Summer at the Jersey Shore brings packed beaches, packed coolers and packed boardwalks.
Plus a lot of packed Masses.
“It’s very edifying for a priest [as] a lot of these people don’t miss Mass when they’re on vacation,” said Father Raymond Gormley, pastor of Saint Brendan the Navigator Parish in Avalon.
The additional Mass-goers create a happy problem for parish leaders: They go into overdrive to meet the need of traveling Catholics every summer.
“Everything’s more than double,” said Terry McGarvey, parish administrator at Our Lady Star of the Sea in Cape May. The parish usually has four Masses during the non-summer season, but increases to eight Masses at two worship sites in the summer.
“Not only do we double the number of Masses, each Mass has significantly more people attending, so it’s more than double the people at double the Masses,” McGarvey said.
It also means more than double the volunteers.
“We need about 150 volunteers a weekend, and that’s from extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion [to] lectors, ushers, ministers of hospitality, sacristans, music ministers,” said Kevin Quinn, parish administrator at Notre Dame de la Mer in North Wildwood.
How do parishes handle the influx? Just like Jesus sharing the loaves and fishes, God provides. But there’s long-term planning, too.
“It’s finding those names, getting them into the system and our scheduling months prior to summer, as opposed to volunteers just walking in, arriving in July and saying, ‘I want to help out today,’” Quinn said. “That helps us tremendously in terms of lectors and Eucharistic ministers. But adding them into the schedule is where it gets tricky. So some are here for two weeks, some are here for a month and some are here for the whole time.”
“It’s the same with covering it musically,” said Jonathan Delgado, the parish’s director of music and liturgy. “In most parishes, choirs end in June, and they take the same break school kids do. They’ll come back in the fall. That’s what’s unique about here. Our choirs, they don’t ever break. In fact, it gets busier in the summer, so it’s constant.”
Thankfully, many Catholics who come to the Shore during the summer commit to help.
“It really depends on the goodness of people who … graciously step up and volunteer,” said Father Gormley. He said that also includes retired priests who help celebrate Masses.
The summer months also can bring a greater demand to celebrate sacraments like baptisms and marriages.
“Maybe mom and dad have a house at the Shore, so the kids want to bring the baby,” McGarvey said, adding that many young adults have their children baptized in such instances. In addition, “It seems like the amount of wedding requests is enormous, and it’s gotten more so. If you’re getting married down at the Shore, you’re going to spend the whole weekend down at the Shore.”
That means even more Mass-goers on Sunday mornings.
Many parish leaders recognize that their parishes also benefit financially from summer visitors, just like the overall economy of Shore towns are boosted by their resorts and attractions. As such, parishes often hold carnivals, raffles and other major events and fundraisers to further engage the larger crowds.
The sight of full churches during vacation doesn’t go overlooked by either parish leaders or those who attend Mass.
“Last year, there was a young family, I think they had like four or five kids. They were from Oklahoma. It was their first time ever to the Jersey Shore,” Father Gormley said. “You could just see they were beaming when they came out of church, and they were just so overwhelmed to see the number of people that come to Mass. It was wonderful to see that they were shocked to see a packed church, and they made it a point of saying that to me.”
As Quinn put it, “It’s wonderful to see full churches.”
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