Christmas blessing: Plane sprays 100 gallons of holy water over Louisiana town

Catholic diocese plans to make it annual event

Parishioners brought water from their home to be blessed and loaded onto the plane (Diocese of Lafayette/Facebook)

An enterprising priest in Louisiana has used a small plane to spray holy water over the entirety of a small rural community.

The town of Cow Island and its surrounding farms received a blessing and the dousing of 100 gallons of holy water, disseminated by a crop-spraying plane.

The idea was suggested up by L’Eryn Detraz, a native of Cow Island and a missionary currently stationed in Ohio, according to a statement posted to the Facebook page of the Catholic diocese of Lafayette.

Cow Island, which is not a true island, sits around 30 miles southwest of the Louisiana town.

The water was blessed by Fr Matthew Barzare, before it was loaded onto a plane and distributed by a cropduster pilot.

“We can bless more area in a shorter amount of time,” Mr Barzare told NPR. “I blessed it there, and we waited for the pilot to take off,”

He added: “I've blessed some buckets for people and such, but never that much water.”

He said the pilot was given instructions to drizzle certain parts of the community, including churches, schools, grocery stores and other community gathering places.

As people learned what was happening during the blessing, which was held after mass on Saturday December 21, they went outside to watch.

“They heard the plane coming first and so they had enough time to step out of their house and see it spraying,” he said.

The diocese said families in the traditional rural area, including members of St Anne Church, liked the blessing and asked for it to become an annual event.

“A happy and blessed Christmas to everyone from St. Anne Church and parishioners,” it wrote in its message.

Mr Barzare said next year he is planning to use 300 gallons of holy water.