Saturday, March 21, 1998

Books focus on Irish religion, Celtic spirituality

By Mark I. Pinsky / The Orlando Sentinel

'Tis the season for books about Irish religion and Celtic spirituality.

Recent years have seen a renaissance of interest in such works, ranging from the simple to the serious: "Celtic Saints" (Chronicle Books); "Celtic Prayers" (Doubleday); "Celtic Devotional: Daily Prayers & Blessings" (Harmony Books); "The Rune Poem: Wisdom's Fulfillment, Prophecy's Reach" (Chronicle Books); and "Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom" (HarperCollins).

An "out-of-season," musical addition to the literature was released last December -- the compact disc "The Soul of Christmas, A Celtic Music Celebration With Thomas Moore" (Upaya Records). The music contains echoes of the pre-Christian era when Celts burned bonfires to commemorate the Winter Solstice.

By far, the most popular of the books is "How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role From the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe" (Anchor). The book by Thomas Cahill is a best seller in both hardcover and paperback.

With Rome sacked, Irish scribes in windswept monasteries preserved the great works of Western literature. As Cahill explains, the story of Christianity in Ireland begins with Patrick, a man of numerous "firsts." He was "the first human being in the history of the world to speak out unequivocally against slavery. ... Patrick's gift to the Irish was his Christianity -- the first de-Romanized Christianity in human history, a Christianity without the socio-political baggage of the Greco-Roman world, a Christianity that completely inculturated itself into the Irish scene."

In a single chapter, Cahill tells the story of Patrick, the son of a tax collector in Britain in the waning days of the Roman empire. Kidnapped as a teenager and sold into slavery in Ireland, Patrick heard the word of God and escaped, fleeing to the European continent. After visiting his family in England, he returned to pagan Ireland and walked into history.

"Here is a man led by the spirit of God, in constant communication with His word that he has come to preach and teach in Ireland," writes John Skinner in a new translation of "The Confession of Saint Patrick" (Image. $4.95)."The Irish did him no service by painting him green and putting a miter on his head. Patrick the bishop was a real man, holy and passionate. We still can meet him today in the legacy of his writings which he left us."

Skinner, a former journalist and Jesuit seminarian, writes: "If we would ask what made Ireland Catholic, we must look at Patrick; if we wish to meet Patrick the man, we must attempt to know the world that fashioned him. That world was in turmoil. Many believers thought that the end could not be far off."

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(c) 1998, The Orlando Sentinel (Fla.).

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