Louisianans celebrate Assumption with 2-day river procession

Inspired by this year's National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, a Louisiana religious community is planning its own procession this week – on the waters of the Mississippi River.

Beginning in Baton Rouge, the state capital, a flotilla of boats, with one carrying the Blessed Sacrament, will sail for two days down to New Orleans. 

Traveling 130 miles along the meandering Mississippi, the procession will consist of at least 14 boats. Imitating a Eucharistic procession on foot, the first boat will feature bells, announcing the coming of the Eucharistic Christ. The second will feature a 17-foot crucifix, while the third will emit incense.

Then comes a boat with a 14-foot monstrance (with a 14-inch Host) prominently displayed on its bow.

The water-borne procession is being organized by the Community of Jesus Crucified, a private association of the faithful in the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, which has lay, ordained, and consecrated members who devote their lives “in service of a suffering and wounded humanity.”

The Eucharistic procession on the Mississippi is an adaptation of an annual Fête-Dieu du Teche (Feast of God of the Bayou) that the Community of Jesus Crucified has been holding for 10 years on the Bayou Teche, a 125-mile-long waterway in south central Louisiana.

This year it'll be called Fête-Dieu du Mississippi, and state and local officials are encouraging people to turn out for it.

“The Mighty Mississippi, once named the River of the Immaculate Conception, has been a blessing to our great state with all types of industry, commerce, worship, and recreation occurring on its waters and along its banks,” Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said, according to a press release for the Fête-Dieu. He called the procession a “historic moment … highlighting the strong faith of our people and giving us an opportunity to ask God for his protection.”

Baton Rouge Mayor Sharon Broome added that the procession “celebrates our faith” and “unites our community in a spirit of reverence and reflection.”

The procession will be sort of a bookend to the beginning of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. One of the four routes of that pilgrimage, which led to the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, commenced at Lake Itasca in Minnesota, the headwater of the Mississippi River.

The event begins with an early morning Mass on Wednesday, August 14, at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Baton Rouge. Bishop Michael Duca is the principal celebrant. The flotilla of boats is expected to depart at 10:30, after a Eucharistic procession from the cathedral to the river.

Several “River Rallies” are scheduled along the banks of the Mississippi, where the faithful can pray, hear speakers, and go to confession while awaiting the flotilla. At one rally, Fr. Josh Johnson, Diocese of Baton Rouge Vocation Director, who was an emcee at the National Eucharistic Congress, will address the crowd.

Arriving in Convent, Louisiana, on the first afternoon, the Blessed Sacrament will be processed to St. Michael the Archangel Church, where Dominican Fr. Aquinas Guilbeau, university chaplain and vice president of ministry and mission at The Catholic University of America, will conduct Solemn Vespers.

“For the centuries of extraordinary blessings that Christ has bestowed upon the peoples and cultures of Louisiana, we Cajuns and Creoles and everyone else who calls the Bayou State home owe the Lord an extraordinary act of thanksgiving,” said Fr. Guilbeau, a native of Louisiana, and former senior editor at Aleteia. “La Fête-Dieu du Mississippi — a two-day Eucharistic Procession down the Mississippi River — will offer us all a unique opportunity to say ‘Thank you, Lord’ for everything: for our families and homeland, for our faith and culture, for our prosperity and well-being, and for a rich past and a promising future.”

St. Michael’s will be open for all-night adoration.

The schedule for Thursday, the feast of the Assumption, begins at 7 a.m., with the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer, led by Fr. Guilbeau. A procession to the Mississippi begins at 8:45, and the flotilla departs at 10. Again, there will be several riverside rallies along the way.

Toward the end of the procession, the famous steamboat Natchez will line up behind the Eucharist boat. One thousand adorers aboard will make a Holy Hour on the river for the last hour of the procession.

Arrival in the French Quarter is expected at about 4:30 p.m., with a grand blessing scheduled for 5:15 on the levee in front of Jackson Square and the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis. The procession will continue on foot through Jackson Square and into the cathedral for a closing Solemn Mass of the Assumption led by Archbishop Gregory Aymond. After the closing Mass, participants will celebrate in Jackson Square with Cajun music and dancing. 

Organizers point out that Louisiana has deep Eucharistic roots. 

“In 1812, when our first governor, William C.C. Claiborne, designed the flag, he replaced an earlier seal of an eagle with the image of a pelican wounding its breast to draw blood and feed its starving young,” said Fr. Michael Champagne, part of the Community of Jesus Crucified. “This is an ancient symbol of the Eucharist, Christ wounding Himself to feed us with His Body and Blood.” 

Organizers also point out that the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Patroness of the Acadian people and of Acadiana, is a day that marks the anniversary of the arrival of French-Canadian immigrants who brought the Catholic faith to Acadiana after enduring great trials and suffering.

Many of the items being used in the procession also have historic significance. The 14-foot monstrance, crafted by Stromberg Architectural Products of Greenville, Texas, will be placed on a large early 19th-century Belgian altar. The altar had to be enlarged to accommodate the large monstrance, using 500-year-old red cypress reclaimed from old Mississippi River steamboats. 

The 17-foot crucifix, also constructed for the Fête-Dieu du Mississippi, was modeled after an early 19th-century French crucifix. The bell boat will be carrying six Louisiana bells dating as far back as 1850. Many of them hail from churches along the Mississippi. A thurifer boat will carry two large thuribles burning incense. One of them is a model of the 1765 St. Martin de Tours Church in St. Martinville and was constructed by an Angola Prison inmate in 2015 for the first Fête-Dieu du Teche. It is estimated that over 50 pounds of incense will be burned during the two-day event.

The Eucharist boat follows behind the incense boat and is being seen as a "floating church" pushed by a large tug boat. Priests, religious sisters and brothers, and laity will kneel in prayer before the exposed Blessed Sacrament and lead the prayers broadcast to other boats and to pilgrims via live stream.

A boat carrying a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary follows behind the Eucharist boat. Bringing up the rear of the flotilla will be a boat carrying a statue of the Custodian of the Redeemer and Protector of the Church, St. Joseph. The statues adorn the courtyards at Notre Dame Seminary and were originally purchased as a gift to the seminary by the late Fr. Mark Beard when he was a seminarian. They are being restored and utilized in this historic procession in his honor on the first anniversary of his death. The statues stand 14 feet. 

During the course of the river journey to New Orleans the Coast Guard is allowing up to 15 large boats in the flotilla, which amounts to almost a 1.5-mile procession.

For more information, visit the Fête-Dieu du Teche website or its Facebook page, which includes several images of the various elements of the procession.