Dear Good Samaritans,

Have you simplified your life in the week since Lent started? Are you finding time for prayer, fasting, and giving alms? How is your spirit doing with this new season?

These are all questions that I have been asking myself, especially during this introspective season of the church year. It’s a good way to check in with yourself.

In my Sabbath reading for this week I came across an interesting piece of history. Long before there was an official distinction between the Catholic and Orthodox branches of Christianity, they were one communion. And in those early years of the church, perhaps as early as the first century, missionaries brought Christianity to Britain. And here, separated and isolated from continental Europe, the Christian Church took hold and thrived. They developed their own practices and priorities with little outside influence.

The ancient Celtic Christians took the Sabbath very seriously. Unlike the rest of Europe where keeping the Sabbath day became associated with attending church on Sundays, the early Celtic Christians held to a much older, more Jewish version of the Sabbath. Their goal for the Sabbath was ‘entering into rest.’ It was a time to set aside stress and work in favor of rest.

Similar to Judaism, Celtic Christians followed the Jewish pattern of the Sabbath beginning at sunset on Friday and ending at sunset on Saturday.

I always find prayers and rituals helpful for setting up my intention for just about everything. The same is true for the Sabbath.

The Northumbria Community, who created the two-volume Celtic Daily Prayer offers this short ritual for welcoming the Sabbath. They do so, not by trying to copy the Jewish Shabbat prayers, but by creating a distinctly Celtic, distinctly Christian way to start the Sabbath. The following prayers can either be said by one person or split up in a group.

Creator Spirit
mighty wind of God,
You brood over our lives,
and speak new life into our chaos.

Blessed is the Holy One, our God,
who kindles light in the darkness,
and who sanctifies the Sabbath.

Candles are lit.

Blessed be God
who gives us the Sabbath
and leads us to the waters of stillness.

This day is not a day but an attitude, a disposition,
a rest in the human heart.
So carry no burdens on this Sabbath day,
Rather, when God rests in you,
so you also rest in [God].
And when God does [God’s] work in you,
so you also do your work in [God].

Welcome the day,
Receive the gift.
Remember the Sabbath and keep it.
It is made for you:
your freedom,
your joy,
your healing.

Blessed be God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
who restores our soul
and commands us to rest.

I hope welcoming the Sabbath will enable you to practice it more fully.

Peace,