The Celtic Year: A rhythm of prayer and meditation for the eight points of the Celtic year

Digital eBook Only - ‘David Cole is a careful, wise and skilful writer and guide.’
The Revd Canon Professor James Woodward, Principal, Sarum College, Salisbury. Following the ancient rhythm of the Celtic year, these prayers, meditations and liturgies will help you focus on the natural flow of life as it changes around you.

Based on the eight points of the Celtic year – the four season changes, and the four midpoints of each season – and moving from winter to spring, summer and harvest, each of the eight sections includes a liturgy for a full service, a week of daily readings, guided contemplations and a selection of prayers and blessings.

Following the Celtic year and reconnecting with the cycles of the earth’s turning in relation to the sun, moon and seasons, David Cole provides a rich diet of biblically based daily devotions which will sustain, challenge and comfort all who follow them.
Professor Ian Bradley, emeritus professor of cultural and spiritual history, University of St Andrews, and author of Following the Celtic Way

Countless people have long been crying out for a book such as this. It is well researched, beautifully crafted, and will, I think, become a classic.
Ray Simpson, founding guardian of the International Community of Aidan and Hilda (aidanandhilda.org)

David has provided us with a beautifully crafted, richly resourced and easy-to-use worship book that will enable us to worship our God in tune with the seasons. I felt my heart lifted by the compelling blend of ancient stories of faith, enlivening scriptures, thoughtful reflections and earthy, yet heaven-touching, prayers and blessings.
Michael Mitton, leader of international Celtic pilgrimages and author of Restoring the Woven Cord

The Celtic Year: A rhythm of prayer and meditation for the eight points of the Celtic year, David Cole, Abingdon: 2020, 160 pp, £8.99, 9780857469687

Transforming Ministry online November 2020. Review by Margaret Tinsley

David Cole is well known and respected for the books he has already produced on Celtic Advent, Celtic Saints and Celtic Lent. This new work focuses on the eight points of the Celtic year: the four seasons, and the midpoints of each season. Each of these sections contains an introduction, a liturgy, daily devotions and prayers and blessings. Perhaps, in these uncertain days, like our Celtic forebears, we need to connect more to the cycles of the year and appreciate the flow from samhain, or winter, to imbolc (spring) then to beltane or summer and, finally, lughnasa or lammas, which is autumn. Reading this book is an ideal way to do so, with meaningful and moving liturgies and daily devotions covering a theme for each day of the week, starting with creation on Mondays and leading us through incarnation, the Holy Spirit, community, the cross, the saints to the resurrection or new life. While this carefully researched book is of interest to all readers it is a wonderful resource for those taking services, like Forest Church, which reflect the Celtic tradition.

Reviewed by Margaret Tinsley

Irish Methodist Newsletter, autumn 2020. Review by Stephen Skuce.

We are people who pray, and one of our ongoing challenges is to find the ways and approaches to prayer that are most helpful to us to both meet with God and hear from God. Many find versions of how our Celtic forebears prayed to be increasingly helpful today, and this is where David Cole’s book comes in. It is an attempt to lay out a pattern or rhythm of prayer to assist us, using the Celtic year as the framework.

The Celtic year isn’t really that much different to how we understand seasons today. It has a spring, summer, autumn and winter but with one increased emphasis. There are a further four points to the year that relate to the movement of the sun - the two solstices and two equinoxes. On each side of each of these four points there is either a waxing or waning. And so the Celtic year maps a little more overtly onto our usual understanding of the passage of time, which is of course focused on the movement of the earth around the sun in any case. An interesting little quirk is that the Celtic day started at dusk. We might find that strange, but it is the way our Jewish friends still orientate their sabbath and was the way of Jesus.

The book is split into 8 chapters with a chapter covering winter, a second chapter the winter solstice and so on through the seasons. Within each chapter there is a liturgy which could be used or adapted for a church service, a seven day rhythm of scripture, reflection and prayer with a short final section of appropriate prayers and blessings.

In Celtic Christianity the seven days of the week each had a focus. Monday is creation, Tuesday is incarnation, Wednesday is the Holy Spirit, Thursday is community, Friday is the cross, Saturday is the saints and Sunday is the resurrection and new life. Occasionally we misunderstand today what we mean regarding the saints. Today we see those who have gone before us as examples of faith and witness. We mine the life of the Wesley’s and so many others for examples to help us. We do the same with the Celtic heroes and heroines of faith.

The winter of 2020 into 2021 is one that will live long with us for the ongoing awfulness of the global pandemic. So I turn to a prayer for springtime to finish and like most Celtic prayers it is natural, realistic and observational. ‘God bless the earth that is beneath us, the growth that is around us, the spring that is before us, your image deep within us’ (p80).

Reviewed by Revd Dr Stephen Skuce, District Superintendent, the North Western district, the Methodist Church in Ireland