{"id":1577,"date":"2007-07-13T18:24:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-13T18:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/lord-when-you-came-to-the-seashore.html"},"modified":"2007-07-13T18:24:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-13T18:24:00","slug":"lord-when-you-came-to-the-seashore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/lord-when-you-came-to-the-seashore.html","title":{"rendered":"“Lord, when you came to the seashore…”"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> My wife and I have spent some vacation time in Ocean City, Maryland, and when not worshipping the sun, we’d worship at St. Luke’s — mentioned here<\/a> as one of the places that finds its pews packed during the summer months:<\/p>\n

Jimmy Burke offers some advice to soothe impatient drivers trying to enter or leave St. Ann Church\u2019s parking lots in Bethany Beach, Del., for a summer weekend Mass.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease, don\u2019t blame me,\u201d says Burke, who directs traffic into and out of the lots. \u201cThat guy named Jesus from Nazareth keeps sending people here.\u201d <\/p>\n

And the people do come. Anywhere from 6,000 to 8,000 people each weekend, he said, attend 10 Masses during the height of the beach season. <\/p>\n

St. Ann\u2019s traffic jams are a microcosm of the annual summer migration of vacationers to Delaware and Maryland beaches from Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Md., and Philadelphia, Pa. <\/p>\n

Towns with less than 7,500 full-time residents swell into metropolitan areas of migratory sun-and-surf lovers, most of whom stay only a week or two at a time. Rehoboth Beach, Del., grows from about 1,500 residents to 80,000 during the summer – a relatively minor tidal wave compared to the transformation of Ocean City, Md., from a town of 7,000 to a city of about 350,000. <\/p>\n

The seven beach-town churches from Lewes, Del., to Ocean City, Md., double the number of weekend Masses -to 41 at peak season – and businesses hire an army of seasonal employees to meet the tourists\u2019 needs. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/i> As I like to remind parishioners: vacation time doesn’t mean taking a vacation from church. God’s blessings make that blessed time off possible. Can’t we all spare an hour to thank Him? <\/p>\n

Image: “An Ocean City Memory” by Paul McGehee<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My wife and I have spent some vacation time in Ocean City, Maryland, and when not worshipping the sun, we’d worship at St. Luke’s — mentioned here as one of the places that finds its pews packed during the summer months: Jimmy Burke offers some advice to soothe impatient drivers trying to enter or leave…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n"Lord, when you came to the seashore..." - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2007\/07\/lord-when-you-came-to-the-seashore.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Lord, when you came to the seashore..." - 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