An annual tradition took place once again this past weekend, as the parishes of Notre Dame de la Mer in Wildwood and St. Michael’s in Atlantic City held the Wedding and Blessing of the Sea.
Observed annually on or near the feast of the Assumption (Aug. 15 this year), the ceremony commemorates an event in the life of the bishop of Cervia, Italy, Paul Barbo, who later became Pope Paul II. During a violent storm of the feast of the Assumption, he threw his pastoral ring from the boat he was traveling in, and the storm was calmed.