The early Celtic Christians believe deeply that God's presence was woven into the fabric of the world around them, and they found inspiration by visiting locations where they believed this intertwining of the divine and mundane was particularly strong. Some of these locations where God's activity was intensely felt were called “thin places” because, as Carl McColman explains in An Invitation to Celtic Wisdom, “the veil that separates our world from the otherworld, the world of silence and eternity, is particularly thin.” Other places, particularly wells, became the focus of devotion because of their relationship to a particular saint or activity.
Both of these very different types of locations fostered awareness of God's presence and activity in the world, but they achieve this in very different ways. In “thin places”, an awareness of God’s activity breaks the boundary between the eternal and the temporal to offer glimpses of the divine realm to those individuals who are receptive to it. On the other hand, holy wells were centers of devotion where men and women came to invoke the divine through actions connected to a place associated with a particular saint or miracle. While both reveal the divine, approaching a “thin place” involves being passively receptive to God whereas a holy well involves an active effort on the part of the person to invoke the awareness of God's activity.
In this way, these two Celtic Christian concepts illuminate two very different experiences of God's presence in your life. In some moments, all we need to know is that God is present with you and that receptivity makes you aware of the divine activity surrounding you and everything around you. This is an experience of confidence in God’s presence. However, there are also moments where we lack that confidence and need to remind ourselves of the reality of God's eternal presence through rituals and practices designed to express your needs before God.
Note: While experiencing a “thin place” differs from approaching a “holy well”, holy wells are almost always thin places blessed through our shared encounters with the many other pilgrims who prayed in these places before us and found (or rendered) them to be sacred.
With this in mind, you we'll find it helpful to develop spiritual practices that help you remain attentive to God's presence in your life and in the world around you in moments both of confident faith and to doubt.
Approaching One of Your Thin Places
Begin by considering these observations by Dara Molloy in Reimagining the Divine: A Celtic Spirituality of Experience:
In the Celtic understanding, a veil separates us from the Otherworld. This veil is like the outer boundaries of a womb in which we live. Outside, there is a world of mystery. The Celts however discovered that there are parts of this veil that are thin. We experience this thin veil at thin places and thin times.
The Celts identified these places and times for us. These give us a heightened opportunity to experience the Otherworld. Average busy days are not conducive to great moments of wonder, mystery, or awe. We need to take time out. Time out moments are thin times. It is good to schedule them into every day, week, month, and year. Even a ‘sabbatical’, a full year out.
At a thin place, we are likely to experience power or strong energy. It is a place where we feel more connected to a wider reality. The veil separating us from the Otherworld is thin. We experience it best outside of our normal routine, when we take a break, or get away.
Afterward, using your experiences during your recent retreats, you should think of a moment or place where are you became aware of God's activity in your life without doing anything to initiate this experience. Then, select a time and place during your recent retreats where this experience was strongest and take some time to pray at your “thin place” using the following link
For a guided audio encounter with a “thin place” during your retreat,
please click here.
To read a transcript of this guided prayer prepared on A4,
please click here.
To read a transcript of this guided prayer prepared on US Letterhead,
please click here.
If you had an experience of a “thin place” that is not related to the times and places of prayer during your retreat, you may find it helpful to use the following link to be guided back into your special experience of God's presence.
For a guided audio encounter with your earlier “thin place”,
please click here.
Approaching One of Your Holy Wells
Begin by considering these observations by Carl McColman in An Invitation to Celtic Wisdom:
There is no “standard” holy well; they come in many forms. Some are wells in the traditional sense, where the locals have built round walls surrounding the water hole; a roped bucket hangs nearby, ready to help anyone quench his or her thirst. But many other kinds of water sources are venerated as holy wells. Many are springs, or even waterfalls that emerge from underground, and I've even seen one that is merely a crevice in a rock where rainwater stands.
What they all share in common—and what separates them from ordinary or mundane water sources—is their sacred function as places where people go to pray, to worship, to intercede, and to seek healing…
In his poem “Little Gidding,” T. S. Eliot talks about places “where prayer has been valid.” In other words, a place where people routinely go to pray, like a cathedral or a sacred site associated with a saint or a miracle, over time begins to embody the energy of the generations of prayer made in that place, almost like it is a battery, fully charged with the energy of centuries of petitions and yearnings. This, it seems to me, is one of the secrets of holy wells: they are places where prayer has been valid, and they continue to attract us as special sites of spiritual power.
Often wells have “patterns” associated with them: formal procedures for praying at the well, usually involving the Rosary or other formal prayers and a particular route to walk while praying (for example, moving clockwise around the well nine times). Some wells even have signs that instruct first-time visitors how to properly follow the pattern at the well.
We go to visit a place traditionally regarded as sacred, like a holy well, to help us pay attention. We perform the rituals associated with such a place—drinking the water, following the pattern, leaving a coin or some other votive object to symbolize our prayer— to help us remain mindful to a truth hidden deep within us.
Afterward, using your experiences during your recent retreats, you should think of a moment or place where are you became aware of God's activity in your life through your devotional practice. Then, select a time and place during your recent retreats where this experience was strongest and take some time to pray at your “holy well” using the following link.
For a guided audio encounter with a “holy well” during your retreat,
please click here.
To read a transcript of this guided prayer prepared on A4,
please click here.
To read a transcript of this guided prayer prepared on US Letterhead,
please click here.
If you had an experience of a “holy well” that is not related to the times and places of prayer during your retreat, you may find it helpful to use the links below to be guided back into your experience of God's presence.
For a guided audio encounter with one of your earlier “holy wells”,
please click here.
Review
After completing these exercises , consider the following statement:
One of the attractive features of early medieval writing for us today is a sense of the closeness of God is manifested in the beauty and rhythms of nature. This is something that is foreign to much of the Christianity that we have received. We may sing “all creatures great and small” but this is a children's hymn, and it is little more than stating in a homely way our belief in creation’s origin in God. So foreign indeed is this strand of rejoicing in the glory of the creation that some have seen it as a pagan legacy, or nature worship, or as the rejection of any distinction between matter and spirit.
Thomas O'Loughlin
Journeys on the Edges
What ideas or emotions does this evoke in you? Summarize these thoughts and feelings in your journal.
Discovering and regularly revisiting your own “thin places” and “holy wells” physically or in prayer, as well as (when or if possible) visiting similar places which other people have found valuable in their spiritual lives, will help you remain attentive to the presence of God all around you. These places, whether your own or of others, contain the imprint of God's activity in our world and will remind you that you are not alone on your life-long pilgrimage of faith.
To return to the Part 3 start page, please click here.
To return to the program main page, please click here.