Celtic Daily Light

Extracts from Ray Simpson's Book

Readings for Saturday 23rd October 2021

Spring flowers

Nations that honour God

Righteousness exalts a nation.

Proverbs 13: 34

Though the Celtic church and culture was wrecked by Viking invasions, the Gaels triumphed in the end. They converted the Norsemen to Christianity and even the kings of Norway craved the honour of burial on holy Iona. The kings of Alban continued to be buried there, for it had become home for the hearts of Pict and Scot alike. Kenneth MacAlpin, the half-Pictish Scot who in 845 welded the two people together ... also was laid in the soil of Iona.

Columba’s legacy was something more abiding than relics or buildings. He left his people a vision of what God can do in and through a person, if they were willing to go the whole way.

As a prince and an advisor to kings he was inevitably concerned with politics and his work resulted in vast social, political and economic consequences.... But how did he do it? Not by political means but by spiritual... His politics were to change the hearts of politicians.

The founding of Iona stands out like a divine intervention in history. It was the decisive stroke in the war of faith and it let loose the spirit of the Peregrini (the wanderers for the love of God) which was to transform Europe.

Reginald B. Hale

People must choose to be governed by God or they condemn themselves to be ruled by tyrants.

William Penn 1644 - 1718

Some nation must give a lead. Some nation must find God’s will as her destiny and God-guided people as her representatives at home and abroad. Will it be your nation?

Frank Buchman

  • May our nation find your will as her destiny.
  • May our nation find God-guided representatives at home and abroad.
  • May our nation find peace within itself
  • and become a peace-maker in the international family.