Brendan the Navigator

And in a time period where the ocean to the north and west of Europe may have been looked at as the edge of the world, where reality may give way to the unknown, or as we saw in last episode, with the divine.

In that episode, the second part of my Tales of Ireland series, I talked about the legendary voyage of Saint Brendan.

a monk from the Iran Islands in the west of Ireland who heard amazing stories of a promised land of saints and decided to go on a voyage to find it in supposedly the early to mid-500s, right in the thick of the post-Roman world of the Dark Ages I often cover in this podcast.

He and his crew of monks spent seven years on this voyage across the North Atlantic and encountered many mystical, magical...

I had LASIK surgery to improve my vision.

But Lasix cannot help me see the truth of the voyage of St. Brendan, or the truth of what the story of Parcival and the Grail wants to teach me.

The fact that vitamins and exercise and understanding circadian rhythms, they benefit me in the short term, physically, mentally, and emotionally, even in a spiritual sense, little s, but they cannot deepen my soul.

They cannot bring me into wisdom.

Anyway.

We kind of already talked about this, because we talked about St. Brendan.

We talked about Columba.

I'm trying to think if I can think of another.

I love the Celtic saints.

I love the stories of St. Patrick, St. Bede, St. Cuthbert, St. Brendan, and St. Bridget, and all these guys, because they walked in something substantial and real.

you know and they trust the land you know

yeah and and initially none of them were connected with the catholic church right right there were there were some connections with like greek orthodoxy and things like that but um none of them were connected with the catholic church and they certainly they certainly didn't do evangelism the way people do today

Often, he had the vision of a noble and beautiful land beyond the waters.

he lived there on the top of the mountain with the sea before him until once again he heard the voice of the angel and the voice said to him it will be shown to thee how to find the land of which thou hast the vision brendan wept for joy he went down from his cell on the mountain and he went and lived amongst men who had come from a race of mariners after he had been with them for a while and after he had told them of his vision of a land beyond the ocean he said to them have three vessels made the largest vessels that you ever have built with three banks of oars on each and with sails of hide and find twenty men for each vessel The vessels were made of the kind that are called currax, with tanned hides covering a body of wickerwork.

Sixty men were found ready to sail with Brendan, some of them mariners and some of them monks.

And in vessels that were covered with tanned hides and that had sails of hide, Brendan, with his sixty companions, put off from the western coast and sailed out across the western ocean.

the first voyage to the inaccessible island they sailed over the loud-voiced waves of the rough crusted sea and over the billows of the greenish tide and over the abysses of the wonderful terrible relentless ocean where looking down they saw in the depths the red-mouthed monsters of the sea and many great whales and brendan said a prayer to god saying o almighty creator who out of shapeless matter formed all things and creatures in their proper forms and species deliver us and bring us safely back across the sea and when he had said that prayer the sea grew calm and the rushing of the whirlpools subsided at once now as they sailed on across the ocean having visited many empty islands the monks who were with him said to brendan it is time that we should make a landing for easter is near and we should come forth from our ships to celebrate the rising of our lord when they said that there was no land in sight the next day was easter the monks looked around and they all lamented that there was no land upon which they might celebrate the lord's resurrection then behold amongst the billows they saw firm land land that was like a green sward that is smooth and even and all at the one level they went to it and they went upon it they celebrated the easter festival upon it for one day and two nights then they went back to their vessels and as they sailed away the level land on which they had been plunged down into the billows and sank into the sea.

Then they knew that what they had been on was not a smooth green island, but the back of a great whale.

For five years St. Brendan and his companions were upon the ocean, and at every Easter that whale rose out of the ocean, and they celebrated Easter upon its bulk.

they sailed on and on towards the west one day in the trough of the waves they found a maiden drifting she was whiter than snow or the foam of the seas and she was of a size greater than any woman they had ever looked upon she was a maiden of a giant race she was dead being pierced through the body by a spear brendan took her within his curac he prayed over her and life came back for a while to the maiden in a language that he only understood she told brendan that she was of the people of the isles of the sea brendan baptized her and administered the sacrament to her she breathed forth her spirit then the monks prayed over that mighty maiden and then they buried her body in the sea still they sailed westward they came to a small and beautiful island that had many bays that were well supplied with fish they landed thinking to rest there and then to sail further on and to the land that the heavenly voice spoke of to brendan upon that island they found a church built of stone brendan and his companions were greatly astonished for they had thought that no one had ever been on the island before them they searched all over the place then beside a well brendan and his companions found an ancient man he was naked and he seemed to be without flesh or blood for his skin was shrivelled on his bones this was the hermit of the far island he rose up and he spoke to brendan and his companions in a language that they understood he told them that the land they were in search of was the radiant land and that it was still far from them to the west and he told them too that the corrects they had could not make the voyage to the radiant land for a while they stayed on the island of the ancient hermit then they boarded their vessels once more and they rowed with their banks of oars and they sailed with their leathern sails until they came to another island It was an island walled by cliffs so steep that no one could land on it.

Or you can scuba dive and go deep on everything.

So like this week in the email, there were all sorts of little treats for scuba divers, including a wonderful summary of the legend of St. Brendan the Navigator.

and all of the story of the music from last week.

So keep that in mind.

And we said that in our call to worship this morning.

There's a prayer from this period of time from St. Brendan.

And he says this.

He says, Lord, I will trust you.

Versions of this story exist in the fictional Sinbad the Sailor story cycle, but also appear in writings that are meant to be taken as truth.

St. Brendan the Navigator claimed to land on the back of a whale in the 6th century CE.

In the 13th century, William the Clerk warned sailors to beware of strange land masses in the water because they could be a devil whale in disguise.

A similar story appears in the writings of Al-Kazwini, a 13th century Persian professor.