A 100-hour Bible-reading marathon at Holy Ghost Catholic Church in Opelousas is to end at about 4:30 p.m. today.
About 300 volunteers including Gov. John Bel Edwards, Attorney General Jeff Landry, Bishop Douglas Deshotel and retired Bishop Michael Jarrell read from the Bible for about 20 minutes each starting at 12:30 p.m. Ash Wednesday.
The event is to celebrate the church’s 100th anniversary and also the city’s 300th anniversary.
The Bible was handmade by the Community of Jesus Crucified in St. Martinville and blessed by Pope Francis in 2016.
The five-year-old Bible Marathon is usually held in St. Martinville as the community’s evangelism activities, the Rev. Michael Champagne said.
Champagne, interviewed inside an ambulance converted into a mobile confessional, is no stranger to public campaigns for the gospel. He organized the Fête-Dieu du Teche, a boat procession on Bayou Teche.
The mobile confession has been the site of more than 8,600 confessions since it went into service in December 2015.
Champagne said Mardi Gras is heard in the square so, “why not publicly read the Bible.”
The readings “have been very effective in highlighting the faith,” he said.
Champagne said faith has been a tremendous impact on civilization and culture.
Bringing to the marathon to Holy Ghost recognizes that church’s contributions.
Holy Ghost has more than 5,800 parishioners and is the largest black Catholic congregation in the U.S.
“The parish has had so much impact,” he said.
“We have a lot of significant people who try to bring people together and they are not all politically on the same page,” he said.
“We know that to love the Lord, to serve Him, solves our problems,” he said.
Champagne said his Community has the resources to do special events such as the marathon reading and the procession on Bayou Teche.
“It puts God in the newspaper,” he said of the publicity the events create.
Champagne, who attended LSUE in 1981-1982, graduated from LSU in Baton Rouge with a degree in mechanical engineering. But a couple of years out college, he went another direction.
When discussing the reading marathon the engineer is revealed.
Champagne talks about spreadsheets to gauge the time needed to read the Bible. There are tidbits of facts such as the New Testament is about 21% of the Bible.
