A Church Rite Shrouded in Haiti's Loss

14.06.10

When they filled the church a few days after the earthquake, they were still in sicken, swathed in coats and hats, faces illuminated by orange candlelight in the darkness. Now, five months later, the women were in flowered dresses, hardly ever girls wearing white first-communion frocks and flowers in their hair, and the sanctuary  milk-white-bright from the summery glare.

The Rev. Jean Moise Delva, the young Haitian-born missionary who leads the French and Creole Mass, moved slowly out of the church amid a vanquish of worshipers. He held the Blessed Sacrament, a  wafer of communion bread, encased in a sunburst of gold. A hot curve, as if from a hair dryer, tossed the trees as the crowd poured onto Hollis Avenue. “Le voilà le roi des anges” — “There he is, the monarch of angels” — men and women sang in raspy voices.

Olivia Benoit precipitate to her car to change her church shoes for a pair of clunky Crocs. The procession was to wind for hours through Queens Village.

Source: New York Times (blog)