This ancient Celtic prayer, the Rune of Hospitality, has no copyright ownership from anywhere. Feel free to adapt and use it as you see fit!  It could be adapted to speak into your community life. We don’t all have cattle, nourishment from food and drink is not the only immediate need, and we don’t all live in areas where we encounter larks, so how might this be adapted to speak into your context? And how might this newly formed prayer inspire you to live in ways that are just and peaceful?

Adaptation ideas shared by Phill Mellstrom

Rune of Hospitality

We saw a stranger yesterday.
We put food in the eating place,
drink in the drinking place,
Music in the listening place.
With the sacred name of the triune God,
They blessed us and our house,
our cattle and our dear ones.
As the lark says in her song:
Often, often, often goes Christ
in the stranger’s guise.

Phill Mellstrom serves The Faith Action Staff of the Church of Scotland as a Worship Development Worker.  He designs creative and vibrant words and spaces for worship.

Photo: Celtic Cross, Lindisfarne, Holy Island, UK — taken by Ana Gobledale