Mar 11 | “Smoor your Heart” (DOC blog post)

Here is an excerpt from another blog I’m running for my internship.

Daily prayer is a natural response to the idea that “heaven and earth are full of God’s glory.”

This is part of what led the Celtic people to mark the most boring everyday tasks with prayer. In a collection of prayers called the Carmina Gadelica, you can find prayers for everything from washing your face to milking the cows to starting on a journey.

One particular Celtic ritual that speaks beautifully to daily prayer (and for which there are many prayers) is smooring the hearth.

Peat is a turf substance that is plentiful in Ireland and other countries on the continent. It occurs in bogs when conditions are too acidic for plant material to break down properly. It has had a multitude of uses over the years and works especially well as fuel for indoor fires.

To “smoor” something means “to smother” it. It’s dangerous to leave any kind of fire unattended, but cottages in Ireland, a very wet and damp place during many parts of the year, would get very cold at night while people were asleep. At some point in ancient history, someone discovered that a peat fire could be smothered enough that it would keep burning throughout the night.

When I learned about this, I thought it was a beautiful way to describe the spiritual life. Our earth has four seasons, but a human life also has seasons. A healthy life of prayer will not be one continuous spike upward, nor should it always be going downward. There will be both of those things, but in between there will be long stretches and plateaus. I feel the practice of daily prayer is a way of smooring the heart(h), keeping the light of God burning during the flat periods of one’s life.

“The Sacred Three to save, to shield, to surround
the hearth, the house, the household
this eve, this night.
Oh, this eve, this night
and every night,
every single night. Amen.”

– Prayer for smooring the fire, Carmina Gadelica