Full Description
This meditative title offers a 40-day reflection on The Breastplate of St Fursa. Circling each verse, it expertly draws on fresh insights gained from Celtic spirituality and applies its context to the reader. The title is taken from the "hymn Be Thou My Vision", a famous reworking of the most familiar of all the ancient Celtic 'Breastplate Prayers', the Breastplate of St Patrick. This book draws upon the seventh century "Breastplate of Saint Fursa". History doesn't go into great detail in its record of Fursa's life and Be thou my breastplate doesn't pretend otherwise.The text takes what is known of his story and reflects on his prayer in daily bite-size pieces. Each brief chapter unpacks and applies the prayer's contents for the reader, drawing out the fresh insights and profound challenges that come from encountering a Christian brother from another world. Though written in a disarming format and with gentle tone, the text is not without grit and guts, nor without an edge, coming as it does from a seemingly familiar yet quite foreign form of the Christian faith: the Celtic way of giving oneself to God, and invoking God's blessing and protection on the one offering the prayer.
Contents
An introduction, followed by forty short chapters meditating on each of the eleven phrases of the prayer:; May the yoke of the Law of God be upon this shoulder,; The coming of the Holy Spirit on this head,; The sign of Christ on this forehead,; The hearing of the Holy Spirit in these ears,; The smelling of the Holy Spirit in this nose,; The vision that the people of heaven have be in these eyes,; The speech of the people of heaven in this mouth,; The work of the church of God in these hands; The good of God and of neighbour in these feet,; May God dwell in this heart,; And this person belong entirely to God the Father.
