I leave the boardwalk and enter the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and am immediately faced with a sea of ​​slot machines and blackjack tables. Everything from the lighting and spinning reels of cherries, lemons and bars to the signage seems designed to leave you overwhelmed, lost and ready to keep playing. I walk down a corridor lined with luxury brand handbags, perfume and clothing stores designed to lure the lucky few who win. As I turn the corner, I see three nuns in gray and black robes coming down the escalator. I know I’m in the right place.

“The Wedding of the Sea” is advertised on a large screen in the Hard Rock Etess Arena. In Las Vegas, one or two weddings are celebrated every night. Here in Atlantic City, the largest wedding celebration takes place once a year on the Assumption of Mary.

Etess Arena was originally part of the Trump Taj Mahal, and its stage has hosted everyone from Elton John and Bob Dylan to Beyonce and the Backstreet Boys. But on this warm morning of August 15, more than 2,000 Catholics are gathering at the arena for Mass celebrated by Bishop Dennis Sullivan of Camden for Atlantic City’s 56th annual Wedding of the Sea. After the Mass, the 79-year-old bishop is rowed out into the Atlantic and throws a garland of flowers into the water to commemorate the city’s “wedding” to the sea, on which its economy and population depend.

The tradition was brought to the coastal city by Italian immigrants in the 19th century, but dates back to 1000 A.D. in Venice. That year, the Doge of Venice honored his kingdom’s newfound maritime supremacy by throwing a ring into the Adriatic Sea. In 1173, the ceremony was set for Ascension Day, and in 1177, Pope Alexander III gave the city’s Doge a blessed ring for the ceremony in gratitude for a peace treaty that ended a long struggle between the Venetian Empire and Rome, and asked the Doge and his successors to “marry the sea” again each year.

It is not entirely clear how the ceremony was able to be moved from the Feast of the Ascension of Christ to the Feast of the Assumption of Mary after crossing the Atlantic. According to a legend, in the 15th century a bishop from Venice arrived and threw his bishop’s ring into the sea during rough seas, and the water calmed down.

This year is Bishop Sullivan’s last wedding ceremony before his retirement as head of the Diocese of Camden. Before moving from his native New York, the Bronx-born bishop had never heard of the tradition. But he has always associated the Feast of the Assumption with the sea. Every year on August 15, his Irish-born mother took him and his three siblings to Orchard Beach in the Bronx. “I remember one year very well: It was terribly hot and my mother threw us all in the bathtub,” he told me shortly before Mass. “It was too hot to go to the beach. You had to get in the water.”

Today he sees the value of the Italian tradition as an expression of what Pope Francis has called and praised as “popular religion”. “It connects (people) with God, it connects them with the Church. And it certainly connects them with Mary. The whole thing is surrounded by a great religious atmosphere.”

The day’s events are organized by St. Monica, a parish that includes the three Catholic churches in Atlantic City. Its pastor, the Reverend Kevin Mohan, is serving as master of ceremonies. I asked him if he had ever heard people express concern about celebrating Mass in the middle of a casino. He has heard comments, but he said, “I think it’s appropriate. For one thing, the casinos and the hospitality industry more generally are a very important part of life in this city. So many of my parishioners work in the casinos and hotels in many different capacities, so it’s nothing we’re ashamed of.”

This is only the second year that the Mass has been held at this location. For years it was held at the Atlantic City Convention Hall, and during the Covid-19 pandemic a smaller celebration was held at St. Michael’s, one of the parish churches. Father Mohan even thought the Hard Rock Hotel in particular would be a suitable venue:

How many longing cries have been uttered from that stage, with or without realizing that God is the fulfillment of all desires? And here we are, and God is feeding us with the bread from heaven, and it is a reminder that God has taken the Blessed Virgin Mary to Himself, which is the fullness of God’s generous response to the desires He has placed within us. So there is something that is not only acceptable, but very, very appropriate.

The people streaming into the arena are not bothered by the scenery. To the left of the large stage stands a statue of the Virgin Mary. Before the mass begins, Catholics stick dollar bills to their dresses, another Italian tradition. But what began as an Italian celebration has changed with the population of Atlantic City. In the opening procession, two young Latinos can be seen with a banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe, women in traditional Filipino clothing and several black men in the regalia of the Knights of St. John.

In his homily, Bishop Sullivan reminds us that in the encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis calls Mary “Queen of all creation.” “So today we ask her to look upon this ocean, God’s creation, so important to this city and all who use it,” he said. “We ask her to look upon it with motherly love and to help us do all in our power to protect and preserve this great gift of creation, the Atlantic Ocean.”

Even though he didn’t say it, the bishop could have asked Mary to keep the ocean calm today because it would soon be time for him to go to the boat.

After mass, we make our way back through the maze of slot machines and card tables to watch the statue of the Virgin Mary parade down the boardwalk. Presumably because of the considerable amount of cash stuck to her, she is accompanied by several members of the Atlantic City Police Department, as well as nuns, priests, knights and ladies. After she is placed next to a path to the beach, aptly named Virginia Ave., we head to the water for the main event.

To my surprise, the bishop is not in a motorized sea vessel, but in a small wooden lifeboat. Dressed in a white robe and carefully trimmed with his purple zucchetto, Bishop Sullivan is being rowed out against the rising surf by two lifeguards. Although I am told the bishop was never pushed out of the boat, several people mention to me an iconic photo from a few years ago in which the boat appears to be perfectly perpendicular to the water.

Fortunately, the surf isn’t too rough today, and when the bishop is about 50 yards out, he throws the floral wreath and blesses the sea. Immediately, people start filling bottles with salt water to use as holy water when needed. I notice a college-age couple filling several glass containers. Thomas has come from Haddon Township, 50 miles across the state. He’s fourth-generation Italian and told me his family comes every year, so he wanted to introduce his girlfriend Jamie to the tradition. He says the holy water he gets on Assumption Day is “the best there is,” and when I ask him what he’s used it for, he replies, “I’ve just used it everywhere. For everything I need it for. That’s why I come with a big bottle.”

Jessica and her grandmother, Rita, have traveled to Atlantic City from outside Philadelphia. Rita made it to the coast for the Assumption of Mary as a girl. Back then, she says, she knew nothing about Venice, the Doge and the ring. “My mother just said, put your feet in the water and you’ll be fine,” she tells me. When Jessica’s grandfather was alive, he took her – and anyone else in the family he could grab – to the sea wedding to pass on the tradition. After he died, Jessica promised her grandmother she’d take her to the sea wedding every year. “I think the funniest thing about it is that there are people on the beach who have no idea the little Italian girls are going to attack,” Rita said. “And we all ran there and they had no idea what was going on.”

After filling up my own plastic bottle, I head to the boardwalk, where I chat with Sister Ann Kateri, one of the Franciscan sisters of the Renewal, whom I saw riding down the escalator before Mass. In addition to the feast day, Sister Ann is celebrating the eighth anniversary of the sisters’ arrival in Atlantic City at the invitation of Bishop Sullivan. (“The best thing I’ve done in my 11 years,” the bishop told me.) The sisters came to work with the poor, of which there are many here. If you venture far from the boardwalk, you’ll find a city in distress. Opioid use and prostitution are rampant, Sister Ann, whose parish runs a day center and homeless shelter, tells me.

I ask what this feast means to her and her ministry. “It is truly a feast of hope that our Holy Mother has ascended to heaven in body and soul,” she said. “And she is there. She goes before us. That is our goal. That is our hope.”

“For me, first of all, it’s a reminder of the body and soul here in Atlantic City — where the body is in many ways just a vehicle of pleasure. (It’s a reminder) that it’s integrated, that we are a body-soul unit and the importance of the dignity of our bodies. (And it’s a reminder) for me personally to try to live that out in the way we serve people. But really (it’s a reminder) that Mary is our hope, that she is the answer to the complexity. I can’t solve homelessness here. I can’t solve poverty. But I turn to her. I entrust her with the people I serve.”