The Celtic Church distinguished three types of martyrdom. Red martyrs died for the faith, green (or blue) martyrs left the comforts of home to live as hermits or in community, and white martyrs were missionaries.
 
St Brendan, a shining example of white martyrdom, was born about 486 near Tralee, Ireland. He was raised by St Ita and educated by her and the monks at her school in Killeedy. Brendan was ordained a monk by St Erc in 512 and would go on to become a founder of monasteries, mostly along the Shannon River, and most notably Clonfert, a major mission center.
 
St Brendan was a sailor. He embarked in 530 with a shipload of monks in search of the so-called Blessed Isles, a mythic land of beauty lying “to the West” that was mentioned by Plato. “The Voyage of Brendan the Abbot,” a ninth century document, tells us that in this seven-year journey, he made it as far as America. Who knows? It is widely accepted that Columbus read it before he set sail; the book was fairly well-known throughout late medieval Europe, especially through a 12th century Dutch translation.
 
Although it has some amazing speculations attached to it, Brendan’s missionary zeal exceeds the fanciful legend of his sea voyage. Long thought to be essentially a monastic tale, in recent decades there have been discoveries in Newfoundland and the Northeast of the U.S. that suggest Brendan might indeed have made it that far. Navigators who have followed the seaways recorded in the Navigatio have found them to be accurate descriptions of the trip.
 
Brendan’s mission work is legendary. He established the See of Ardfert, a monastery in County Clare. Scholars believe he then visited Wales and Scotland, particularly the monastery at Iona, before returning home around 557 to found his most famous settlement, Clonfert Monastery.
 
From his base at Clonfert, St Brendan became a sort of pied piper for people interested in mission work who were attracted by his expansive spirit. It is said that thousands of monks went forth from Clonfert to carry the message of the cross and resurrection to people all over the known world, inspired by his spirit of mission and adventure. He died at his sister Briga’s monastery at Annaghdown in 577.
 
St Brendan has rightfully been called “a wanderer for Christ.” Endowed with a missionary’s heart, he was willing to search for others with whom to share the Christian faith. He did not seek captive audiences, nor did he force his faith on others. We can safely assume that he learned much about the people whom he visited, using that knowledge as a means to speak to them of Christ and his work.
 
It is important to those of us who have more regulated and time-bound lives to realize that Brendan was essentially carefree in his wanderings, guided only by the love of Christ, a curiosity about the world and its people, and a spirit of adventure. In a sense, the mission came to him rather than via him following an agenda governed by maps or commissions.

— An excerpt from A Staff to the Pilgrims

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