Smiling parishioners filled the pews of Saint Frances Cabrini Church the morning of Nov. 9 as Bishop Emeritus Dennis Sullivan blessed and gifted a first-class relic to Saint Damien Parish, Ocean City. The relic – that of Saint Frances Cabrini – was given to him by the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 2004, when he was ordained an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of New York.
During Mass, he explained how he worked closely with the Cabrini Sisters when he was a pastor in lower Manhattan – “on the very streets that Mother Cabrini and her missionary sisters walked in the late 19th century, when they came to New York to minister among poor, Italian immigrants who were facing poverty, sickness, illiteracy, prejudice, and vicious anti-immigrant hatred.”