THE BRENDAN VOYAGE
Tim and Dorothy read the ancient documents. Their eyes widened in wonder. Apparently, in the sixth century A.D., eighteen monks set sail and crossed the Atlantic Ocean in a 36 foot boat made of leather. No! That couldn’t be! This was a myth. A great story, but not to be believed. Tim and Dorothy Severin were scholars studying these manuscripts. They were amazed at their findings as they translated the Latin script into English. But their minds shut down in disbelief.
Pure myth! Impossible!
Digging deeper into the Latin account, they found intriguing details: it was more like a ship’s log than a saint’s spiritual reflections. The details of this supposed voyage brought chuckles of derision from the couple. Hot rocks flung at the sailors from an island as they were sailing by? Huge white crystal rocks floating past on the open sea? This was the stuff of legends. It was totally unbelievable, until someone mentioned the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland and the iceberg that sank the Titanic in 1912.
Their curiosity deepened, excitement brewed and overflowed into a plan to follow in the wake of Brendan.
A visit to Brandon Creek on the west coast of Ireland found Tim examining the construction of a “curragh”, a fishing boat still used there. The wooden framework of these canoes is now covered in canvas but always used to be covered with ox-hide. Tim researched the length of St. Brendan’s boat, how ox-hides were carefully tanned and sewn together, how the frame, made of ash wood branches was lashed together with leather thongs, and how the ox-skins were stretched over the springy frame. Detail after detail made Tim curious to see if these construction instructions could possibly be followed to build a boat that could sail the route suggested by the account of The Voyage of St. Brendan the Abbot.
And amazingly he did it! Tim and his crew sailed from Brandon Creek, County Cork, Ireland on May 17, 1976 and landed on the northern coast of Newfoundland on June 26, 1977. They proved that St. Brendan and his crew had sailed the Atlantic Ocean from Ireland and had reached the shores of America about a thousand years before the Vikings did and about fifteen hundred years before Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain to the Bahamas in 1492.
Tim and Dorothy Severin read the ancient Latin document called the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis with an open mind. They believed the texts and acted upon them. Tim and a crew of twentieth century explorers risked their lives on the veracity of those words.
Could the ancient words in the texts of the Old Testament and the New Testament of the Bible also be written down because they were true? Did they write them down because they were important for showing us the way to go in our lives? Could I have an open and believing mind to consider how I might apply these truths to my life as Tim and his crew applied what they read in the Navigatio? Would I find that deep satisfaction of knowing and experiencing truth and seeing it hold firm and true in my life?
When Tim was asked whether he would want to take that journey in a leather boat again, Tim answered, “Yes!”
What a journey!
