ST ANDREW’S CHURCH
August 11 2024
LIGHTING OF THE CHRIST CANDLE

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Over the next 3 Sundays we will be looking at Spirituality –
particularly as is voiced by Celtic Spirituality…Much of it taken
from the book Listening for the Heartbeat of God by J. Phillip
Newell ; also The Iona Community Worship Book incorporating
prayers and liturgy.
**Thanks to Micah who has been our pianist two Sundays a
month for a while now .We have greatly appreciated his
musical talent he has shared . However his ongoing plans are to
attend a university Music degree come September, so today we
say Good bye for now and many many blessings be on you as
you head forward on your musical Pathway .
** As John and Don are both away today we do not have any
video so must rely on our bulletins and hymnbooks today > A
printed version will still be posted on the church webpage

CALL TO WORSHIP
Grant me the grace of inner sight this day
That I may see you as the Self within all selves
Grant me the grace of love this day
That I may find the treasure that is unlocked by love
In depths beyond naming and heights greater than knowing
Thanks be to you O God
That I may know the riches buried in the human soul’

HYMN 412 Come let us sing to the Lord

Come, let us sing to the Lord our song:
we have stood silently too long;
surely the Lord deserves our praise,
so joyfully thank God for our days.
2. O thirsty soul, come drink at the well;
God’s living waters will never fail.
Surely the Lord will help you to stand,
strengthened and comforted by God’s hand.
3. You dwell among us and cause us to pray,
and walk with each other following your way;
our precious brothers and sisters will grow
in the fulfilling love they know.
4. Deserts shall bloom and mountains shall sing
to the desire of all living things.
Come, all you creatures, high and low;
let your praises endlessly flow
CCI 11394548

Prayers of Adoration and Invocation
Living, giving God, you are the source of all good things. Your
love reaches wider than the expanding universe, and your
kindness embraces the tiny sparrow. In Christ, you offer us the
Bread of Life to sustain us day by day. Through the Holy Spirit,
you are present in every situation, our daily tasks and
demanding challenges. And so we gather to offer you our love
and loyalty, the very best of ourselves, for surely you deserve all                     we can offer, heart, body, mind, and soul, our living, giving
God. Hear us as we confess together ….
PRAYER OF CONFESSION
Living, forgiving God,
in Christ you promise us new life.
Yet we often cling to bitter disappointments;
anger can hold us hostage for years.
We say one thing to someone’s face
and something else behind their back.
Forgive us. Free us from old habits and
resentments, and renew us to live
according to your mercy. Amen

ASSURANCE OF PARDON
God is tender hearted and gracious to all, offering forgiveness in
Christ Jesus. Trust in God’s grace, and be kind to one another,
forgiving others as God has forgiven you.
THE PEACE

HYMN 341 Before the world began

1. Before the world began one Word was there;
grounded in God he was, rooted in care;
by him all things were made;
in him was love displayed;
through him God spoke and said, ‘I am for you.’
2. Life found in him its source; death found its end;
light found in him its course, darkness its friend,
for neither death nor doubt

nor darkness can put out
the glow of God, the shout: ‘I am for you.’
3. The Word was in the world which from him came;
unrecognized he was, unknown by name;
one with all humankind,
with the unloved aligned,
convincing sight and mind: ‘I am for you.’
4. All who received the Word by God were blessed;
sisters and brothers they of earth’s fond guest.
So did the Word of Grace
proclaim in time and space
and with a human face, ‘I am for you.’
Iona Community

SCRIPTURE READINGS
Psalm 145: 10 – 18 page 979
John 13: 19 – 25 page 1674

SERMON Listening for the Heartbeat of God Part 1
listening within creation
I speak in the name of God, Christ and the Holy Spirit .
My curiosity about Spirituality was peeked a while back as I
was reading again my copy of the book I have entitled
“Listening for the Heartbeat of God “ written by the Rev J.
Phillip Newell. Having attended several conferences at which
Phillip was the speaker, I have met him more than once and
have been interested in his study of Celtic Spirituality. Rev

Newell has served in the Church of Scotland and as Warden at
Iona Abbey.
I suspect most folks have heard the phrase I’m “spiritual but not
religious” – if not in direct conversation, in some type of

communication. Interestingly there is no single, widely agreed-
upon definition of spirituality. So what is Spirituality ? The

webster dictionary defines Spirituality as “ relating or concerned
with the soul or spirit “. The “Soul” is the immortal part of a
person as distinguished from the body. Religion is “ a system of
beliefs and practices relating to the sacred and uniting its
adherents in a community”.
Continuing on, I did some searching on the Internet. Spirituality
means knowing that our lives have significance in a context
beyond a mundane, everyday existence at the level of biological
needs — knowing that we are a significant part of a purposeful
unfolding of Life in our universe. Spirituality is characterized
by faith, a search for meaning and purpose in life, a sense of
connection with others, and a transcendence of self, resulting in
a sense of inner peace and well-being.
So a quick history ! Words translatable as “spirituality” first
began to arise in the 5th century and only entered common use
toward the end of the Middle Ages. In a Biblical context the
term means being animated by God .The New Testament offers
the concept of being driven by the Holy Spirit, as opposed to
living a life in which one rejects this influence.
In the 11th century, this meaning of “Spirituality” changed.
Instead, the word began to denote the mental aspect of life, as
opposed to the material and sensual aspects of life, In the 13th

century “spirituality” acquired a social and psychological
meaning. Socially it denoted the territory of the clergy: the
ecclesiastical against the secular authority, Psychologically, it
denoted the realm of the inner life: “the purity of motives,
affections, intentions, inner dispositions, the psychology of the
spiritual life, the analysis of the feelings”
In the 17th and 18th centuries, a distinction was made between
higher and lower forms of spirituality: The church defined “A
spiritual man is one who is Christian ‘more abundantly and
deeper than others’. The word was also associated
with mysticism and quietism, and acquired a negative meaning
Modern notions of spirituality developed throughout the 19th
and 20th centuries,. Spirituality became increasingly
disconnected from traditional religious organizations and
institutions. It is sometimes associated today with philosophical,
social, or political movements such as liberalism, feminist
theology, and green politics.[
After the Second World War, the distinction between the
spiritual and the religious became more common in the popular
mind with the rise of secularism and the advent of the New
Age movement.
The next question might be “so what characteristics define
Celtic Spiritualty? Dating back to the 5th century AD, Celtic
Christianity was a unique amalgam of ancient indigenous
customs, rituals, and beliefs intertwined with traditional Roman
Catholicism. This form of Christianity developed in many
Celtic-speaking areas of the British Isles, including Scotland,
Ireland, Wales, the Isle of Man, and southwest England.

However, the Celtic Church was never a unified religion,
consisting of significant variations in worship liturgies and
organizational structures across Britain. It is distinguished by
unique indigenous traditions of liturgy, ritual, and art, which
were different from Roman Catholics during the period
The Celts, before the coming of Christianity, believed that the
divine pervaded every aspect of life, and that spirits were
everywhere -in ancient trees and sacred groves, mountaintops
and rock formations, rivers, streams, and holy wells. The earth
was regarded as the source of all fertility, and the great forces of
nature (moon, ocean, sun, and wind) were worshipped as
manifestations of the divine. For some, this gave the impression
they held druvidic views and values – however this was not
the basis for their beliefs

It must be noted that the Celtic Church did not resemble what
the European model of Church developed as the Celtic Church
was provincial and local based, monastic, mystical, reflecting
the patterns of life in the communities in which they flourished
Roman Christianity tended to be authoritarian, hierarchical,
male dominated, rational and strongly legalistic. In contrast, the
Celtic church celebrated grace and nature as good gifts from
God and recognised the sacredness of all creation. It had a love
of mysticism and poetry, and included women in its leadership.
Celtic society was rural, hierarchical, family based and tribal in
nature, with each tribe ruled by its own king. The Church took
over this pattern, with the basic unit of organisation being the
monastery.

This love of the natural world has often been emphasised at the
expense of a more complete and rounded theology and has been
used as a reason to dismiss this era as one owing more to
paganism than Christianity. However we only have to look at
the beautiful illuminated manuscripts and Gospels which have
survived the centuries to see the importance of Scripture in the
lives of these early saints. A clear doctrine of the Trinity
emerges in much of the Celtic poetry and prose that survives,
and the cross is central, as can be seen in the High crosses of
Ireland.

In the year 664 an important Synod was held at Whidby, at a
Celtic monastery headed by the abbess Hilda. King Oswy of
Northumbria convened the synod. In attendance were
representatives of both the Celtic and Roman traditions. There
were differences in form and style but the essential conflict was
two different perspective of spiritualty. The Celts, inspired by
Jesus’s disciple John, remembered him as the disciple who
leaned against Jesus at the Last supper. This is a strong image
of “Listening to the Heartbeat of God”. The Roman Church, on
the other hand ,argues on Matthews’ declaration of Peter’s
authority based on Jesus declaration of “ Peter, you are the
Rock upon which I will build my Church” (Matt 16: 13- 20 ) Sadly
Oswy made the decision that the Roman mission would be
declared the authorized theology of the United Kingdom. Thus
the Celtic mission began to decline. However it managed to
survive in one form or another on the edges of formal religion.
Today with the resurgence of ecological concern, the Celtic
emphasis is being widely recognized in and beyond the
“Church” establishment. Of course the theory that this

incredibly complex world simply evolved still circulates in
many areas. After all, in many church traditions we simply have
been taught not much more than thanking God for his creation.
How many of us were actually taught to look for God within
creation and to recognize the world as a place of God’s
revelation? How many of us were taught that the whole of life
is sacramental ? That God is the Life within all life, not just a
creator from afar ? The feature of Celtic spirituality is its
Creation emphasizing the elements of the earth are expressions
of God’s grace and goodness. God belongs in the ordinary every
day life – not exclusively to – or – in the “Church”
Within the twenty-one-verses of Psalm 145, David, the great
king of Israel, leads the Israelites and all of creation in words of
praise and thanksgiving to God as king over all. The heart of the
psalm is found in verses 10-18, verses that describe God’s
sovereignty over creation and God’s care for that creation.
In verse 10, David states that all of God’s works will give thanks
and all of God’s faithful ones will bless God.
Having firmly established the sovereignty of God in verses 11-
13, the psalm continues in verses 14-18 by cataloguing the
gracious acts of God on behalf of creation. God’s sovereignty
brings peace, security, well-being, and abundance for all who
embrace the kingdom of God.
Heaven and earth are inseparably entwined. The Celts reminded
us the ministry of the church is to liberate and free the goodness
of God that is already at the very heart of life AMEN

HYMN 705 God who made the earth

1. God, who made the earth,
the air, the sky, the sea,
who gave the light its birth,
still cares for me.

2. God, who made the grass,
the flower, the fruit, the tree,
the day and night to pass,
still cares for me.

3. God, who made the sun,
the moon, the stars we see,
who sees life’s clouds come on,
still cares for me.

4. God, who made all things
on earth, in air, in sea,
who changing seasons brings,
still cares for me.
Public Domain

OFFERING
Scripture speaks of God’s goodness and generosity over and
over again. So we keep offering our gifts to God in gratitude,
over and over again. May our gifts help to feed the world with
God’s goodness for the sake of Christ, the Bread of Life.

DOXOLOGY
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;

Praise him all creatures here below
Praise him above ye heavenly host.
Praise Father Son and Holy Ghost
OFFERTORY PRAYER
Lord Jesus, we bring our gifts to you, knowing that you have
given yourself for us. Bless these gifts. Make them a source of
your abundant love in the lives we touch through mission and
ministry in your name. Amen.

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
God of all generations, When we look back at our lives, we are
grateful for your steadfast presence with us through uncertainty
and upheaval. We have witnessed tragedy and courage;
generosity and selfishness, resentment and resilience, fear and
faithfulness. Teach us how to share our trust in you with the
world around us in the days ahead. God of each life and all life,
Keep us faithful, whatever happens.
God of nations and neighbours, We look back over the past few
months ,and we worry for the world. We have witnessed both
conflict and compassion, deep differences and calls for
collaboration. Send your Spirit to guide our leaders in politics,
education, health care, in business, labour and community life.
Create understanding across differing perspectives for the
wellbeing of those who struggle with their daily realities.
Sustain truth telling and mutual respect in our common life.
God of healing and hope, We look around at the world and
worry about the unpredictable climate, and its huge costs to
communities and individuals. We look around and see people

without doctors, people on long waiting lists for care, people
without homes they can afford or food on the table. Hear us in
this holy silence as we name in our hearts those people and
situations that concern us deeply…….
God of family and friends, We look around at our lives and give
you thanks for all our sustaining relationships, those nearby and
those we maintain over distance. Where people live in
loneliness, show us how to reach out. Where people struggle
with differences or discrimination, show us how to offer wisdom

and encourage mutual respect. Inspire us with Jesus’ all-
embracing love and make us instruments of his peace and

purpose,
Gracious God, we lift to you our joys sorrows, question s and
concerns ……………….

Our gracious God, thank You for those fleeting moments when
Your Holy Spirit is at work in our lives, especially when we
interact with others. Lord Jesus, bless us with Your grace as we
share Your love with others through a simple smile. Use us and
mould us to be more like You in everything that we do in Your
name.

Lord Jesus, we want to be ready for Your return. What a
wonderful day it will be for those who believe in You on the day
when You return, to hear, “Well done!” Thank You for the time
that You give each of us here on earth to work for the coming of
Your kingdom.

Help us to keep our faith in You strong and our hearts open to
receive our reward on that day. In Your name, we pray. Amen!
THE LORD’S PRAYER
Our Father, who art in heaven hallowed be thy name, thy
kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we
forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the
glory, forever. Amen.

HYMN 434 For the beauty of the earth

1. For the beauty of the earth,
for the beauty of the skies,
for the love which from our birth
over and around us lies,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our sacrifice of praise.
2. For the beauty of each hour
of the day and of the night,
hill and vale, and tree and flower,
sun and moon and stars of light,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our sacrifice of praise.
3. For the joy of ear and eye,
for the heart and mind’s delight,
for the mystic harmony
linking sense to sound and sight,
Lord of all, to thee we raise

this our sacrifice of praise.
4. For the joy of human love,
brother, sister, parent, child,
friends on earth and friends above,
for all gentle thoughts and mild,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our sacrifice of praise.
5. For each perfect gift of thine,
to the earth so freely given,
graces human and divine,
flowers of earth and buds of heaven,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our sacrifice of praise.
Public Domain

BENEDICTION
May the everlasting God shield you , East and west wherever
you go May the blessing of the God of life, the Christ of love
and the spirit of grace be upon us now and forever more

CLOSING SONG

Open my eyes that I may see glimpses of truth thou hast for me
place in my hands the wonderful key that shall unclasp and set
me free Silently now, I wait for thee ready my Lord, thy will to
see open my eyes, illumine me Spirit Divine