On the Shores of Iona
The following was first written for Legatum III, a publication of the Contemplative Order of the Sons of the Holy Cross.
When I first entered ministry in my early twenties, I quickly realized that my understanding of God did not easily fit into denominational boxes. My wife, Sarah, and I often joked that one day, we should write a book called The Theology of Both because no one side of the theological arguments our denominations engaged in seemed to encompass the full scope of God’s self-revelation in Scripture. Experiencing pressure to always agree with the theological opinions of our denomination felt like stumbling into the Church’s version of partisan politics. My upbringing was too diverse to form anything but a desire for breadth and a spirit of unity. What I now recognize as true catholicity.
As a child, I was baptized in the Roman Catholic Church. Shortly after, because of a move of God in my mother’s life, we began attending the local Free Methodist Church. Then, during my teenage years, I attended the closest youth group at a charismatic evangelical Church in a neighbouring town. There, my faith came alive in a new way—not through musical styles or charismatic prayer forms, but through the presence and peace of God. Those years were graced by a sense of God’s quiet and peaceful presence in my soul that was untouched by the stresses and difficulties of the world. In that loud, active whirlwind of charismania, while chasing “revival” with the rest of my community, God met me in still, quiet ways, forming the heart of a contemplative.1
Over the next twenty years, my ministry in Saskatchewan and Alberta took many forms—from worship leading to youth and family pastoring to Anglican Church planting and eventually to leading a discipleship school as a parish priest. Now, I work as the overseer of Spiritual Formation for my local Parish. Every step has expanded my understanding of God’s goodness and deepened my desire to worship Him as a living sacrifice. Each new experience in my life and ministry has shaped my heart for God, leading me to the conviction that holistic worship—surrendering one’s entire being to the will of God—is the fulfillment and goal (telos) of life in Christ. That is where true life is found, where we become fully human. My exploration of church history and the writings of the Church Fathers, both Patristic and early Medieval, revealed a unifying thread that felt like home. Where denominational lines worked like partisan politics, the Catholic Church was anything but. I experienced a sense of belonging in the Catholicity of the undivided Church. The air was fresh and crisp in its breadth and unity, especially when I found myself standing on the shores of Iona.
Celtic Christianity
Church tradition tells us that at least three British Bishops were present at the Synod in Arles, France, in 314 A.D.2 However, the form most commonly known as Celtic Christianity found its footing between the fifth and eighth centuries, thanks to missionary saints like Patrick, Columba, Aiden, Brigid, Chad, and Cedd. The Celtic Church organized herself differently from her Roman counterpart. Instead of parishes and dioceses, the Celtic Church grew through and was organized around monasteries that were central to her mission and ministry.3
The monastic tradition of Celtic Christianity shaped the culture of the British Isles, creating communities formed by Christ in every facet of life. These monastic centres fostered a communal Rule of Life that included prayer, working the land, raising animals, scholarship, cultivating beauty, and establishing deep relationships. These communities would then send missionaries to establish more monastic centres across the Isles, perpetuating a cycle of training and sending.4 In Celtic Christianity, the Church and the monasteries were one and the same and the Celtic saints who lived there were dedicated to expanding Christ’s Kingdom, which they believed enriched and beautified every aspect of life.
Although the Celtic communities were inspiring and appealing, their lives are not easily imitated without becoming a parody. For us, twenty-first-century Western Christians, it becomes clear that the most profound riches of Celtic Christianity are often challenging to define. Paul Cullity captures this perspective in Monasticism – The Heart of Celtic Christianity when he writes, “If you want to capture the idea of Celtic Monasticism in words, you’ll find that words themselves seem inadequate. I have struggled for weeks now to present the essence of this movement, and I find it no easier now than when I started. Every word I choose has a sense of passion, of vitality, of enthusiasm, of intense dedication, and yet even these extravagant phrases fall short of catching the elusive nature of my subject.”5
Thankfully, early Church theologians, such as St. Irenaeus of Lyon, as well as contemplative saints like St. John Climacus, Thomas Merton, and Evelyn Underhill, along with contemplative pastors like Eugene Peterson, have developed a language that beautifully articulates the Divine Life that the Celtic saints lived and preached. The apprehension of this divine life was extensively explored by St. Irenaeus in Against Heresies, who, already in the second century, laid the theological foundation for practices that would later be embraced by Celtic monasticism. Using the terminology of “Christian Perfection,” St. Irenaeus developed a sophisticated anthropology that he believed was received pedagogically and lived out sacrificially.6 He writes that the Divine Life—the pursuit of Christian Perfection—is the telos of human existence and the purpose of creation.7
The Celtic Church built upon the theology laid down by Early Church Fathers, such as St. Irenaeus, embodying a faith that integrated worship into every aspect of life. Whether it was through working the land, setting sail in a boat to preach the gospel to unreached peoples, creating some of the most elegant and beautiful Gospel Books ever produced, or simply extending hospitality to strangers, the Celtic saints exemplified “spiritual worship.” Heeding St. Paul’s exhortation in Romans 12:1 to present themselves “as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.”8 This approach to faith formed communities where every action was an expression of worship and devotion.
In my twenty years of ministry in Canada, I have witnessed the need for this type of community again; communities that live, work and worship together, not to separate themselves from the world, but to exemplify the way of Christ, offering a different way of living in this world. The question is, what does that look like? How can the Canadian Church be revived and rebuilt as the Celtic saints did in the British Isles?
Within & Without
Two movements must happen simultaneously to bring about this change. First, there must be a movement within parishes for those who live and work in the world. As Martin Thornton suggests, we must build parishes for the Remnant of God, not with barriers and exclusive groups, but a parish that welcomes all people while prioritizing the pursuit of holiness.9 These parishes must not focus on numbers or budgets but on building a community that seeks the Divine life together.
While some parishes and ministers strive to build their communities this way, many have adopted business models, marketing schemes, and number crunching as their way of life. We must pray for a transformation of Christ’s Church, to leave the ways of the world behind and reestablish the old way, the way of the Monasterium. 10
Several years ago, while preparing to teach a class on Church History, I learned about the ravaging and closure of monasteries during the English Reformation.11 While I do not want to debate the reason for their closure, I believe the loss of these houses of prayer has been significant. In our own country, the rapid establishment of the Parish and diocesan model left behind much of the Celtic monastic tradition found in our roots, but there is a growing desire to revive this way of life.12
Evangelicalism has experienced a slow and steady increase in the search for these same truths over the past 25 years. Leaders like Dallas Willard, John Ortberg, and Richard Foster have paved the way for a new movement of young leaders who seek to build communities based on these principles in parish life. The next generation, including Tyler Staton, John Mark Comer, Dave Lomas, and others, teach their churches to establish a Rule of Life, turning every aspect of their lives into an act of worship. Within the Anglican Tradition, there are leaders like Fr. Justin Read-Smith, who planted The Community of St. Columba’s in Missoula, Montana, based on a vision of “the Church-as-abbey.”13 His vision was to see the Celtic Monasterium be the basis for parish ministry. St. Columba’s reflects a broader movement within Anglicanism. However, there is also a need to reestablish Celtic monastic communities outside the Parish that will cultivate contemplative worshippers and form future leaders and missionaries who will spread the gospel across Canada as the Celtic saints did in Britain.
The Marks of a Celtic Contemplative Community
In 2019, I attended the Always Forward Conference in North Carolina, where I met Fr. Ryan Jones, a church planter from San Francisco. In our conversations, it became clear that we shared similar views on the need for spiritual formation in Parish life and were working to lead our communities toward the “church-as-abbey” model. A few years later, he and his wife took a leap of faith as they began work to establish Iona House, a centre for contemplation and spiritual formation just outside Placerville, California. They aim to build a community that will “reimagine all of life in reference to Christ.”14 I have prayed for them and followed their journey, hoping that God will raise others in Canada to do the same. Such a place could normalize living according to an adaptable, shared way of life, marked by 15
Prayer: Communal prayer, three times a day through the daily office, with Lectio Divina guiding our way of Scriptural Meditation.
Learning & Scholarship: In-depth catechesis for formation in the gospel, with additional theological and spiritual director training to equip each community member for teaching, formation, and evangelism.
Hospitality: Welcoming sojourners and pilgrims with open arms, warm beds, food, and opportunities for spiritual direction and communal prayer.
Stewarding Creation: Emphasizing work as part of the daily rhythm, caring for God’s creation, including the land, animals, gardens, and buildings.
Cultivating Beauty: Following the Celtic tradition of artistic expression through music, art, and writing, the community would produce beautiful artistic works for worship and encouragement towards beauty throughout the Church.
Gospel Mission & Monastic Foundations: Training and sending men and women to preach the good news of Jesus in word and deed, and establish new communities that follow the same adaptable way of life.
Forming these Celtic-inspired contemplative communities in Canada will require significant effort. No ideologue can build such things. Whether they resemble Lindisfarne, Little Gidding, or Iona House, we cannot foresee, nor should we try to. Instead, we should draw inspiration from Iona, Lindisfarne, and Kells, allowing the grace of these God-given communities to seep into our bones and see what God will do, letting Him decide each step. That is how these Celtic communities were built, and I believe it is how their Canadian counterparts should be constructed as well.
We find ourselves drifting in an ocean of possibility, much like St. Brendan the Navigator and his twelve companions, who stepped into their coracle with unwavering faith in the Lord’s guidance, or St. Aiden leaving Iona to establish Lindisfarne, or even St. Columba himself gazing upon the shores of Iona for the first time, uncertain of what God would accomplish through the community established there.16 Though the waters of chaos seem to be rising in the world around us, we must remain steadfast in our coracle of prayer, afloat safely with Christ, and recognize that a shoreline has emerged on the horizon. God is granting us an opportunity to return to the roots of Celtic Christianity, to learn, be formed, and reestablish a way of life that shapes us and the culture around us rather than being shaped by it. A way of life that sits in the deepest parts of our soul but flows out of us in everything we do.
I am increasingly convinced that Celtic-inspired contemplative communities, living out The Divine Life, would bring about a profound transformation of the soul of God’s people. The Celtic saints believed it was possible, and as I sit on the shores of Iona in my heart, I am beginning to believe it could be done again.
1 The word revival is in quotations, not to demean the desire, but to express that we did not know what true revival was while we were chasing it.
2 The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge: Embracing Biblical, Historical, Doctrinal, and Practical Theology and Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Biography from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, Volume 1, Edited by Samuel Macauley Jackson, 288.
3 Carl A. Volz, The Medieval Church: From the Dawn of the Middle Ages to the Eve of the Reformation, 33-36.
4 Ibid.
5 Paul Cullity, Monasticism – The Heart of Celtic Christianity, https://www.northumbriacommunity.org/articles/monasticism-the-heart-of-celtic-christianity/
6 In Against Heresies 4.39.2, St. Irenaeus argues that we must learn what it means to be perfect from The Perfect One, God. Or, to say it another way, and he claims this even more in On Apostolic Preaching, pg. 53-54, we must learn what it means to be in the image and likeness of God from the image and likeness of God, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and we do that by believing the Rule of Truth (AH 1.22.1) and by living in subjection to God (AH 4.38.3).
7 St. Irenaeus of Lyon, Against Heresies, 4.37-9.
8 ESV Translation
9 Martin Thornton, Pastoral Theology: A Reorientation, 23-25.
10 For more on the concept of what is meant by ‘Monasterium,’ check Iona House’s description here: https://ionahouse.org/monasterium
11 Owen Chadwick, The Reformation, 104-113.
12 Reginald V Harris, Charles Inglis: Missionary, Loyalist, Bishop (1734-1816), 76-106.
13 Chuck Warnock, Ten Marks of the church-as-abbey,https://chuckwarnockblog.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/ten-marks-of-the-church-as-abbey/
14 www.ionahouse.org
15 Most would consider this ‘way of life’ an establishment of a new ‘Rule of Life,’ but I use the word ‘way’ intentionally to evoke the understanding of its adaptability rather than its rigidity.
16 Thomas Cahill, How The Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland’s Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe, 171, 187, 200.