Brendan is reputed to have been a disciple of Saint Finian of Ireland, and later of Saint Gildas of Brittany. And he himself had for one of his disciples that holy man who is known in England as Machutus, and in France as Malo. Blessed Brendan founded several schools and monasteries, and wrote a monastic Rule which was remarkable for its austerity. * He was known in olden times as Brendan the Voyager because of a voyage which he is said to have made to the Land of Promise beyond the setting of the sun in the Western Sea. ; which legend (celebrated by the minstrels of olden times in all the European languages as one of the greatest adventures of all ages) is interpreted by some to mean that he planted a colony of monks in the Americas. * This story doubtless encouraged Christopher Columbus and others in their efforts at discoveries in the new world, most of the earliest of which had, among less noble purposes, the making over the seas of a way for Christ’s Gospel. Brendan died at the age of ninety-four, about the year 580, and is reverenced as one of the most distinguished monks and missionaries of Ireland.
Collect:
Grant, we beseech thee, O Lord, that the prayers of thy holy Abbot, blessed Brendan, may commend us unto thee: the we, who have no power of ourselves to help ourselves, may by his advocacy find favour in thy sight, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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