Beach Catholic dedicates final beach Mass of the summer to first responders
Beach Catholic held its final summer Mass of the year on the beach, bringing together a large crowd that covered the sand and the ramp up to the boardwalk.
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Hundreds of people from all over Long Island gathered on the shore in Long Beach Sunday night for a Mass in honor of first responders.
Beach Catholic held its final summer Mass of the year on the beach, bringing together a large crowd that covered the sand and the ramp up to the boardwalk.
"You look around and see the range in age of people, young and old," said Father Brian Barr, of Beach Catholic.
"It doesn't have to be a church, God said come as you are," said Micah Mea, of Long Beach.
The final night of the summer Mass on the beach was dedicated to first responders, as a way to thank and honor them.
"It's such a wonderful thing to finish out the summer season, paying respects to first responders who on a day-to-day basis do the best they can for their communities and their family," said Timoth Black, of Oceanside.
This was the eleventh year for Beach Catholic to have summer Mass at the beach. While this was the last Mass on the beach this season, Beach Catholic expects this to continue to grow.
"It started as a couple hundred people and now it's been about 1,000 people each week this year," said Jordan Bernhardi, director of operations at Beach Catholic.
Some have continued to return to the beach for years. Beach Catholic said Sunday's Mass was the eighth held on the sand this summer. People come from all across Long Island to attend, even people from the city have come to Long Beach for the Mass. The community is what keeps some, like Micah Mea, coming back.
"We saw all this huge crowd, thousands, thousands of people, it was like really breathtaking. Being so close to God in this way," Mea said.
The church hopes its message will continue even after summer ends.
"This is just a unique place to do something that we do every Sunday everywhere. So the hope would be that wherever people are they're somewhere next Sunday," Barr said.
