Saturday Holy Eucharist

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Our Saturday evening service is inspired by Celtic spirituality, it is not a recreation of an ancient Celtic liturgy. There are no surviving liturgical texts from the earliest period of Celtic Christianity, and the texts that exist from a later date do not significantly differ from the Latin masses being conducted elsewhere in Europe. Instead, this service is offered as a way to incorporate Celtic themes into the basic structure of our Episcopal worship service.

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The prayers found in this service are compiled from a variety of sources. They are all in the public domain. Our chief sources for these services have been the following books:

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A Celtic Primer: The Complete Celtic Worship Resource and Collection, compiled by Brendan O'Malley, Morehouse Publishing: Harrisburg, 2002.

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Celtic Spirituality: The Classics of Western Spirituality, translated by Oliver Davies, Paulist Press: New York, 1999.

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Celtic Christian Communities: Live the Tradition, by Ian Bradley.   Northstone Publishing: Kelowna, Canada, 2000.

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The service opens with a hymn that is selected for the liturgical season. The reading of scripture and the Gospel follow and the traditional sermon is replaced by a conversation about the texts during which the celebrant of the service will expand a bit on the themes found in the reading and then open the conversation to the congregation for their thoughts, wonderings, and insights. We follow with the prayers of the people and the Eucharistic Prayer which comes from the Scottish Liturgy 1982.  (http://www.scotland.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/)

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While the service incorporates singing and conversation, it is quiet, contemplative, and paced appropriately.