After the snow-covered winter and the accompanying days off from school we had here in Boston, most school kids won’t be able to enjoy summer until nearly July.  For many others, summer begins each year on Memorial Day weekend, but for me the start of my favorite season is several weeks before that.

On one morning each year in early May, both sides of a parking lot running the length of a mile long spit of sand is lined with thousands upon thousands of motorcycles.  My father goes to show off his Fat Boy, my mother goes to shake her head at everyone stupid enough to get on the back of one, and I go to break the 10^th commandment.

While most are there to simply see and be seen, the official rationale behind the gathering is the annual Blessing of the Bikes.  A deacon from a nearby parish, with a scandalous ponytail and beard, climbs onto the back of a massive tow truck and slowly drives down the beach, sprinkling holy water as he goes upon all the riders and their bikes.

Some of the comments you hear yelled out as he passes by are as funny as they are expected.  Coming in just over “It burns!  It burns!” is my personal favorite, “Hit him again, Padre.  He needs it!”  In all the years I’ve been going I’ve never seen this deacon do anything but chuckle at them. I’m sure he’s heard them all before, and then some.

This is not to say that everyone is a fan of the event, however.  My grandmother, who only ever darkens the doorway of a church when someone gets hatched, matched, or dispatched, has declared the entire event to be sacrilegious.  “Years ago the priests would have you burn in Hell if you ever did something like that,” she says.

It didn’t convince her much when I told her that priests from campus ministry used to come around and bless our dorms rooms, even after I promised her that far worse things happened in those rooms than ever happened on one of these motorcycles.  She did come around a bit when it was reported that the good Pope Francis recently blessed thousands of bikers during Sunday mass at the Vatican, but still doesn’t like the idea of a deacon on the back of a truck.

Obviously that doesn’t bother me, nor does the fact that the holy water is being held in a cooler, and neither am I concerned that the brush he is using to spread the water out over the heads of the bikers is more commonly used to sweep dirt into a dustpan.  Obviously it passes muster with the deacon, and I imagine he is far more concerned with the blessings being distributed than with the instruments used in the process.  Whatever they lack in splendor, they make up for in practicality.

The Evangelist Matthew closes out his Gospel with the Commissioning of the Disciples.  In his post-Resurrection charge to them, our Lord tells the eleven to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit.”  If His message, and His baptism, is good enough to be shared with the people of Israel, the Samaritans, the other gentiles, and all other nations, surely it is good enough for a couple thousand bikers on a Cape Cod beach.

Pope Francis’ predecessor was a fisherman, and he would of course know that to make his catch he needed to go where the fish were.  Likewise, this deacon did not wait for the rumble of a couple thousand bikers to roar into the church parking lot on Sunday morning.  He knew where he could find a crowd large enough to fill his pews many times over, and so he went to them.  That they happened to ride in on steel horses and be covered in leather was, I am sure, of little concern. It was a chance to teach them all that Jesus has commanded us and, like the good fisher of men that he is, he didn’t miss the opportunity.

I hope to see him again next year, while hopefully on a bike of my own – so that I can exhibit pride instead of greed for a change – and that he hits me again me with some of that holy water from the cooler.  I know I need it.