Pastoral Reflection

Appreciating „rituals” in the context of the missionary work among visiting seafarers

Basically, a ritual is a set of actions performed by either religious or secular groups and having symbolic value. Ritual practices are usually guided by certain creeds and laws be-cause of the perceived efficacy of those actions in a given tradition and context.

Why should rituals, especially Christian rituals, matter and how should they be per-formed effectively in the context of our Pastoral care for seafarers? This brief reflection attempts to tease out briefly the importance of rituals in the missionary work among visit-ing seafarers.

On November 9, 2007 I had visited the crew, mostly from the Pacific Island nation of Kiribati, for the second time on the M/V Hansa Flensburg. While sipping coffee with them onboard, I came to learn that one of the two stewardesses whom I had met in my previous visit had taken her own life just two weeks earlier. Shocked and saddened by the news I stayed on listening to their stories. Gathering that most of them were still trying to make sense of such a tragedy, I asked if they wanted to do something or talk about it while they were in Melbourne. With some pastoral skills I had learnt from my CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) training, I felt it was a moment of need that challenged me to do some facilitation for this group to share their stories, in a pastoral way. But it was important for them to feel understood and safe enough to share. Later that evening they requested the Stella Maris bus to pick them up from the port.

Back at the Centre, as they were getting comfortable enough, they started sharing with me, and once more, amongst themselves, more of their experiences. “A few days after we left USA, the girl died…we were on our way to New Zealand… and we were in the middle of the open sea”, one of them commented. “She was a tomboy type and a good compan-ion and we are all saddened and shocked by her death,” another crew added. Another pointed out that for one whole week no one would sleep in his or her own room. Every-one slept in the recreation room because they were scared of the girl”s spirit. Then one-by-one they spoke as they put the whole story together, piece by piece. The more we got deeper in our conversations regarding the incident, the more I noticed the „underlying assumptions” that determined how they felt and believed about what may have taken possession of the girl, what happened to her spirit or if there was anything they could have possibly done to prevent their friend from committing suicide. There were mixed expressions of shame, failure, anger, guilt, fear, grief, helplessness, betrayal, sadness and about faith.

I also noticed that this was a group of seafarers who happened to have come from the same island nation, subscribed to a common worldview, and were now trying to cope with the death of a fellow seafarer. However, since they were on a ship in the middle of the ocean and in a foreign environment, I realised that they were totally „denied” of the usual customary rituals which they are familiar with in coping with death, especially when suicide is the cause.

Once the vessel reached New Zealand, the Captain, who was aware of the situation, im-mediately arranged for a priest to come onboard to perform some Christian rituals – to pray and sprinkle holy water. “The priest”s visit calmed a very tense situation onboard”, commented another crew.

Pastorally, we need to explore how different groups deal with such situations and if and whenever possible, adapt those practices with appropriate Christian rituals that make sense to them. Simply, it means respect and sensitivity towards cultural and customary ways of dealing with both existential and ontological issues. This is particularly important in the context of our Ministry because those whom we are called to serve come from dif-ferent cultural backgrounds than ours. Whatever the rituals, be it a Eucharistic celebra-tion, sprinkling of holy water or simply praying with seafarers, the starting point of our pastoral care for seafarers should always be the seafarers themselves and our point of en-try, especially by way of Christian rituals, should „inculturate” the underlying assump-tions that determines how seafarers perceive and/or experience life.