Saint Brendan the Navigator: May 16

Today, May 16, is the memorial day of Saint Brendan, nicknamed "The Navigator." Brendan was a monk who lived in Ireland in the 6th century, although he is most famous as a character in a widely popular medieval text, "The Voyage of Saint Brendan to the Island of the Blessed." You can read the Latin text of the Navigatio at the Biblioteca Augustana website, and there is an English translation at the Celtic Christianity E-Library.

The most famous incident in the Voyage is when the crew land on what they think is an island... but they are in for a big surprise! Of course, the saint knows better:

When they came to another island, the boat drew to a halt before they were able to reach the harbor. Saint Brendan instructed the brothers to get out of the boat and they did so. They tied down the boat on both sides with ropes until it could make port. The island, however, was rocky, without any grass. There were sparse woodlands and there was no sand on the shore. While the brothers were spending the night in prayers and vigils on shore, the man of God stayed inside the boat, for Saint Brendan knew what sort of island this was but he did not want to tell the brothers, lest they become terrified. When morning came, Saint Brendan ordered the priests to each say the Mass, and they did so. When Saint Brendan had said Mass himself on the boat, the brothers began to carry raw meat off the boat in order to salt it, along with fish which they had brought from the previous island. When they had done this, they put a cauldron on the fire. When they had added wood to the fire and it had started to boil, the island began to move like a wave. Then indeed the brothers began to run to the boat, begging for the protection of the saintly father, and one by one he grabbed them by the hand and pulled them into the boat. Having left behind all the things which they had carried over to the island, they set sail. Next, the island was drawn down into the ocean. Then they could see the fire burning at two miles' distance. Saint Brendan told the brothers what it was: "Brothers, are you wondering what happened to the island?" They said, "Yes, we do wonder greatly, and we were stricken with a great fear." Saint Brendan said to them, "My little sons, do not be afraid, for God has revealed to me in the night by means of a vision the mystery of this thing. Where we were is not an island, but a fish. It is greater than all the creatures swimming in the ocean, and seeks always to join its tail to its head, but it cannot do that because of its length. Its name is Iasconius."

Here is the Latin text:

Cum autem venissent ad aliam insulam, cepit illa navis stare antequam portum illius potuissent tenere. Sanctus Brendanus precepit fratribus exire de navi et ita fecerunt. Tenebantque navim ex utraque parte cum funibus usque dum ad portum venit. Erat autem illa insula petrosa sine ulla herba. Silva rara erat ibi et in litore illius nihil de arena fuit. Porro pernoctantibus in orationibus et in vigiliis fratribus foras de navi vir Dei sedebat intus. Sanctus vero Brendanus sciebat qualis erat illa insula sed tamen noluit illis indicare ne fuissent perterriti. Mane autem facto precepit sacerdotibus ut singuli missas cantasset et ita fecerunt. Cum ergo sanctus Brendanus et ipse cantasset missam in navim ceperunt fratres crudas carnes portare foras de navi ut condidissent sale et etiam pisces quos secum tulerunt de alia insula. Cum haec fecissent posuerunt cacabum super ignem. Cum autem ministrassent lignis ignem et fervere cepisset cacabus cepit illa insula se movere sicut unda. Fratres vero ceperunt currere ad navim deprecantes patrocinium sancti patris.At ille singulos per manus trahebat intus. Relictisque omnibus quae portabant in illam insulam ceperunt navigare. Porro illa insula ferebatur in oceanum. Tunc poterant videre ignem ardentem super duo miliaria. Sanctus Brendanus narravit fratribus quod hoc esset dicens: Fratres admiramini quod fecit haec insula?" Aiunt: "Admiramur valde nec non et ingens pavor penetravit nos." Qui dixit illis: "Filioli mei nolite expavescere. Deus enim revelavit mihi hac nocte per visionem sacramentum huius rei. Insula non est ubi fuimus sed piscis. Prior omnium natancium in oceano querit semper suam caudam ut simul iungat capiti et non potest pro longitudine quam habet nomine Iasconius".

If you enjoyed that, Saint Brendan has many other fabulous adventures that you would definitely like!

The story of the island that is really a fish or a whale is a famous story throughout world folklore. For example, there is a great version of the story in the Voyages of Sindbad. In the Christian tradition, the Physiologus contains the story of the tracherous island, complete with an allegorical interpretation.

I have a special fondness for the voyage of Saint Brendan, because when I was a graduate student in Comparative Literature at Berkeley, one of the other Latin students decided that we should get on a boat, journey "across the waters" to Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, and read the Navigatio out loud in Latin to each other while we were on the island. It was so much fun! Admittedly, Angel Island is not quite "The Island of the Blessed," but we had a really great time.

Here is a lovely illustration of Saint Brendan and his sailors from a medieval manuscript:

Blessed Damien of Molokai: May 10

Today is the holiday of Father Damien of Molokai, a Catholic priest, born in Belgium in 1840, who ministered to sufferers of Hansen's disease, or leprosy. (Hansen was the Norwegian physician who, in 1873, identified the bacterium that causes the disease.)

Father Damien was beatified in 1995 (one of the steps in the process of being declared a saint by the Catholic Church), and as a result he was granted the title "Blessed" and given this memorial holiday on May 10.

Although he cannot be called a "patron saint" yet, he is considered a "spiritual patron" for people who suffer not just from Hansen's disease, but also HIV/AIDS, a disease which, like leprosy, not only can bring great physical suffering, but also the social pain of prejudice, neglect and isolation.

Father Damien went to Hawaii in 1864, when it was still an independent kingdom, ruled by King Kamehameha. Hansen's disease, like syphilis and other European diseases, had been brought to the island, affecting many Hawaiians. (You can read an article at the BBC about how European colonialism and the slave trade spread the disease around the world.)

Those Hawaiians suffering from leprosy had been sent to the island of Molokai. There are now drugs that are used to treat Hansen's disease, but these were discovered only in the 1940s. Standard practice was, and had been for centuries, to send the victims of Hansen's disease away, forcing them to live in segregated colonies, like the colony on Molokai.

When Father Damien learned about this, he asked permission to go to the island in order to minister to the patients there.

He arrived at Molokai in 1873, and spent the rest of his life there until 1889, when he died of Hansen's disease himself. He was not just a priest to the patients there, but also worked as a doctor, as the colony had been effectively abandoned by the government and the patients were not being cared for. Under Father Damien's leadership, the colony took charge of its resources, building better housing and establishing farms and a school.

Although there was some controversy about Father Damien's activities raised by Protestant church officials in Hawaii, the consensus seems to be that he acted out of great self-sacrifice in his ministry to the patients on Molokai. Gandhi cited Father Damien as an inspiration for his own work. Here is a quote from Gandhi: "The political and journalistic world can boast of very few heroes who compare with Father Damien of Moloka'i. It is worthwhile to look for the sources of such heroism."

There are several films about Father Damien, although I have not seen any of them. I would, however, highly recommend a truly marvelous film, Motorcycle Diaries, about the early life of Che Guevara, which culminates in his stay at a leprosarium in Peru, when he was in his early 20s. At the time, Che Guevara was a medical student, and the part of the movie devoted to the time he spent at the leprosarium is deeply moving. I think I will investigate a couple of the films that have been done about Father Damien but, in the meantime, I can recommend Motorcycle Diaries most highly! Although the Catholic Church and communism have been historically at odds with one another, I wonder what kind of conversation Che Guevara and Father Damien might have had if their paths had crossed in space and time!

For an image to accompany this post, I chosen this painting of Father Damien, done in the style of Greek icon painting, but in English and with the distinctive touch of a Hawaiian lei. I found the image at a webpage with a biography of Father Damien, at the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary website for the eastern U.S. This is the same religious order of which Father Damien was a member.

Saint Michael the Archangel - Apparition: May 8

Most people are aware of the archangel Michael, although he is mentioned only a few times in the Bible. Michael's most remarkable role in the Bible is surely the battle with the dragon in the Book of Revelation, 12: "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels going forth to war with the dragon; and the dragon warred and his angels; And they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world; he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him."

Beyond the Bible, however, the archangel Michael has been memorialized in many cult practices and legends dating back to late antiquity. Michael appears in several apocryphal books of early Christianity, for example, assisting Christ in the harrowing of hell. Here is a passage from the Gospel of Nicodemus that describes the rescue of Adam and the saints from hell: "But the Lord holding the hand of Adam delivered him unto Michael the archangel, and all the saints followed Michael the archangel, and he brought them all into the glory and beauty of paradise."

In the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, Michael helps God give the gift of light to Adam after his expulsion from Eden: "And God considered Adam's thought, and sent the angel Michael as far as the sea that reaches India, to take from there golden rods and bring them to Adam. This did God in His wisdom in order that these golden rods, being with Adam in the cave, should shine forth with light in the night around him, and put an end to his fear of the darkness."

There are also important legends about Michael in both the Jewish and Islamic traditions. Jehovah's Witnesses believe the Jesus and Michael are the same being. Mormons identity Michael with Adam.

One of the major feasts of Saint Michael the Archangel is September 29, a holiday known as Michaelmas (also part of the British school calendar tradition, as at Oxford).

May 8 is also a holiday for the archangel Michael, commemorating the "Apparition of Saint Michael," which took place at Mount Gargano in Italy in the year 490. You can read an account of this apparition in the Breviary for this day; look under the second nocturn, fifth lesson.

In this image of Saint Michael, you can see the Latin motto, quis ut deus, "who is as God (El)?" which is the meaning of Michael's Hebrew name:

St. James the Just: May 3

May 3 is the holiday of Saint James the Just in the Catholic calendar... but shouldn't he be Saint Jacob?

There are several important characters named James (Hebrew Ya'akov) in the early history of Christianity. This James is the one called "James the Just," the brother of Jesus, the first bishop of Jerusalem and traditionally regarded as the author of the Epistle of James which forms part of the New Testament. Here is a lovely Greek icon of James found at wikipedia:



The English name "James" is a real conundrum and shows what dangers await anyone who reads the Bible in English, even in the most simple question of "who is who" and what names are used.

Think about it: you know the name "Jacob" very well from the Bible - it's a perfectly good name to use in a Bible translation, a standard way to represent the Hebrew name Ya'akov. Jacob is one of the most important characters in the Hebrew Bible, a major hero in the book of Genesis.

So... why do we have a book of James in the New Testament, for a man whose name was Ya'akov - like the Jacob of the book of Genesis...? It's definitely something worth thinking about!

I'm in a Greek reading group right now where we are reading the book of James - and no matter how hard I try to tell myself to say "book of Jacob" instead of "book of James," it's almost impossible to do so, given that I have grown up knowing that there is a book of James in the New Testament, not a book of Jacob.

This is not a unique problem, of course. There is Jacob in the book of Genesis, but James in the New Testament. There is Joshua, hero of his own book in the Hebrew Bible... and in the New Testament we find Jesus, not Joshua. Even more than Jacob and James, the story of Joshua and Jesus is an astounding example of the dilemma of names and translations, and how the Hebrew origins of Christianity have been so often obscured in the Christian texts themselves.

I know that not everybody is going to go out and learn Hebrew and Latin and Greek in order to trace the tangled threads that finally lead to what you read when you read the Bible in English. But every time you feel like pulling on one of those threads, just to see what happens, my advice is PULL! You will learn so much just from pursuing the question as far down the thread as you can follow.

So with James, you might even be provoked by a very simple question in English: why is it that the supporters of King James in England were called Jacobites? Well, that is because James is the English version (via French) of the name Iacobus in Latin, hence "Jacobites" who are supporters of King James, the King James Bible being an example of "Jacobean" prose, and so on.

Yet even in the Latin Vulgate Bible, there is a distinction between the Genesis character and the brother of Jesus . In the Vulgate Bible, the Genesis character is Iacob, and the New Testament character is Iacobus, a more fully Latinized form of the name. So just as "James" in the New Testament is opposed to "Jacob" in the Hebrew Bible, there is also a difference between the New Testament "Iacobus" and the "Iacob" of Genesis.

The same, but different. You can definitely say that James is the "same" as Jacob, but you can say just as certainly that they are not the same at all.

So whose day is it on May 3? The day of Saint James? or Saint Jacob? Take your pick... because even just saying whose day is being celebrated on the third of May is not easy to do, even in English!

Saint Athanasius: May 2

Athanasius of Alexandria died on May 2 in the year 373 and his feast day is celebrated on May 2 in the Catholic and Coptic churches (his feast day in the Orthodox calendar is January 18). Here is a modern icon of Athanasius from St. Athanasius Greek Orthodox Chapel in Alabama:



Athanasius is best known for his opposition to the ideas of Arius.

Arius asserted that God was single and absolute, existing as one being, one person, for all of time. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was not himself God. Christ was a created being, like God, but not equal to God.

Athanasius was bitterly opposed to the doctrine of Arius, and taught instead that Jesus Christ was an incarnation of God. Athanasius's writings helped to establish the doctrine of the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are three persons, but one in substance (the doctrine of "homoousia").

Eventually this belief would defeat Arianism, but Arius was profoundly influential during the fourth century and won many followers.

In his steadfast rejection of Arian's teachings, Athanasius became the subject of a famous saying: Athanasius contra mundum, "Athanasius against the world."

Finally, the views of Athanasius and his allies prevailed, and are enshrined in the Nicene Creed. Here is what the Nicene Creed says about the relationship of God and his Son: "We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father."

The Nicene Creed is used in many Christian churches, but the more simple Apostles' Creed is also widely used. Here is what it says about the begetting of Jesus Christ: "We believe... in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit."

There is also a creed called the Athanasian Creed. Although it bears his name, this creed was not written by Athanasius, yet it does express many of the beliefs he fought for. This creed is not used widely in any church liturgy. Here is just a part of what it says about the relationship among the persons of Trinity: "The Father is uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated; The Father is eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal. And yet they are not three who are eternal, but there is one who is eternal, just as they are not three who are uncreated, nor three who are infinite, but there is one who is uncreated and one who is infinite."

Both for Christians within the faith, and for people who look at Christianity from the outside, the Trinity is a very difficult doctrine to understand. To explore it further, you might check out a very basic and helpful page at the BBC's Religion and Ethics website.

One group of Christians who reject the doctrine of the Trinity are the Unitarians. For more information about the Unitarians, you can visit the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations website. Unitarianism has played an important role in the religious history of America and as you can discover on this page there are some very famous Americans who were Unitarians or Unitarian sympathizers, including one of my own personal heroes, the educational reformer and political philosopher John Dewey.

Somehow, I don't think Athanasius and John Dewey would have gotten along very well...

St. Joseph the Worker: May 1

May Day has had many holiday values over time (see Beltane, for example), but it is definitely best known in the 20th century as International Workers' Day.

Well, in 1955, Pope Pius XII declared a feast of "Saint Joseph the Worker," as a Catholic alternative to the Communist holiday. Saint Joseph has a traditional feast day as the "Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary," on March 19, but the May Day holiday is instead focused on Joseph the worker, the carpenter, with an emphasis on his role as a father-figure for the young Jesus.

Recently, Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters who build houses, has also taken on a special meaning for people selling houses. Yes, real estate agents. The story goes that if you bury a Saint Joseph statue in the yard, you will be able to sell the house quickly. "Saint Joseph Statue Home Sales Kits" are available from StJosephStatue.com for just $9.95.

Here is a picture of the kit, which includes a statue, a protective plastic burial bag along with a cloth storage bag: