God Calls Us All To Vocation.

“Come, Mary, and milk my cow

Come Bride, and encompass her,

Come Columba the benign, and twine thine arms around my cow.

Come, Mary Virgin, to my cow,

Come, great Bride, the beauteous,

Come, thou milkmaid of Jesus Christ,

And place thine arms beneath my cow.”

(Esther De Waal, The Celtic Vision, p. 9)

What about this appeal for aid in churning? “Here the aid of Saint Brigit is sought because the woman sees the disciples standing outside her house waiting for her to finish so they can enjoy her butter on her baking. She works to do her best, not to be congratulated, but because work done well is a blessing and a thanksgiving in itself,

Come, thou Brigit, handmaid calm, Hasten the butter on the cream;

Seest thou impatient Peter yonder,

Waiting the buttered bannock white and yellow.

Come thou Mary Mother mild, Hasten the butter on the cream;

Seest thou Paul and John and Jesus

Waiting the gracious butter yonder.”

(Esther De Waal, The Celtic Way of Prayer, pp. 82-83)

The Celts saw the cycle of life and death in everything, and this was seen very clearly in their bedtime rituals. I opened with a prayer for smooring or banking the fire for the night, and here is an account of one woman’s nighttime ritual:

“I do now as my mother was doing when I was a child. Before going to my bed I place the bar…on the door, and I make the cross of Christ on the bar and on the door, and I supplicate the great God of life, the Father of all living, to protect and comfort me this night…After that I put out my light, and then I go to bed, and when I lie down on my pillow I make the cross of Christ upon my breast, over the tablet of my hard heart, and I beseech the living God of the universe –

May the Light of lights come to my dark heart from Thy place;

May the Spirit’s wisdom come, to my heart’s tablet from my Saviour.”

(Esther De Waal, The Celtic Way of Prayer, p. 93)

There are lessons here for us. Our Lord calls us as a people to many vocations. The one that we can all answer to is the vocation of prayer modelled here for us from the Celts. For them, there was no division between things of humans and things of God, for all things were a part of His creation. Their answer was to make every moment of each day a moment of prayer, and to consecrate each task to the greater glory of God. Using their approach, we can meet God’s call to us all to the vocation of prayer, and make our lives a living service of worship to God’s greater glory. Amen.