By Lois Rogers | Correspondent

When tragedy struck two young cousins as they played at the water’s edge in Belmar, faithful in that oceanfront municipality and surrounding towns opened their arms and hearts in support of the stricken families.

The girls, Mitzi Hernandez Nicolas, 13, and Emily Gonzalez-Perez, 12, had gone missing on a stretch of unguarded beach June 15 and after a frantic search, were found unconscious in the surf. Mitzi had drowned that day, and Emily died after four days on life support in Jersey Shore Medical Center, Neptune.

Photo Gallery: Funeral Mass in St. Rose Church, Belmar

Their loss inspired days of prayer, visitation and sacramental witness in the parishes along a section of the Monmouth County coastline, culminating in the celebration of a Mass of Christian Burial June 23 for the cousins in Belmar’s St. Rose Church.

There, the girls, who were best friends in life and companions in death, were softly and tenderly commended to Our Lord in heaven.

The bilingual Mass was attended by scores of relatives, friends, fellow students at Belmar Elementary School and members of the community. Many arrived during the visitation that preceded the Mass and were demonstrably moved as they paid their respects to the family and prayed before the two white caskets, embossed with angels, that were nestled together among flowers in the center of the nave.

As they had throughout the week, angels seemed to symbolize both the magnitude of the loss and the hope for healing.

The heavenly host figured in the homily preached in Spanish by the celebrant, Father Walter Quiceno, parochial vicar of St. Rose, and the one in English offered by Msgr. Edward J. Arnister, pastor.

They concelebrated the double funeral along with Msgr. Sean Flynn, pastor of St. Mark Parish, Sea Girt; Divine Word Father Miguel Virella, pastor of Mother of Mercy Parish, Asbury Park, who consoled the families and the community at-large throughout the trying time, and Father John Butler, pastor of St. Michael Parish, Long Branch.

Reaching out to the mourners, Msgr. Arnister spoke of how the loss of the girls had rendered “our hearts broken and filled with sorrow … there is an emptiness we feel and a sadness we have never known before at the untimely and tragic deaths of our two little angels, Mitzi and Emily …”

Speaking directly to the many children present, he encouraged them to focus on the joy their classmates had experienced in their lives and the joy they brought to so many others, including their families and their “large group of friends … they loved their friends.”

Father Quiceno assured the mourners that though this is a time of “anguished farewell and a lot of sadness,” the “angelic spirits” of Mitzi and Emily aren’t going to Mexico, where their bodies will be buried. “Where are these angels going to be?” he asked. “Here with us.”

Support Systems

When the tragedy began unfolding and the loss of Mitzi became known, St. Rose Parish opened its doors to family, schoolmates, friends and members of the community for a prayer service. That gesture represented the beginning of a sustained response from St. Rose and the nearby parishes of St. Mark and Mother of Mercy to the plight of the Catholic and Evangelical members of the Hernandez Nicolas and Gonzalez-Perez families.

Though it wasn’t immediately known if the girls had been members of St. Rose Parish, Mercy Sister Donna M. D’Alia, director of religious education, knew that many of their fellow students belonged to the congregation.

As June 16, the day after the accident, was the last day of school, Sister Donna realized that only hours remained to reach out to students to offer support before summer recess began. It was vitally important, she said, to join with other counselors in consoling the students and to pray with family members, including the mother of the deceased child, who was present at the school.

“We didn’t want the kids to be bewildered. We wanted to give them support,” Sister Donna said. “Normally, a day like this would be so happy.”

Calls were placed by Msgr. Arnister to St. Mark and Mother of Mercy Parishes, which both minister widely to the area’s diverse Hispanic community, to see what help might be needed. A prayer service was set for 1:30 p.m. June 16, which drew scores to the church to pray for the soul of Mitzi and the survival of Emily. Among them were eighth-graders in their graduation gowns, accompanied by other students and members of the girls’ family walking in solemn procession to St. Rose Church for what was described by Sister Donna as a “very simple and moving” service.

With You Always

The outreach of the parishes continued night and day as the situation moved irrevocably to a sad conclusion.

Clergy from all three parishes attended to Emily throughout the vigil. On June 18, the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, Msgr. Arnister, Father Quiceno and seminarian William Klingerman, assisting at St. Rose this summer, joined her family in prayer.

Shortly before her death, family members asked Father Virella to baptize Emily.

Father Virella had happened upon the accident scene June 15 when he went out for a walk – something he rarely does and almost never in Belmar, he said. Upon reaching the boardwalk that day, he noticed the activity.

“I was told that two young people are lost in the sea. I started praying,” he said.

He was also present at the prayer service, along with Father Jose Fernandez, parochial vicar of St. Mark Parish. Father Virella would be called upon again, this time by a relative of Emily, whose condition had worsened as the days went on.

“Members of the family were visiting [Emily] and called me. They wanted me to baptize her,” he said, recognizing the importance of being able to accompany the family through these saddest of times.

Assuring her family of God’s grace as well as the support of the entire Catholic community, “I did go, and one parishioner served as godmother and another as godfather,” he said. 

Blessed Be the Ties

As Msgr. Flynn sees it, the way that the clergy, laity and religious in all three parishes reached out to the families during this time of need exemplifies what it means to be Church.

“It shows an outpouring from all the people,” he said. “It shows a spirit of collaboration with three parishes working closely together to provide the best possible pastoral response to those who are grieving and hurting.”

The Mass of Christian Burial reflected that spirit, said all three pastors. The bilingual Mass with Readings proclaimed in English and Spanish and hymns in both languages, opened a reservoir of prayer for Mitzi and Emily and their families, he said.

Msgr. Arnister also spoke of the overwhelming response of so many in the area and throughout the state to set up an online GoFundMe campaign (“Belmar Angels”) and other efforts, including the pledge of $20,000 from Belmar Mayor Matt Doherty’s charity fundraising ball.

Doherty told The Monitor on June 21 that, to date, the effort had raised nearly $100,000.

Everything combined reflects the sense of compassion and support throughout the Jersey Shore, he said. “We’re a very close community … At times of tragedy and loss, people just come together and pour their hearts out in support,” spiritually, emotionally and financially, he said.