Celtic Spiritual Poetry (30)
I and Pangur Bán, my cat,
’Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.
– Anonymous, “Pangur Bán” (tr. and setting, Robin Flower)
Like a roaring lion and a charging bear
Is a wicked ruler over poor people.
– Proverbs 28.15
Revelation everywhere
Solomon was a careful observer of the world around him, especially things people took for granted. He understood that in all things the LORD had concealed a bit of revelation, a glimpse of His glory, even a lesson about living according to His will. Solomon’s task—and by identification, ours—was to discover what God had concealed in things, so that He could bring out the wisdom of God to share it with others (Prov. 25.2).
Which he did in spades, because his writings are filled with metaphors inviting us to observe the things of the world and to see in them the Presence, glory, and wisdom of God.
Celtic Christians got this. Such as our anonymous scribe. Late in the period of the Celtic Revival,while working at his copying, our scribe looked up to see his cat, Pangur Bán (“White Cat”), toying with a mouse. His amusement soon turned to revelation and instruction, as he saw in Pangur’s cuffing and pawing the mouse an insight to his own calling. He took up his journal and wrote:
Better far than praise of men
’Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.
’Tis a merry thing to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.
Note how the scribe viewed his work—with gladness, even as a source of delight or entertainment. We tend to think of being a monk, spending hours each day copying manuscripts and praying, to be a rather dull vocation. But not this monk. He loved his work because he knew that God had appointed and prepared him for it as surely as he had made Pangur to chase mice:
Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur’s way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.
’Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
’Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.
Translating manuscripts is hard work. Solving a syntactical problem or finding just the right word to express in Latin what originally was written in Gaelic can be demanding. It took a keen and expansive mind to do such work, which could be very satisfying:
When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!
Called by God
We all have a calling from God, and while much of what we do in pursuing our calling can be tedious, frustrating, and perhaps even a little boring, still, this our appointed work, and God intends to use it for His glory (1 Cor. 10.31). So if we can be at peace in our work and faithful in all the details of it, we can know the bliss of Jesus, a foretaste of the eternal bliss that awaits all the faithful of the Lord:
So in peace our tasks we ply,
Pangur Bán, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.
We have to work at our calling every day, practicing our disciplines and keeping in mind that everything we do or say has the potential for glorifying God and bringing the Light of the world into the darkness of wrong belief:
Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.
What glory and wisdom will the Lord show you today from the creation and people around you?
For Reflection
1. How would you describe your calling from the Lord?
2. In which aspects of your calling do you most find joy and peace?
Psalm 19.1-3
St. Christopher: Beneath the Cross of Jesus
The heav’ns declare God’s glory, the skies His work proclaim!
From day to day and night by night they shout His glorious Name!
No speech, no words, no voice is heard, yet all across the earth
the lines of His all-present Word make known His holy worth.
T. M. Moore
If you have found this meditation helpful, take a moment to give thanks to God. Then share what you learned with a friend. This is how the grace of God spreads (2 Cor. 4.15).
If you’d like to learn more about the Celtic Revival, download our free PDF introduction by clicking here.
Other columns of interest: This week: Our ReVision column continues the study of “Everyday Christianity.” The Read Moorepodcast features excerpts from Patrick: A Devotional History. The focus of our Scriptorium daily study is on “Matthew: The Coming of the Kingdom.” Click here to see all the other columns and writers available to you. You can subscribe or update your subscriptions by going to the bottom of the home page.
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