I went to Iona a number of years ago as part of my honeymoon as a day trip with my wife and saw the Abbey and a couple of Celtic Crosses and on the way there Fingle Cave. I didn’t have the knowledge of the significance of Iona and the things to explore that I have today. One day I would like to return and stay on the island in an organized retreat.
The following websites are the official Iona Community to explore and discover the best options for you, if and when you choose to go to Iona.
https://iona.org.uk/visit-and-stay/travel-advice/
George MacLeods a leading figure in the Scottish Church, he was a man that conceived and accomplished the rebuilding of Iona and established it as a great place of mission.[18] “His whole way of life was inspired by the example of the Celtic saints. Long before it became fashionable he was environmentally conscious, like the Celts he saw that Christ as the center of the whole created order, the Lord of science and matter as well as of human souls”[19] “He also stressed to the importance of finding God in the here and now and in the everyday things of life.”[20] Iona is now a place of pilgrimage for thousands of people a recreation of the dream of St. Columba of a community he had started. From out of this rebuilding, it is forming a following of people from all over the world bound together by the discipline of prayer, sharing resources and following a simple lifestyle.[21] “George MacLeod believed not so much that the mission was to bring the gospel to every creature, as that the mission was to bring all mortals to the awareness of the love and purpose of God already present in creation, already breaking through.”[22] The example that people see in the Celts of the past, as an example to live by is their love and care for nature and responsibility for the environment and allowing creativity, felt as believed that was the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
This is an extract from an assignment I wrote years ago at Cliff College. My beginning search into Celtic Christianity – the rest of it is in the following Blog.
Moments of the Sacred
I found a selection of old pamphlets at my work in the library where I work, which I have begun to read. These would be some of the early ethos of the Iona Community.
Reading What is the Iona Community? – This resonated with me. The Iona Community “It calls itself a Community because it believes that we cannot be Christian as individuals. We are failing in our Christian obedience because we have forgotten that what really matters is what we do together.” pg 3 What is the Iona Community? By Rev. T. Ralph Morton, MA. Deputy Leader of Iona Community.
Further insight from the booklet giving background of the original intention and vision of the founding leader.
“THE ORIGIN OF THE IONA COMMUNITY
Iona is the home of The Iona Community but not the place of its origin.
The birthplace of The Iona Community was in industrial Clydeside-in Glasgow, or, to be more precise, in Govan.
Dr. George Macleod, the founder and leader of The Iona Community, was minister of Govan Old Parish in the years of the depression, the hungry thirties. In those years, when most of the men of Govan were unemployed, the Church in Govan, under Dr. Macleod, did pioneer work in the service of the unemployed. Here, said men, was a church that was really successful.
Its services were crowded. It was active in affairs outside. And then, to the surprise of most, Dr. Macleod resigned his charge.
He did so because he felt the conventional work of the Church, however outwardly successful, was not meeting the needs of men, was certainly not meeting the needs of the industrial men of Govan.
Only by experiments in new ways of life and work could the Church find the way to make the Faith live for men in the new industrial age. In particular, two groups of men must somehow be brought together: industrial men and ministers. If the Church means nothing to ordinary men working in industry, then the Church cannot meet the need of an industrial society. They are the test of the Church’s relevance in the modern world. And the Church is unlikely to adapt herself to new conditions unless her ministers see the need and get a different training. So Dr. MacLeod resigned his charge and set off to Iona with half a dozen craftsmen and half a dozen young ministers to start The Iona Community.
The place and year of its origin-Govan, 1938-set their mark on The Iona Community from the beginning. They explain its membership: why the basic membership is of ministers and craftsmen. They explain the peculiar emphasis of the Community’s work: why it has felt that its primary mission is to men in industry and why its main sphere of work has been in the down-town areas and in the new housing areas. The Community can never forget that it arose out of a particular situation and to meet the needs of particular people.
From Govan to Iona: to many that move seemed incom- prehensible, to others it seemed an escape. Why did Dr. MacLeod set off with his small band for Iona ? Why did he make the ostensible task of The Iona Community to be the rebuilding of a ruined monastery ? There were, I think, three reasons.
Sermon in Stone snippet – George MacLeod – thie Iona Community
Buy the DVD at http://www.ionabooks.com/sermon-in-st…
First, there was on Iona a task to be done. It was a task that had meaning both for the craftsmen and for the ministers. And it was a task that could be carried out in not too many years and with the men working only for the summer months. That task was the completion of the rebuilding of the ruined monastic buildings on Iona. The buildings had been given by the eighth Duke of Argyll to the Church of Scotland at the very end of the last century. The Abbey Church had been restored before the First World War, but the rest of the buildings-the place of men’s daily life-was still in ruins. This was the task that Dr. MacLeod undertook to complete by the work of the members of the Community.
Secondly, there was the place of Iona in the history of Scotland and of Western Christendom. It was a shame to many that this place of Columba’s landing in 563, the place from which the missionaries of the Celtic Church went out to spread the Faith in Northern Scotland and further, and the centre of an active Christian community up till the Reformation should preserve its sacred memories in ruins except for the Abbey Church, used at that time only for Sunday services in summer. To rebuild the ruins was not so much to preserve a memorial of the past as to make Iona a centre of Christian life for the future, where the traditions of the past could be merged in a new unity.
And, lastly, there was a very practical reason: perhaps the very reason why Columba chose Iona and other Celtic saints chose other islands. It is much easier to build up a new community life in a place that is fairly inaccessible and offers few distractions.
Certainly, the members of the Community would not have learned all they have learned from their life together if they had been on the mainland within easy reach of Glasgow and Edinburgh.
For the main point of the Community was not to build an Abbey but to learn by sharing life together on a real job. That was the summer task from which men went back to their jobs on the mainland. And as on Iona the demands of stone and wood have held us to our essential purposes and saved us from easy theories, so on the mainland the original awareness of industrial man’s need and of the minister’s inadequacy has kept The Iona Community set on its original intention.” pg 4-6 What is the Iona Community? By Rev. T. Ralph Morton, MA. Deputy Leader of Iona Community.
https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/video/tv-show/scotland-islands
There are a couple of people who through their writings or online offerings have influenced my growth in experience and knowledge, in the area of Celtic Christianity – who at one time or another have been at Iona and part of their community.
John Bell
John Philip Newell – Listening for the Heartbeat of God
Simon de Voil
Chants and Prayer was my first contact with Simon de Voil
Here is his YouTube Channel
Through Simon de Voil – I heard the following song that I found impactful – this was composed by John Bell and Simon hears and learns during his time on Iona.
Prayer – “the best” can fail to happen if we neglect to pray. – pg 6. Divine Healing The Iona Prayer Circle
Mark's Treasury Of Celtic Christian Spirituality 