Sea Sunday: Day of Prayer for Seafarers 12 July

Away from family and friends for many months at a time, working long hours and navigating some of the world’s most dangerous stretches of ocean, seafaring can be a tough, lonely and hazardous career. This Sunday we pray especially for these 1.3 million hardworking men and women who are often forgotten. 

The Apostleship of the Sea is a Catholic charity supporting seafarers. Its patron is Our Lady, Star of the Sea. Internationally, the Apostleship of the Sea is also known as Stella Maris and is part of a network under the umbrella of the Dicastery for Integral Human Development. In New Zealand, the Apostleship of the Sea provides an outreach to seafarers and fishing men and women in the ports of Auckland, Tauranga, Napier, Wellington and Lyttleton. More here.

Prayer for Seafarers

Heavenly Father: we pray to You for those on the perilous ocean that You will embrace them with your mighty protection and grant them success in all their rightful undertakings.

Grant them in all hours of need to see that they have a God who remembers them, and grant them grace in the hour of danger to commit their souls into Your hands.

O Lord Jesus Christ, who can rebuke the storm and bring it to silence, and lay the roaring waves to rest, show them who call to You out of the deep that You hear their prayer and will save them.

And finally bring us all to the only safe port. Amen.

Source: Apostleship of the Sea NZ 

Photo: Stella Maris UK

"Know you are not alone and that you are not forgotten." Pope Francis speaks to seafarers and fishermen. View Vatican video here

Scripture references to seafarers

Psalm 93

Psalm 107:23-31

Acts 27:33-44

Hymn: Eternal Father Strong to Save

Eternal Father strong to save

Whose arm has bound the restless wave

Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep

Its own appointed limits keep

O hear us when we cry to Thee

For those in peril on the sea.

(First Verse from a Hymn for all seafarers by William Whiting -1860)

This verse is sung in the following video footage from Marine Nationale de France. It might serve as a reminder of the perils our seafarers face on the great oceans of the world. Video 2:08 dur. View Video Here

A Prayer for Sea Sunday

Be with Seafarers, Lord, on all their voyages, to cheer them and keep them safe in all dangers. Let nothing afloat or on shore cut them off from you. May they please you in everything they do. Bless all on board their ship, whatever their responsibility. Enable everyone to do their duty. Help them to be good shipmates and bring them back again safely to their homes and to those who long for their return, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.