Saint Brendan’s Fantastic Voyage

Saint Brendan (+577) the sixth century Irish monk, called the ‘Navigator’, is reputed to have discovered Canada a full millennium before the Italian John Cabot – Giovanni Caboto – arrived on the shore of the Gaspé in 1497. In his semi-mythical recounting, the immram (‘narration’) known as Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (the Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot), our saint and sixteen of his fellow monks embarked on a seven year trans-Atlantic voyage in a boat made of animal-hides.

Of course, as may be expected, many now consider his journey a pious legend, a fanciful mediaeval tale like many others (and it does contain a number of odd elements, from islands that hurled fire and rocks, to giant whales they thought were islands). That is, until the voyage was re-travelled, with the same mediaeval materials, in a similar leather boat, by the dauntless Tim Severin in 1978, chronicled in the book and film The Brendan Voyage. Severin demonstrated that Brendan’s original voyage was at the very least eminently possible. Even the first few minutes of the documentary show what an endeavour it was.

Saint Brendan set up monasteries across Ireland, including one on the Arran islands, as well as on the west coast of Scotland, Wales; he even evangelized the north of France, in Brittany and beyond, before returning to Ireland for his final years in his own monastery of Annaghdown. Brendan was a friend of Saint Columbkille, of Iona fame, and is considered one of the ‘Twelve Apostles’ of Ireland. His remains lie in Clonfert cathedral, which goes back to the 6th century.

There are many things that Brendan can teach us, but one of them is that history is not quite what we think it is. The ‘Whig’ version is that we are always advancing, that we are superior to our forebears, but ‘tis not always so. Advance is possible, certainly, in some areas, but so is regression, evolution along with devolution.  In fact, the second law of thermodynamics states that greater perfection can only be achieved by expending mental and physical energy and effort, without which things generally proceed into entropy and chaos. Mediaeval Man – nay, even pioneer Man – seems to have displayed a vigour and dynamism that we have lost. Could we now build a Chartres or Saint Peter’s?

Who is to say that the monks, and the contemporaneous Vikings, did not have better boats than we?  Certainly, the Romans were far more adept at building natural amphitheaters.  To this day, you can hear a pin drop on the stage even in the ruins of one of their outdoor auditoria, utilizing to the maximum in some mysterious forgotten way the surrounding natural features, while we still struggle to build decent concert halls with all of our ‘space age’ materials (cf., the expensive renovation of our own already-lavish Roy Thomson Hall in 2002 due to the poor quality of its acoustics).

Certainly, on the spiritual plane, we have much to learn from our ancestors, which is why the Catholic Church remains so immersed in tradition and history, in her saints, their writings, their experiences, even their journeys and the people they evangelized. We ignore to our peril the great holy men and women who preceded us, and, as Chesterton alludes, one of the unholy evils of ‘modernism’ – amongst the many of that multi-headed hydra that Saint Pius X described as the ‘synthesis of all heresies’ – is that something is better just because it is new.

Many times, however, it is the old that is truly good and truly true.  At the very least, it has stood the test of time. Tradition!, as Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof would sing – which we neglect to our peril.

In the present context, I for one like the pious thought that an Irishmen discovered Canada many centuries before an Italian.  But, then again, they both claimed Canada for the Church, so either way, Canada was, is and should be, in the best sense of that term, Catholic. The same, of course, holds for Ireland and Scotland. We should all start living in accord with our spiritual birthright.

Saint Brendan, ora pro nobis!

Carney’s Amoral Majority

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Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress

This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→

A Tale of Two Benedicts

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My Name is Bernadette

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Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully

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The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus

As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→

Canonizing Sister Faustina and Divine Mercy

HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER  MASS IN ST PETER’S SQUARE FOR THE CANONIZATION OF SR MARY FAUSTINA KOWALSKA Sunday, 30 April 2000   1. “Confitemini Domino quoniam bonus, quoniam in saeculum misericordia eius”; “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his steadfast love endures for ever” (Ps 118: 1). So the Church sings on the Octave of[…]Continue reading→

Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów

We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→

Saint Gemma Galgani

On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading→

An Ideological and Improper Translation

I noticed something odd with the psalm reading at Mass the other day. Our bishops’ conference here in Canada has decreed that the Mass in English – Novus Ordo – use the ‘NRSV’, the ‘New Revised Standard Version’, an ‘updated’ translation of the original RSV, first published in 1952. This ‘new translation’ has the tendency[…]Continue reading→