One of the greatest teachers in the Celtic world, John Scotus Eriugena in ninth-century Ireland, also taught that Christ is our memory.
We suffer from the “soul’s forgetfulness,” he says.
Christ comes to reawaken us to our true nature.
He is our epiphany.
He comes to show us the face of God.
He comes to show us also our face, the true face of the human soul.
This leads the Celtic tradition to celebrate the relationship between nature and grace.
Instead of grace being viewed as opposed to our essential nature or as somehow saving us from ourselves, nature and grace are viewed as flowing together from God.
They are both sacred gifts.
The gift of nature, says Eriugena, is the gift of “being”; the gift of grace, on the other hand, is the gift of “well-being.”
Grace is given to reconnect us to our true nature.
At the heart of our being is the image of God, and thus the wisdom of God, the creativity of God, the passions of God, the longings of God.
Grace is opposed not to what is deepest in us but to what is false in us.
It is given to restore us to the core of our being and to free us from the unnaturalness of what we are doing to one another and to the earth.