Farewell to a Safe Haven

CAPE MAY POINT – Twenty-five years ago, with a suitcase and a tote full of books, Ellie Stratton first stepped into Saint Mary by-the-Sea Retreat House, seeking what so many have sought in the past 111 years.

With her children away at camp, Stratton wanted to soak up silence at the shore. She wasn’t disappointed.

“The days unfolded in a regular pattern that enabled me to meet God in new ways,” she said. “This was holy ground. God’s steadfast love was communicated in the … waves on the shore, the shimmer of the sun on the bay and the pink mimosa blossoms.”

As she returned to the house over the years – first as a retreatant, then as a kitchen volunteer and later as an associate of the Philadelphia-based Sisters of Saint Joseph, who owned and operated the facility – Stratton’s bag of books got lighter and her soul became fuller.

“My heart healed in the oceans of grace and tides of transformation,” she said. “My mind rested in the rhythms of the [house’s] porch rocking chairs. I felt at home.”

Stratton, along with fellow associates, volunteers, former retreatants and Sisters of Saint Joseph bade farewell to this seaside refuge Sept. 18 during a Ritual of Thanks and Blessing. She was one of the featured speakers for the day, addressing those gathered on the complex’s lawn or porches and the faithful who watched via livestream.

The Sisters of Saint Joseph, of the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia, announced in February the closing of the retreat house they had owned and operated for more than 100 years. Calling the decision “heartbreaking and difficult,” the sisters cited “comprehensive planning that clearly identified the need for the divestment of this property.” Concerning its future, they wrote that “given its beachfront location and our congregational commitment to care for Earth, our desire is to return this land to nature rather than use it for further development.”

“We are called to the letting go of what we love,” Sister Maureen Erdlen, S.S.J., congregational president, said during the gathering, which also included singing and the blessing of the house’s porches, doorways, dining room and chapel.

She acknowledged the mixed emotions among those gathered, and the “moments [of] loss and struggle … joy and celebration” that the retreats had held over the years.

The beloved landmark, just a short walk away from the Cape May Lighthouse, traces its roots back to 1889, with the construction of the Shoreham Hotel. With 150 rooms, 1,200 feet of porches, and a 200-foot lawn stretching to the Atlantic Ocean, it soon was touted as “one of America’s foremost hotels.”

Twenty years later, the Sisters of Saint Joseph, with help from Rev. Daniel I. McDermott, pastor of Saint Mary Church in Philadelphia, purchased the property for $9,000 and rechristened it Saint Mary by-the-sea. The next year, retreats for the sisters began taking place.

For five years in the 1940s, during World War II, the home was leased to the U.S. Army for $1 a year. 

The June through September retreats, silent and directed, for religious and laity will be missed, many agreed.

“The connection of this place for retreatants, to the ocean and other people, has renewed and sustained them,” said Julia Rauch, who, with her husband, Dan, serve as associates of the Sisters of Saint Joseph. Associates are laity who live and work the mission of the congregation. 

In addition to sharing memories, everyone in attendance received a small cross made of pine or oak, fashioned and polished from the home’s chapel pews.

Sister Maureen recalled making a pilgrimage here the week after her father passed away; amid her grief, she found “blessings,” she said, as she prayed in the chapel and contemplated “the mystery of life and death.”

Now, leaving this place with all they have received over the years, those who called it home are called “to provide the same encounter with God [to others], in a different way,” she said.

Sister Sharon McCarthy, S.S.J., the retreat house administrator for the past four years, found similar comfort and clarity here. In 1974, as she was discerning her vocation, Sister Sharon and other young postulants spent the pre-summer months getting the place prepared for visitors – sweeping, polishing, waxing the dining room floors, washing bathroom linens, and readying the sacred vessels in the chapel. 

Amid her labor for the Lord, she knew where she needed to be.

“This is the place where I first knew that I wanted to make a commitment to the sisters,” she said. “It was a confirmation of God’s love for me.”

As for the sisters and associates, Sister Sharon is confident in who is guiding their futures, too.

“God will continue to work in whatever way we’re asked to move on,” she said. “He makes all things good.”

A replay of the livestreamed Ritual of Thanks and Blessing can be seen on the Saint-Mary-by-the-Sea-Retreat-House Facebook page.