Trumbull priests bestow Lenten blessings against coronavirus from overhead

Image 1 of / 122 Caption Close Trumbull priests bestow Lenten blessings against coronavirus from overhead 1 / 122 Back to Gallery

TRUMBULL — The religious leaders from St. Theresa Roman Catholic Church extended their pastoral flock to everybody — Catholic or not — living within the Bridgeport Diocese in a spirit of Lenten goodwill and blessing.

For nearly an hour Tuesday, the Revs. Brian Gannon and Flavian Bejan, pastor and associate pastor respectively of St. Theresa’s, recited prayers and bestowed blessings on those below from a small plane flying over the Bridgeport Diocese.

“The theme of the mountain is very significant in the Holy Bible,” Gannon said after the flight. “God meets Moses and other prophets on a mountain, and Jesus Christ is crucified on Mt. Calvary. Instead of approaching a mountain, we took it one step further on a plane to seek God’s divine intervention of healing grace and hope in this coronavirus pandemic.”

The flight, which took off about 11:15 a.m. from Sikorsky Memorial Airport, passed over the boundaries of the Diocese in Fairfield County. It lasted about an hour.

“We were able to circle St. Theresa’s Church where people we knew came out, looked up at us and waved,” Gannon said.

More information about Tuesday’s flight is available here.

During the flight, Gannon held a three-foot statue of Our Lady of Fatima donated by Grace Monks of Trumbull and the Holy Monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament. He and Bejan prayed the Rosary, the Memorare to the Blessed Mother and for protection against the virus.

The flight was the idea of Lydia Monks DeCastra, whose husband, John, is a pilot and U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant stationed in New Jersey.

She had seen a video of a priest in Italy bestowing blessings from a plane and suggested her husband do the same with a priest in their New Jersey Diocese.

John DeCastra contacted Kevin Bradberry, a pilot and part-owner of a Cessna 172. They had piloted similar blessings flights over Camden, N.J., and Harrisburg, Pa., and have been contacted to do the same in Virginia.

“There’s a scientific approach and a spiritual approach that is needed to help stop the spread of this virus and cure those afflicted,” said Thomas Monks, Lydia DeCastra’s father and a member of the Knights of Columbus Council 8103 in Trumbull. Monks reached out to his son-in-law to do the Trumbull flyover and his fellow Knights to foot the $370 cost.