Archbishop Richard G. Henning sailed from Gloucester to Boston June 21 and 22 for "Into the Deep," a Eucharistic procession by boat that brought the Blessed Sacrament to communities down the North Shore and Boston in honor of the feast of Corpus Christi.
The procession took its name from Archbishop Henning's episcopal motto, "Put out into the deep," and combined what the archbishop said were his two favorite things: Jesus and the sea.
In a June video produced by the Archdiocese of Boston, Archbishop Henning explained that he senses the presence of God whenever he is by the sea. The archbishop has spent his entire priestly career in coastal dioceses and enjoys sailing, kayaking and paddleboarding.
The inspiration to hold the procession came when he attended the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis in 2024. He said wanted to do something similar to bring people together around the Eucharist to mark the feast of Corpus Christi in Boston.
"I thought, 'Well, wait a minute, what if we bring the Lord to them?'" he said in the video. "'What if they just have to go as far as the town dock by their own community, and we move on the water?' It just started to fill my heart with a sense of excitement for all those other reasons."
The procession began in the historic fishing town of Gloucester, where Archbishop Henning celebrated Mass at the standing-room-only Our Lady of Good Voyage Church and consecrated the host that would be used in adoration for the rest of the weekend.
He noted that Our Lady of Good Voyage, long a place of worship for Gloucester's fishermen and their families, was full of images of ships, and that the ribbed ceiling of the church resembled a ship's hull turned upside down.
"That's no accident," he said. "Churches were designed that way on purpose, because one of the images of the church is the barque of Peter."
Peter's fishing boat was how Jesus and his disciples traveled.
"For the early church, the ship became an image, an image certainly of how we are all together in the same boat as it were, but more importantly, an image of the truth that the Lord himself is in the boat with us," the archbishop said.
"Remember that truth as we carry the Most Blessed Sacrament through the streets of this city and down the water and onto a boat, and he will accompany us from town to town, blessing our communities, blessing the very seas over which we will pass, a sea which has been a source of beauty, but also of life to this and so many other communities on this shore," he added.
Following the Mass, the host was placed in a large cross-shaped monstrance and carried under a canopy by Archbishop Henning through the sunny, hilly streets of Gloucester. Dozens of people followed, praying the rosary in English and Portuguese.
Dogs barked at the procession and locals and tourists stopped to watch. The sound of prayer reverberated through the city's fishing port over the cries of seagulls and the whirring of motors.
The Shepherd's Pie, the fittingly named boat that would take Archbishop Henning on the procession route, was waiting in the harbor, bearing the flags of the U.S. and the Vatican.
Before getting on board, the archbishop presented the Blessed Sacrament to the people, who knelt and crossed themselves. They prayed and sang hymns together for several minutes.
Archbishop Henning then stepped aboard the Shepherd's Pie and waved his baseball cap to the applauding crowd as he sailed off under the escort of a Gloucester Police boat.
From Gloucester, Archbishop Henning sailed to Reed Park in Manchester, Town Pier in Beverly, Salem Maritime National Historic Site, Hammond Park in Marblehead and Fisherman's Beach in Swampscott.
In all of these places, Archbishop Henning disembarked for prayer and adoration with the local communities who had come out to meet him and the Blessed Sacrament by the sea. His final stop for the day was for a prayer service at St. Michael the Archangel Church in Winthrop.
The second day of the procession began on the rainy, muggy morning of June 22 with the archbishop docking at Piers Park in East Boston for adoration and prayer.
At Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park in the North End, members of that neighborhood's many Italian Catholic societies hoisted banners of their patron saints and prayed the rosary as they waited for the archbishop to arrive.
When Archbishop Henning boated in, he was escorted by a Boston Police boat and the Boston Fire boat "The Father Dan," named in honor of the late Father Daniel Mahoney, who served as a department chaplain for over 50 years.
Archbishop Henning brought the Blessed Sacrament ashore and placed it on a waterfront altar. The faithful knelt on the grass upon its arrival. Archbishop Henning knelt on the wet ground before the host and used incense. He led the assembly in praying Hail Marys for fishers and seafarers, and the pilgrims throughout the archdiocese who had come to see the Blessed Sacrament over the weekend.
After visiting the North End, the archbishop boated to Fan Pier Park in South Boston's Seaport District. He did not exit the boat but prayed and blessed those gathered along the Harborwalk. He then disembarked at the Boston Harbor Yacht Club in South Boston and led a Eucharistic procession to Gate of Heaven Parish for adoration and Mass.
Before Mass, Archbishop Henning said that traveling down the North Shore for the procession allowed him to see the faces of God's people. As he looked out at the assembly that filled the church, he said his "heart is full to brimming again with love for the Lord and gratitude to his people of faith."
In his homily, he said that Jesus must like boats, because he spent so much time on them with his disciples. Therefore, it was only natural to bring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament by sea.
"We wanted people to see and know the Lord," the archbishop said. "We wanted the Lord to see us, to know us, to love us."
He said that the phrase "Give us this day our daily bread" in the Lord's Prayer calls back to the experience of the Israelites in the desert, who were hungry until God provided them with manna for sustenance each day.
"When those disciples heard that prayer for the first time, they would have known that Jesus here is hinting at their past, at their relationship with God," he said. "It's an invitation, not only to ask God for something but to trust in God and trust ourselves to that same divine providence."
He said that the miracle of the loaves and the fishes similarly represents a time when the people had to call on God to sustain them. Jesus gave the loaves and fishes to the people and later gave them his own body both on the cross and in the Eucharist.
"We brought the Blessed Sacrament, Jesus himself, to the shores of the city," he said. "What I hope for now is that we allow the Lord Jesus to step upon the shores of our hearts, that we entrust ourselves to him. That we receive that daily bread that is the Lord himself, and it bring us hope and life, strength and wisdom."
