National Director's Report
Going beyond your Limits
Just recently, I was talking to a group of people in my own Diocese. The topic of the talk was “Reaching out beyond your Limits”.
I used seafarers as an example of risk taking. I described how seafarers always take risks. They go beyond their limits in creating a new life. They could choose to sit back and be scared to leave their homes, leave their families, and leave the confines of their lifestyle, their friends and their neighbors. Or take a chance on building a new life.
Sometimes making a great sacrifice can bring about great rewards. Are we risk takers in our apostolate? Would we be prepared to step out of our comfort zone? Would we be prepared to do what seafarers do to build a better life or a better apostolate?
Our Church is a universal Church that calls us to step outside our limits. We are called to be part of a national and international organization in the maritime community: to live in one mind of solidarity with not only the people of the sea, but other members of our Church community. We all have our individual Ports and our concerns about our own structure and long term viability, but we also must look at seafarers who have similar con-cerns with their homes and their families, but can see a bigger picture, a way forward to make their lives richer and better.
I have seen myself, over the past two decades as working as your National Director, first-hand of what our Church can do when it works in solidarity. Lech Walesca at the World Congress in Poland referred to us as the Global Village and our apostolate is very much a part of that global village.
As we come towards the end of our Easter season, we can see that the Apostles were sent out to the world to proclaim the good news. We have technology today. We have the internet. We don‟t have to leave our centres or our homes to talk to other members of the Apostleship of the Sea, anywhere in the world. We can have pen pals and friendships, visit other centres, talk to other volunteers in other countries and by doing so, we become a family member in the global village.
We can of course, stay within our port boundaries or we can be risk takers and step outside the confines of our own ports and our own country and be one in solidarity with the global family of our apostolate. I would encourage each and every one of us to be risk takers, to be adventurous explorers and discover the full work of this great apostolate.
