#saintbrendan

[brendanelliswilliams]

Sailing toward the Wild Dark: A Short Reflection on My Patronal Feast and Nameday

There wasn’t a lot of institutional bureaucracy yet in the Irish Church in St. Brendan’s time—certainly very little that would affect a monastic founder in the west of the westernmost portion of Europe. The Saint was still very close—temporally, and probably in other ways as well—to the pre-Christian legacy and indigenous sacred traditions of Éire. In a sense, his famous voyage was from the still wild to the deeper wild. 

The context of my own life and ministry as a monastic founder in twenty-first century North America is of course radically different. In fact, I suspect there is very little that St. Brendan would recognize about the Church today—or the world of human affairs generally. When his Feast comes up each year in the sacral calendar, I take it as an opportunity to reflect deeply on the ever evolving shape of my own vocation. And this year I find myself reflecting specifically on questions about the monastic relationship to institution: a fraught and tenuous thing from the advent of Christian monasticism as a movement, during the reign of Constantine.

From the deserts of Egypt to the untamed wilds of ancient Ireland, Christian monasticism was originally an endeavor that by necessity extended itself outside the accepted boundaries of ordinary Church convention and bureaucracy. At its heart, authentic monasticism still moves in this way, and must always do so, even if outwardly its radical witness has been hobbled, diminished, or diluted. In all the religious traditions that contain monastic expressions, it has always had this basic shape, being in essence the courageous journey of bold individuals who are willing to sacrifice everything in order to discover directly for themselves what is ultimate, what is true—and who are willing to walk beyond the safety of the communal firelight to make that discovery.

As with everything wild and prophetic, the Western dominator agenda sought from the start to tame and institutionalize the monasticism that rose up organically from the core archetypal impulse of asceticism, and from the social role and spirit of the rebel truth seeker, a pregnant void of which is left when agendas of control are allowed to reign. To a large extent the dominator force succeeded in its evil works, particularly with contexts like the Benedictine order, which became so institutionalized as to be almost unrecognizable in reference to its own monastic roots. Resultantly, there had to be reform after reform to try to recapture some of the original essence of the ascetical life and witness. Always in the West there has been this tension and pull from the institutional center of gravity, which is ever attempting to tame, to make ‘safe’ and manageable, controllable, and quantifiable the real Mystery which moves in the dark beyond its line of sight.

Of course, this agenda of control is a fool’s errand, ultimately. Yet, sadly, the will and attempt to continually whitewash the Mystery has had a vastly deleterious effect on Western cultures and societies, and, perhaps most markedly, on Western Christianity.

I am convinced that the monastic impulse to go courageously and directly into that which is fearful and unknown carries a special prophetic signature in today’s Church, at this historical moment in the twilight hours of the Church’s structural stability. In short, we monastics have the medicine, even if no one is willing to take it. For my part, I continue to be committed to faithfully calling out invitations for those on the sinking ship to leap toward the life-raft.

True to archetypal monastic form, my own place in the Church is and always has been marginal—and that’s as it must be. I’m somewhat of a relic, it seems: an instantiation of the old untamable ascetic who won’t play institutional games and won’t stop speaking from the shadowy wilderness just beyond its boundaries into the institutional morass, pointing out the failings of the assumed construct, and suggesting radical ways to transcend those failings—much to the chagrin of all those who are committed to institutional hegemony and the comfortable, easy path. By this point I know perfectly well my actual role and vocation, and am totally comfortable and at peace with it. I have even come to find genuine amusement in the troubled, suspicious responses of Church folk who resist or can’t grasp what I’m here to do. 

But what brings me deeply into careful discernment these days, as someone who has spiritual children to guide and feels an immense responsibility to each and every one of them, is the direction in which to point my students with relation to institutional structures. Perhaps it’s less about broad direction, and more about degree.

As a Spiritual Father to monastics (and non-monastics as well), my core aim is always to shepherd and equip those who are ready for the real quest of existential excavation and illumination—and to help guide and point the way in such a manner that all non-essential material, detours, and distractions are completely forgone.

I recently shared with members of our religious order that, when it comes to decisions related to institutional collaboration or development, which would involve us in having to wade further into the swamp of Church bureaucracy, stagnation, and ignorance of the importance of who we are and what we do as vowed religious, I am constantly asking myself: ‘Is this really going to help us as a community? Is it going to further our spiritual aims and our core mission, or is it only going to waste time, cause aggravation, and distract us from what is really essential by sailing us straight into the mire of institutionalized absurdity?’ 

Sometimes the answers to these questions do not come easily. And the questions haunt, because I know full well that our time in this life is too short and unpredictable to fritter away on anything other than what is absolutely essential.

St. Brendan set sail in a wood and leather coracle with fourteen of his monastic disciples—not toward any institutional iteration, but toward the totalizing darkness of the utterly unknown: into the oceanic desert of the Mystery, the shattering, transformative wild, in order to more fully actualize the goal of all ascetical life, which was articulated so beautifully and concisely by St. Macarius the Great: to die to ourselves and to the world, that we may live as one with God.

May our holy Father among the Saints, Brendan of Clonfert, the namesake in whose radiant witness I always feel unworthy, bless me and all monastic shepherds with the wisdom to navigate unflinchingly by the singular star of Truth, to sail clearly and directly toward the only destination that is ultimately worth pursuing: non-dual awakening in and as the Uncreated Light.

Fr. Brendan+

Feast of St. Brendan of Clonfert, 2023

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[terrytiles2014]

Saint Brendan of Clonfert - catholic icon on ceramic tile - now on Etsy: >>> https://www.etsy.com/listing/248302929 <<< 100% handmade in Italy by @TerryTiles2014 #brendan #stbrendan #saintbrendan #clonfert #ireland #catholic #saints #faith #pray #prayforus #etsyfinds

[mandriotti]

The Mother Mary statue at St. Brendan's. It's place I pray and meditate. #iggygarcia #saintBrendan #mothermary #holymother (at St Brendan School)

[corvettevenom]

St.Brendan Feast Day Today May 16th, It is believed he actually landed in America 100 years before Columbus Did!

[faithtrustnpixiedust13]

Sunday funday! #doggrooming #salonlife #saintbrendans (at Très Chic Pet Boutique & Le Spaw Grooming)

[lbouvet]

Bad day just got better! #saintbrendan #dontjudgeme #feelingbetteralready

[suzannafisher]

Chris sailed back into port and we put in a few hours on his #maritime #SaintBrendan #tattoo. Thanks bud! #bellwethertattoo #sailor #sailortattoo #seattle

[loimestudios]

Saints preserve us. #saintbrendan #ripcurl (at Rocky Point Beach Baltimore Md)

[medaciumjocosum-blog]

The travail comes back to the earth, like the wave to the sand,

And the wars return in long waves that break on the land;

How long shall the sorrow be borne, in the eye of the sun?

How long shall man labour and pray till his doomsday be done?

"Hundreds of years," Said the Bell, "Hundreds of years."

[louiiie]

After the mass at my favorite church here in LA. #saintbrendan #losangeles (at St. Brendan Church)

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