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Prayer for the week

by
06 June 2014

Philip Martin commends a saint and his questions

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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?

Attributed to St Brendan
 

THUS St Brendan prayed - according to an account written a few centuries later - as he set out with his companions from the west of Ireland, in the early sixth century. Their journey north and west took them to islands along the way. On one, the birds sang psalms and praised God. Another was occupied by blacksmiths, who threw slag at them.

On yet another, they lit a fire, at which point the island - in fact a whale - descended into the sea. At last, they reached the promised land of the saints (and, perhaps, many have speculated, North America), and thence returned home in peace, knowing that the God who had protected them throughout was the source and end of all their journeying.

In 1980, I was employed as a social-services home help in Eastbourne. One of my regular calls was, not untypically, to an elderly, eccentric lady, Miss Severin, who lived alone in a 1930s villa, where the Old Town rises towards Beachy Head.

She told me proudly of her nephew, Tim, who, with a crew of four, had repeated Brendan's voyage in a small, authentic leather-clad boat a few years earlier, sailing via the Faroes and Iceland to reach America, a journey well-known through his book The Brendan Voyage.

St Brendan's prayer is entirely couched in questions. In this, it gives comfort to all of us who struggle to find answers. The saint's tearful, penitent, humbled leave-taking helps to express our own uncertainty when embarking on any new or significant venture. He recognises that any such departure risks - or even guarantees - that we will, in some way, suffer. Like Brendan, our boat and our confidence are often tiny, and the ocean that we face is wide.

Christ, however, is here addressed as mighty, merciful, and "King of the Glorious Heaven". There is someone to carry us and defend us, fleeter than a horse and more effectual than sword and shield.

The prayer's concluding question might suggest uncertainty, but I hear, instead, something human, humble, and yet hopeful: "O Christ, will you help me on the wild waves?"

Miss Severin subsequently set out on her own journey to the land of the saints, by way of the local hospital. I, just beginning to wonder what direction my own life should take, sat by her bed, and began to recognise the awkward eloquence of the dying, which, with few words, points towards the limitless horizon of an unassuming life.

Whatever journeys invite or challenge us at this time - outward or inward, within or ultimately from this world - may we set out with the spirit of St Brendan's prayer, whose questions encourage us in our frailty, and direct us to the one who is the source, and end, of all our journeying.

The Revd Philip Martin is Vicar of St James's, Alderholt, in the diocese of Salisbury.

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