The single chalice used by the Celtic Christians in the eucharistic Mass was a good-sized cup, like a large quaich with handles.

Those which have been found from the period of time that the Stowe Missal comes, such as that found in the Derrynaflan Hoard, are large enough to hold (without filling it too close to the brim) around one and a half modern bottles of wine.

 The Stowe Missal also describes dunking the entire loaf of bread into the chalice: 'The submerging of the two halves [of the bread] in the chalice represents the submersion of Christ's body in his blood after his wounding on the cross.

 This was enough wine for each person in a group of around 60-70 to have a good-sized mouthful, and it seems that they weren't shy in taking it either - no gentle sips as we are perhaps used to today. Within the Rule of Columbanus, for example, we find written a sanction for 'him who has bitten the cup of salvation with his teeth'!

 This perhaps goes back to the final aspect that we looked at yesterday in the taking of the bread, about ensuring you get a good sense of flavour and taste as part of the holistic sacred experience. No tiny individual glasses or gentle lip-wetting for the Celtic Christians when it comes to drinking the wine in the Eucharist.

The Stowe Missal describes the pouring of water into the chalice first before the wine to represent the people in the church, then wine is added later. The wine therefore represents Christ's divinity mixed with his humanity and his coming to be one with the people of earth through the incarnation.

We also find in the Stowe Missal that, when the chalice had been taken by each person and handed back to the priest, the priest would then circle the head of each person with the chalice in a Caim prayer before moving on to the next person.

A Caim prayer is a prayer of encircling protection that was used by the Celtic Christians: the asking of either divine or angelic protection to surround the person, or whatever it was that was being encircled. Ninian of Whithorn in the fourth century famously encircled a herd of cows in a famer's field with a Caim prayer, protecting them from marauders and rustlers. Within the Eucharist, this, in my understanding, is a prayer for each person to be covered in the protective blood of Christ. The power which is in the blood of Christ was seen and expressed in Celtic Christianity.

This act with the bread and wine in the Eucharist was more than just a remembering for the Celtic Christians, as we might see it and present it today; it was a reimmersing of one's self in the blood of Christ as part of the holistic understanding they had of life, and a 'chance to re-enter and be absorbed more completely into this whole Christ [experience]'.

Celtic Lent
David Cole