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
Proverb:
“Where does my complete flowering as a human being connect with the needs of the world?”
--------------Henri J. M. Nouwen, Dutch Catholic priest, teacher, theologian and writer
Painting: The Monk By the Sea, Caspara David Friedrich, 1808-1810
Prayer: 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.
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