The Voyage of Saint Brendan.

"The most high ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever HE wills"(Daniel 4:25).

The Atlantic and Pacific oceans were formed after the great Flood of Noah to be the depository of the vast quantities of water that came down from the heavens and that came up from the great deep (subterranean seas) that were broken up and emptied on the earth by means of volcanoes during the year of the Flood.

The present geography of the earth was formed very quickly after the Flood within a period of a few hundred years at the most. King David describes the process that God used to drain the water from the land:

"Thou coveredst it (the earth) with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy thunder they hasted away.They go up by the mountains; they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou hast founded for them.Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth (Psalm 104:6-9).

The ancient Phoenicians and Egyptians knew all about the existence of America. We find PYRAMIDS in Mexico and throughout Central America. Either the Egyptians copied them from the native Americans or the native Americans copied them from the Egyptians. Ancient man was much, much smarter than people today and was not the brute portrayed by evilution.

Aztec pyramid in Mexico

 These pyramids are almost exact duplicates of each other. The people who built them were separated by thousands of miles of water yet they show remarkable similarity in architecture.

The great pyramid in Egypt

Most of the history of the ancient world was destroyed during the last great pagan persecution of the church prior to Pope Constantine. It is remarkable that we have any history left at all. These stone monuments are living testimony to the frequent intercourse between the old world and the new.

A Scottish missionary named St. Brendan or Brandon is credited with a visit to the New World. The natives were living in darkness and in the shadow death and they awaited the light of the Gospel. It was never God's plan to let the brutal Vikings or the Spanish Inquisition have any part of His New World.

Saint Brendan the Navigator (486-578).

 

 

The men who followed in the footsteps of St. Patrick took the words of Jesus literally when He said" Go into ALL the world and preach the Gospel to EVERY creature" (Luke 16:15).

It was not for them to hide their light in some dark gloomy monastery on top of a mountain or in some remote desert location. They believed in fishing diligently as St. Patrick had admonished them by teachings and life.

Brendan or Brandon was one such disciple. He was another St. Columba or St. Columban.The Scots were in the habit of getting into boats and just asking the Lord to direct them. They cared not where they ended up as long as they found souls to win to Christ.

St. Brendan, like St. Patrick was metamorphosed into a Roman Catholic missionary after his death.

Brendan the Navigator (or Brandan or Brenainn), was born in what is now County Kerry, Ireland, about 486 A.D. He was a great traveler and founder of churches and monasteries, including his most famous one at Clonfert. According to medieval legend, Brendan and a band of intrepid monks embarked in a small boat upon a long voyage around the Atlantic in search of "Terra Repromissionis," or the "Promised Land." The Navigatio Brendani, which dates from the 11th century, contains the earliest surviving version of this story and became a multi-language “best-seller” in its time. Brendan was over 80 years old at the start of his voyage.

The men who followed in the footsteps of Saint Patrick took his advise to fish diligently. No region of the earth was too remote for their evangelistic labours.

"So for that reason one should, in fact, fish well and diligently, just as the Lord foretells and teaches, saying, 'Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,' and again through the prophets: 'Behold, I am sending forth many fishers and hunters, says the Lord,' et cetera. So it behooved us to spread our nets, that a vast multitude and throng might be caught for God, and so there might be clergy everywhere who baptized and exhorted a needy and desirous people (Confession of St. Patrick).

Hibernian (Irish) missionaries were found on Iceland in the year 700 A.D.

"The footsteps of the Culdees can be traced as far north as Iceland. They had their stations there, and continued their labours, relieving each other by turns, till driven out by the Norwegian invaders in the ninth century. "There were then," says Ara, the Norwegian historian, 'Christians there whom the Norwegians call Papas' (Fathers). "There were left by them," says another Icelandic writer, 'Irish books, bells, and crooked staffs, and several other things, which seemed to indicate that they were west men,' i.e., Culdees" (Wylie, History of the Scottish Nation, Vol II, p.374)

Their churches and schools were destroyed by the Vikings —the precursors of the Spanish Inquisition.

Brandon Hill in Bristol is named after St. Brendan.

As John Cabot left on his New World voyages of discovery, he would pass Brandon Hill, named after St. Brendan. Before the Reformation, there was shrine on top and the sailors would actually pray to St. Brendan for protection instead of praying to the God that St. Brendan served. That is why the shrine was removed after the Reformation.

References

Confession of St. Patrick

Severin, Tim, Voyage of St. Brendan is available from Amazon.com

Wylie, Dr. J. A. History of the Scottish Nation, in 3 volumes