A third week of Easter blessings
Monroe. Using Facebook messaging, the priests at Sacred Heart Church are conducting drive-by blessings for parishioners.
Monroe /
| 21 Apr 2020 | 12:57
“If you can’t come here and receive Jesus, the least I can do is bring Jesus to all of you,” said the Rev. David Rider, who has been conducting drive-by Easter blessings for parishioners of Sacred Heart Church in Monroe. The blessings will continue this Sunday for the third week in a row. (
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A most unusual Easter Sunday blessing continues for a third consecutive Sunday, on April 26, courtesy of the Rev. David Rider, the Rev. Michael Achanyi and parish secretary Gladys Johnson of Sacred Heart Church in Monroe.
In a Facebook message to parishioners prior to Easter, Rider offered to drive to the homes of any interested registered parishioner to provide an Easter blessing, since the church - like others - was closed to the COVID-19 outbreak.
“If you can’t come here and receive Jesus, the least I can do is bring Jesus to all of you,” Rider said, noting he got the idea from a North Carolina priest who he felt wouldn’t mind his idea being used in New York.
The response was tremendous, with more than 300 families responding.
On Easter Sunday, after the Facebook Live/You Tube-streamed Mass concluded, the trio got into Achanyl’s car and drove nine hours around the area, delivering Easter blessings using Rider’s souvenir monstrance be bought during a trip to Fatima, Portugal.
But they weren’t able to get to everyone.
This past Sunday, the three again went out driving again for another nine hours after Mass, going as far to registered parishioners in Middletown, to do the same thing. They left Facebook updates on their departure times to parishioners’ neighborhoods so they could await the driveway blessing, following social distancing mandates.
Still, they didn’t finish getting to all homes, and will continue again after this Sunday’s Mass.