Detroit Priest Used a Water Gun to Bless His Parishioners

Welp, that's one way to do it!

A little bit of background on Pat and myself - we were both brought up in very religious families. Pat attended Catholic school until college; he was also an altar boy if you can picture that. Yes, really. My family was Episcopal and Catholic; we went to church multiple times per week and I attended a Christian camp every summer. So we know how important religion is to a lot of people.

This pandemic has created a unique challenge for churches all over the world. How do you continue to hold service when people should be staying 6-feet apart? A lot of religious organizations have had to adapt to new technology VERY quickly and offer mass and services online; most of these services debuted over Easter weekend back in April.

At St. Ambrose Parish in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, they adapted very quickly - they had an online mass and a drive-thru Easter food basket blessing. The basket blessing is a Christian tradition where parishioners bring their baskets full of food (to break the Lenten fast) to their local priest to have it blessed.

Father Tim Pec oversaw the blessings with a new "method" this year - he used a water gun to administer holy water to his parishioners.

There are few things in the world that I love more than seeing a sense of humor within an organized religion. The church was so rigid and serious when I was a kid, and I have too many laugh lines to take everything seriously. Love this idea! Way to go, Father Tim!