Faithful from across the Diocese of Camden and beyond celebrated the Vigil and Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary with Bishop Dennis Sullivan on Aug. 14-15, attending Mass and taking part in the annual Wedding of the Sea.
“The Ark of the Covenant represented the presence of God with the people God had chosen. … It went with him everywhere. The God of Israel accompanied his people in every situation,” Bishop Sullivan preached Aug. 15 to a crowd of 1,000 gathered in Etess Arena, inside the Hard Rock Hotel, Atlantic City.
Photo Gallery: Vigil of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Wildwood
Photo Gallery: Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Atlantic City
Drawing ties between this first reading from Chronicles, and the day’s Gospel of Luke, he explained how, after being visited by an angel, a pregnant Virgin Mary rushes to visit her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. When Mary arrives, John leaps in the womb of his mother at the presence of Mary, “who carries in her womb, the son of God, Jesus.”
“Our Catholic tradition, sisters and brothers, refers to Mary as the Ark of the Covenant,” Bishop Sullivan said. “Just as the Ark of the Covenant in the time of Israel represented the presence of God, dwelling with his people, Mary carried within herself the Son of God, Jesus, who is the presence of God in human flesh, flesh he took from the womb of Mary. … She bears Jesus, she bears him to us, to you and to me.”
He continued, “Saint Luke tells us Mary arose and went in haste to Elizabeth. … The example of Mary’s haste to reach Elizabeth teaches us that we live for others, and we need to live at the same haste that we see in the Mother of God.”
At the Masses he celebrated Aug. 14 at Saint Ann Church, Notre Dame de la Mer Parish, Wildwood, and Aug. 15 with the city’s Parish of Saint Monica and others, Bishop Sullivan was joined by a handful of concelebrating priests and seminarians of the Diocese. After each Mass, hundreds of faithful processed to the beach for the ancient Italian tradition of the Wedding of the Sea in which the Bishop blesses both the city and the ocean. During both homilies, he noted that this tradition, dating back to the 1400s in Venice, is an example of the important integration that exists between culture and the Catholic faith.
In Atlantic City, as Bishop Sullivan and Mayor Marty Small Sr. climbed aboard a beach patrol boat, tradition was on the mind of Elizabeth DeFranco. She and her family from Cleveland and California, as well as friends from Boston, watched Bishop Sullivan be rowed out to sea and then the tossing of a wreath for the blessing.
“We have come from Ohio to see this for 49 years,” she said. “We were just sitting on the beach one day on vacation in 1974 when we saw this for the first time. … We ended up helping everyone fill their bottles with the ocean water that had just been blessed.”
The next year, her family decided to return. And a tradition was born. “We’re Catholic, and now we have three generations coming. We bring holy water back home to our friends, who look forward to it every time.”
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