COW ISLAND, LA — Never in its history has a payload so full of grace rained down on the rural Louisiana town of Cow Island. Instead of chemicals, a crop duster rained down holy water on farms and across the community, touching its churches, schools, grocery stores and other community gathering places.



The whole idea to bless as many people as possible by dropping sanctified water from airplanes came from L'Eryn Detraz, a Cow Island native who is currently stationed in Ohio doing missionary work, the Diocese of Lafayette wrote on Facebook on Sunday. It was a novel approach to the holy tradition, the Rev. Matthew Barzare decided, and he rallied parishioners at St. Anne Church in Cow Island. They brought water into town to be blessed by the priest, then loaded 100 gallons onto the plane, which had been cleaned of any chemical residue before the holy mission.

"We can bless more area in a shorter amount of time," Barzare told National Public Radio. He said he had never before made such a large quantity of water holy, though he has "blessed some buckets for people and such."

As the diocese Facebook post was shared hundreds of times, other churches approached him about adopting the idea in their parishes, the priest told NPR. People who commented on the post suggested other places the crop-duster might drizzle with holy water.

"Fly over I-10 between Lafayette to Baton Rouge! That interstate needs a good blessing," one person wrote, punctuating the post with a praying hands emoji.

"Love this," someone else wrote. "This is what every town needs to do. Thanks for hopefully starting a trend of many more town blessings."

Wrote another: "Wish they would spread this over the whole country! What a fantastic idea!" The diocese concluded its post: "A happy and blessed Christmas to everyone from St. Anne Church and parishioners!"