St. Brendan's Prayer: On Setting Out

Shall I abandon, 

O King of mysteries, 

the soft comforts of home? 

Shall I turn my back on my native land, 

and turn my face towards the sea?

Shall I put myself wholly at your mercy, 

without silver, 

without a horse, 

without fame, 

without honour? 

Shall I throw myself wholly upon You, 

without sword and shield, 

without food and drink, 

without a bed to lie on? 

Shall I say farewell to my beautiful land, 

placing myself under Your yoke?

Shall I pour out my heart to You, 

confessing my manifold sins and begging forgiveness, 

tears streaming down my cheeks? 

Shall I leave the prints of my knees 

on the sandy beach, 

a record of my final prayer in my native land?

Shall I then suffer every kind of wound 

that the sea can inflict? 

Shall I take my tiny boat 

across the wide sparkling ocean? 

O King of the Glorious Heaven, 

shall I go of my own choice upon the sea?

O Christ, will You help me on the wild waves?

--St. Brendan of Clonfert (the Navigator) (484-577 CE), Irish patron saint of Kerry and Clonfert, founder of a monastery in the Aran Islands, monastic and sailor, one of the "Twelve Apostles of Ireland" who is renowned for his sea journey with 16 other monks to find the Isle of the Blessed, aka the Garden of Eden

Prayer of St. Brendan the Navigator

Lord, I will trust You,

Help me to journey beyond the familiar and into the unknown.
Give me faith to leave the old ways and break fresh ground with you.

Christ of the mysteries,
Can I trust You to be stronger than each storm in me?
Do I still yearn for Your glory to lighten me?

I will show others the care You’ve given me.
I will determine amidst all uncertainty always to trust.
I choose to live beyond regret, and let You recreate my life.

I believe You will make a way for me and provide for me, if only I trust You and obey.
I will trust in the darkness and know that my times are still in Your hand.
I will believe You for my future, chapter by chapter, until the story is written.

Focus my mind and my heart upon You, my attention always on You without alteration.
Strengthen me with Your blessing and appoint to me the task.
Teach me to live with eternity in view.
Tune my spirit to the music of heaven.
Feed me, and, somehow, make my obedience count for You.

-- St. Brendan of Clonfert (the Navigator) (484-577 CE), Irish patron saint of Kerry and Clonfert, founder of a monastery in the Aran Islands, monastic and sailor, one of the "Twelve Apostles of Ireland" who is renowned for his sea journey with 16 other monks to find the Isle of the Blessed, aka the Garden of Eden.

Poem: St. Brendan's Prayer

Sky, sky, sky is the word,

Just one shout in the direction

Of the blue vastness which weighs

Nothing and everything,

No one word can convey

How sky stings, pierces and turns

Inside out the heart of a man,

Scourges him delirious with the question

He is but cannot frame, because

Sky frames all questions, always

Stretching the asked and the asker

To the limitless blue

Upon blue upon blue deeps,

Questioning, which is fire,

Spangling night in glinting shoals

Of sidereal time, till the mind

Reels, besotted with splendour,

Questioning, which ignites the body,

Burns up every leaf of the mind,

Consumes the mind's roots, the heart,

In the smelter of spirit, till the soul

Pools, gleaming, breathing red gold,

Sky, all world, sky lights up,

Kindles with the coming sun,

Throws everything into unbearable relief,

We twist, maddened by the light

Of dawn, closing its disclosing

With departure, we stumble away,

Ever looking backwards to behold

The staggering Beauty for which

We were born belonging,

Any shadow will do,

Where we hope not to die of regret,

Because we forget just enough

To remember only sorrow, or better yet,

To feel nothing at all,

Than surrender to sky, star sky,

Grievous sky of radiant daybreak.

Is there one, is there anywhere

One Who will bend sky down, rend

Its awful vastness and descend,

The day reined in within His ardent 

Glance, His wounds the burning stars

Which cover me with constellations

Of compassion, and be, Himself

My firmament and friend?

--Gregory Elmer O.S.B, Dun Laoghaire, Ireland, June 5, 1995, prayer found at St. Andrew's Abbey