Feature: Is our faith up to the challenge as pandemic drags on? nugget.ca - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nugget.ca Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Shrimp boat blessings return after a year lost to COVID
SCOTT YOSHONIS, The Courier
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Decorated boats glide down Bayou Little Caillou in Chauvin, La., for the Blessing of the Fleet on April 24, 2016. (Chris Heller/The Courier via AP)Chris Heller/AP
CHAUVIN, La. (AP) Annual shrimp boat blessings will return to the bayous of Terrebonne and Lafourche in coming weeks after being canceled or curtailed last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a decades-old tradition, Catholic churches in fishing communities throughout south Louisiana lead the blessings in hopes of a safe and prosperous shrimp season.
This year, the Rev. Antonio Speedy of Holy Family Catholic Church said the Blessing of the Fleet in Bayou Grand Caillou will look more like normal but will still have to keep the pandemic in mind.
DECATUR â Easter was online in 2020 and, as opposed to most years when Easter is one of the two biggest celebrations in Christendom, web-only services and no family dinner afterward were a bit anticlimactic.
âI did a livestream from my kitchen table and then I just did a load of laundry,â said the Rev. Joey Krol, pastor of Galilee Baptist Church.
COVID has meant a lot has changed in the past 12 months, from various restrictions to up-and-down infection numbers to testing sites and vaccines. This Easter Sunday, there is a renewed sense of hope.Â
Churches will be able to meet in person to celebrate what many call Resurrection Sunday, the day when Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead after being crucified on Good Friday.
“Faith has been broken/Tears must be cried” Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
When someone uses the word “faith,” it’s usually in a religious sense. That’s because most of us have a grasp of what it means to have faith or not in a supreme being, creator or saviour.
But in a crisis, human beings put their faith in a lot of things, not just God.
Political leaders. Science. Our institutions. The health-care system. Progress. The military. Our fellow humans. The future. Long-term care homes.
Our faith in all of those has been tested since March 11, 2020, when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, plunging us into an ordeal that has dominated our daily lives and claimed nearly three million lives worldwide so far.
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