Happy Feast Day

 I have always liked this feast day, the Assumption of Mary, falling as it does in high summer.

Today I learned of a custom to celebrate the day which is a bit unusual.  This article was on the America Medias site:  The Assumption of Mary brought me peace after my mother’s death | America Magazine

The article, by Patricia Lawler Kenet, first appeared in 2021.  It is a touching tribute to the author's mother's faith, and finding comfort after her death: 

The action takes place in New Jersey, on the sea shore.

"I am standing with my mother and her friend Stella on the beach in Atlantic City. I am 12 years old. Our toes sink into the wet sand, and we wiggle them free as the waves retreat. Stella searches the horizon, her head cocked back, poised in a salute to the scorching August sun overhead. My mother’s olive skin, like Stella’s, has turned toasty brown after only a few days. On the other hand, I inherited my father’s Celtic genes and am a splotchy pink."

"It is Aug. 15, 1973, the Feast of the Assumption. We are waiting for the bishop to fly overhead inside a tiny plane to bless the waters in which we are standing."

"Earlier that morning the faithful had followed Father Palumbo and three altar boys down Atlantic Avenue. A group of Italian men, two elderly ones with short sleeve shirts buttoned to the collar, and two younger ones with thick black hair, broad shoulders and skinny waists, carried a statue of the Virgin. The statue wobbled as its bearers strained to steady the platform covered in roses and white carnations. Women followed, fanning themselves with church bulletins, rosaries hanging from their fingers like vines."

"....We had all been at Mass, but my mother and Stella were more interested in the coming action on the beach. The blessing was the real spiritual payoff, the part of the day when they would have something to take home. The water of the Atlantic, soon to be holy, was a tangible object that could be shared, saved for emergencies, something to show for their faith."

"...We hear a buzzing sound, a puttering and then a roar. The small prop plane passes. A white hand waves and disappears from inside the plane. People on the beach make the Sign of the Cross. I see Mrs. McGuire and her three sons, one son in a wheelchair that the other two dragged to the beach. There is a frail woman in a low-slung beach chair at the water’s edge. She rubs her knotty arthritic knees with the water and kisses her silver medal pinned on her cotton dress like a piece of hope. A young mother drags her toddler into the ocean and wets his hair."

"I don’t think any of us expect to see an angel or the Blessed Virgin. But I notice an awed silence as we all admire the sparkle of the sun on the water and the tail of a shifting cloud. Perhaps that is enough of a miracle.  My mother splashes me. “Bless yourself, Patricia. You’ll do good in school.” She laughs, and I laugh with her.   '

"A few raindrops begin to fall. “Look Katie, it’s raining,” my mother’s friend Stella says, “the Blessed Mother’s tears; good luck. She knows we’re here.”

Our parish had a vigil Mass yesterday evening, and a Mass this evening for the actual day.  My choir sang for the vigil Mass. Both Masses were lovely and well attended.  The congregation sang Hail Holy Queen enthusiastically. But we did not have a bishop flying in a plane overhead and blessing the waters of an ocean, where people brought Tupperware containers to take the holy water home in.

I was joking to my husband that I don't suppose we could talk the archbishop into flying over Lake North to bless the water!