‘Saint Brendan’s Memory’

 

The Southron’s eye scours the horizon,

Searching for an ancient mark to guide his steps.

On the sea, the dark and lonely sea,

He beholds a coracle of monks,

A millennium and more out of place,

And in their midst, a Holy Father,

Brendan the Voyager of Clonfert,

Shinin’ son of Erin.  The waters

Wear a frightful visage:  violent waves,

Fiery mountains, jagged bergs of ice,

Dragons dwelling in the deep.  But for the monks,

This is their desert, their place of refuge

And perpetual prayer to God. 

And through those prayers, and many tears and sighs

For sins, the offering of the Holy Eucharist,

Evangelizing many men and maids,

And upraising a multitude

Of churches and monastic houses,

They sanctified the stormy North Atlantic arc,

From Scotland to the coast of Newfoundland—

No corpse would putrefy on Inishglora;

Holy wells sprang up in abundance

To give aid to ailing man and beast;

Angels gathered upon Mount Brandon.

And the practical arts were not forgotten:

A famous school of learning grew up

At Papa Brendan’s Clonfert Abbey.

All the blessings he poured out on Southern

Forebears is beyond our kenning.

 

The little boat has entered a bank of fog;

Time resumes its normal onward flow.

The sweet presence of the monks slowly fades,

Replaced by a heavy burden of the heart,

A weight made worse by the sudden awareness

Again of the dull, unvarying

Thundering of the relentless waves

And a foreboding sense of confusion and despair.

 

The West is a land in deep decay,

But those who honor rightly the memory

Of St Brendan and his holy friends—

Venerable Mother Ita of Kileedy,

Gildas the Wise and Jarlath of Tuam,

Finnian of Clonard, the Teacher

Of the Irish Saints—will know how

To rebuild when dawns a better day.

***

An account of St Brendan the Voyager’s life may be read here:

https://orthochristian.com/131407.html

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!