Father Frédéric Lequin, a parish priest in the south-eastern French town of Notre-Dame de Bellecombe, is offering an unusual service to his congregation: blessings for their smartphones, according to a report in the Local.
The ceremony of the smartphones will be on Sunday, appropriately during the celebration of Pentecost, which in Christian doctrine is the moment the Holy Spirit descended in tongues of fire on the Apostles and other followers of Jesus and they “began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance.”
“We must remember that the blessing of communication devices is written into the tradition of the Church just like with boats, carts and all instruments of labour and animals,” the priest told the regional edition of Le Parisien.
Father Lequin was inspired by Father Gil Florini, a priest in Nice, in the south of France, who has been blessing smartphones and other electronic equipment with Holy Water since 2011.
Father Florini says that, besides attracting young people to the ceremony because of “the mini buzz,” he hopes to encourage reflection on the use of smartphones in society.
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