Journeying Beyond the Familiar

St. Brendan’s prayer:
“Help me to journey beyond the familiar and into the unknown. Give me the faith to leave old ways and break fresh ground with You.”

There is a quiet courage in the call to step beyond the familiar. To journey into the unknown is to release the comfortable rhythms of what has been and embrace the uncertainty of what might be. In St. Brendan’s prayer, we hear this invitation—a call to leave behind the old ways and break fresh ground with God.

For Brendan, a man of deep faith and bold adventure, the sea became both a metaphor and a reality. He trusted the winds and tides to carry him to distant, unseen shores. His journey was not just across physical waters but also into the depths of trust, faith, and divine mystery. And so it is with us. The unknown, whether external or internal, beckons us to a space of surrender and discovery.

Celtic spirituality, rich in its reverence for nature and divine presence, often speaks of thresholds—those moments where we stand between the known and the new. Thresholds are sacred spaces, places of transformation where the heart learns to let go and the soul dares to dream. In Brendan’s prayer, we find a guide for navigating these spaces with courage and grace.

The first step is trust. Trust that, like Brendan’s small boat upon the vast ocean, you are held by something greater. Trust that the path, though uncertain, is guided by the gentle hand of the divine. In this trust, fear begins to loosen its grip, and faith takes its place.

The second step is letting go. To journey beyond the familiar is to release the weight of what no longer serves you. Old habits, outdated beliefs, and lingering doubts may call you back to safety, but the call of the new whispers louder. It invites you to break fresh ground, to plant seeds of possibility where none existed before.

The final step is to walk forward—even if the steps are small and tentative. Each movement into the unknown becomes an act of faith, a prayer in motion. With each step, the horizon expands, revealing vistas you could not have imagined from the shore.

As we reflect on Brendan’s prayer, we are reminded that the journey is not solitary. The divine walks with us, whispers to us, and sometimes carries us. To break fresh ground is not just an act of personal courage but a partnership with the sacred. Together, we navigate the uncertainties, discover new landscapes of the soul, and find the beauty that emerges when we dare to say yes.

May we all find the faith to journey beyond the familiar and into the unknown. May we leave behind the old ways with gratitude and step forward into the mystery with trust. And may we, like Brendan, discover that the unknown is not to be feared but embraced, for it is there that we meet the divine in its fullest wonder.