries between the sacred and the secular.
• Unique Church structure: there were originally no towns, just nomadic settlements, hence the church was more monastic rather than diocesan, resulting in quite independent rules and liturgies.
• Ireland was very isolated; it was hard to impose outside central Roman authority.
• Influenced much by middle-eastern and Coptic monasticism.
• Monasteries were often huge theocratic villages often associated with a clan with the same kinship ties, along with slaves, freemen, celibate monks, married clergy, professed lay people, men and women living side by side.
• While some monasteries were in isolated places, many more were at the crossroads of provincial territories.
• Women had more equal footing in ancient Irish law, thus had more equal say in church governance.
• Developed the idea of having a "soul friend" (anamchara) to help in spiritual direction.
• Invented personal confession.
• Oral word-based culture; most of the people were illiterate but had great memorization skills. They loved to hear great stories.
• A sense of closeness and immanence between the natural and supernatural.
• A mandate for hospitality.
• Emphasis on family and kinship ties.

Riverdance

Lord of the Dance

Lord of the Dance (traditional)

Gypsy

Cry of the Celts

All Through the Night

Morning Has Broken

Star

Stones

A Celtic welcome

Emigdau

Lament

The Yew Tree

Dumbarton's Drums