Some features of Celtic Spirituality
- Love of nature and a passion for the wild and elemental
as a reminder of God's gift. - Love and respect for art and poetry.
- Love and respect for the great stories and higher learning.
- Sense of God and the saints as a continuing, personal, helpful presence.
- Theologically orthodox, yet with heavy emphasis on the Trinity, and a love and respect for Miriam of Nazareth, the person of Jesus of Nazareth,
known as the Christ, and liturgy. - Thin boundaries between the sacred and the secular.
- Unique Church structure: there were originally no towns, just nomadic settlements, hence the church was more monastic rather than diocesan,
resulting in quite independent rules and liturgies. - Ireland was very isolated; it was hard to impose outside central Roman authority.
- Influenced much by middle-eastern and Coptic monasticism.
- Monasteries were often huge theocratic villages often associated with a clan with the same kinship ties, along with slaves, freemen, celibate monks, married clergy, professed lay people, men and women living side by side.
- While some monasteries were in isolated places, many more were at the crossroads of provincial territories.
- Women had more equal footing in ancient Irish law, thus had more equal say in church governance.
- Developed the idea of having a "soul friend" (anamchara) to help in spiritual direction.
- Invented personal confession.
- Oral word-based culture; most of the people were illiterate but had great memorization skills.
They loved to hear great stories. - A sense of closeness and immanence between the natural and supernatural.
- A mandate for hospitality.
- Emphasis on family and kinship ties.
