Finding a Blessing in the Bay

By Matthew Hayes

Standing on Kennedy’s beach on Friday afternoon, you would have been forgiven for thinking you were on the shores of the Jordan River in the first century rather than on Jamaica Bay in the twenty-first. As has been the tradition for many years in Breezy Point, hundreds of churchgoers from Blessed Trinity parish flocked to the seashore, not to play in the waves but to pray. Sitting in beach chairs and on towels all over the shoreline and the dunes, the crowd listened attentively as the guest of honor, Bishop Robert Brennan of Brooklyn, began to preach with the line: “Today, we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus!”

While this is normally not a surprising line from a bishop, the faithful in attendance might have been a little confused. For Catholics around the world, August 15 marks the Feast of the Assumption, the day when Mary is believed to have been taken up to heaven, body and soul, to live forever with God. What then does this great Marian feast have to do with the Resurrection, and why do so many Catholics dip their toes in the ocean waters to celebrate it?

For at least five centuries, Catholics in coastal communities across Europe and the United States have prayed near and bathed in the sea on the 15th, seeking out the merciful intercession of the Blessed Mother in the gentle ocean waves. While most historians agree that the tradition began in Italy, its precise origins have long been lost to the passage of time.

One legend tells of a medieval bishop who, caught in a violent storm in the Mediterranean, cast his episcopal ring into the tide and begged Mary to deliver him safely to shore. Hearing the bishop’s cries in heaven, Mary is said to have rescued him from the tempest and to have guaranteed safe travel to all sailors on the open seas on this sacred feast of hers.  Many bishops of coastal dioceses, like our own Bishop Brennan, continue to make it a point each year to personally bless the waters on this day to pray for the health and safety of their flock.

Another folk tale claims that as Mary was being assumed into heaven, she turned her eyes to earth one last time. As she mourned her departure from those she loved, a few tears rolled down her face and fell into the ocean below, consecrating it forever to her Assumption. Many Catholics believe that on this day, the ocean waters have miraculous powers and can heal both the bodies and souls of those who seek them out.

Breezy Point’s Assumption tradition, however, is not nearly as ancient or obscure as these legends. According to Maureen McVeigh, a longtime employee of Blessed Trinity, the parish began observing the Feast of the Assumption with a beachside mass in 2002 under then pastor Msgr. Michael Connelly. Not long before, the people of the community had gathered to mourn the over 30 residents lost in the September 11th attacks on the same shoreline, staring out at what had become an eerily empty skyline and entrusting their hopes and fears to the waves.  Msgr. Connelly recognized the solace that the bay’s beauty brought to his flock in their time of need and ensured that they would continue to return to the water each year to pray for healing.

In this light, the seemingly off-topic introduction from Bishop Brennan’s homily makes profound sense.  At the heart of the Catholic faith is our radical hope in the promise of resurrection, the promise of life after death, grounded in the reality of Jesus’s own resurrection into new life. In being assumed into heaven, Mary is neither removed from her humanity nor made into a goddess but is merely granted a first taste of the rewards that we pray are in store for all of us after we die. As Bishop Brennan himself said later on in his homily: “Mary offers us hope that God keeps his promises.”

Perhaps on August 15, for a brief moment, the shores of Jamaica Bay truly are transformed into those of the Jordan, a place that is inextricably linked to the fulfillment of God’s promises in the Bible. It is here that the Israelites cross over into the promised land after fleeing from Egypt. It is here that John baptizes Jesus. It is here that God announces the coming of his Son to humanity. Two thousand years later and many thousands more miles away from these moments, we come to the seashore in the hope that God will continue to fulfill his promises to us: to rescue us from the violence and trauma of the past, to heal us from the mental and physical illnesses which ail us, and to resurrect us into new life.

Photos courtesy of Blessed Trinity parish.