Christmas on a Cruise Ship
 AOS
lay chaplain Sebastian Fiebig spent Christmas Day onboard a
cruise ship. However, he was not on holiday in the Caribbean
but caring for seafarers in his own port of Hamburg.
The large cruise ship had been in the port of Hamburg for
several weeks where it was being repaired and overhauled and
the length extended by 20m. There were 300 crew members hard
at work onboard. When Sebastian visited the ship before
Christmas, he reported that the shipyard was as busy as an
ant hill. On Christmas Day, there was no one except the
guard at the gate.
Mass was celebrated in the ship’s entertainment suite
attended by 100 seafarers, almost all of them Filipino. The
celebrant was Fr Jan who celebrated Mass in English for the
first time. In his sermon, he spoke of the German Christmas
carol “Es kommt ein Schiff geladen” which means “a ship
arrives with a heavy load”. The ship symbolises Our Lady who
bears her valuable load, her son Jesus Christ whom she
brings to the people.
 After
Mass, Sebastian and his team distributed Christmas presents.
They were concerned because they had only 60 wrapped
presents for 100 people. The crew resolved this problem very
quickly by sharing the presents among themselves. Sebastian
also distributed newsletters so that the seafarers could
have some news from their home countries during the
Christmas season.
Photographs: (1) Fr Jan celebrates Mass onboard (2)
Sebastian, 3rd from left, with the crew who shared presents
from AOS among themselves. |