On Oct. 19, 2024, Father Martin Fox, of the St. John Paul II (SJPII) Family of Parishes, took to the skies on a mission to bless people with holy water. Flying out of the Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport (Miamisburg) in an R-44 helicopter, he soared 5,000 feet up in the air.

“I will admit that just as I was getting into the seat, the realization hit me that the copter was going to be OPEN on my left side; the seat belt was going to be doing a lot of work!” said Father Fox. “But there was no way I was going bail out on this at that point! I figured if I fell out of the copter at 500 feet, I’d have time to pray my prayers and, all in all, not a bad way to go! And, seriously,
I trusted the pilot and that confidence was not misplaced.”

The pilot was an associate of Deacon Bill Wakefield of the SJPII Family of Parishes, who is also a pilot and rode along. Other passengers included Jeffrey Kremer, Associate Director of Youth & Family Formation, and Paula Wathen, Pastoral Advisory Committee Chair.

It was a memorable experience! “I had to balance taking pictures with managing the holy water, and I was terrified of spilling the holy water in the backseat,” said Kremer. He had “the bad set of earmuffs, so I could barely hear anything the whole time … I had to mostly pretend I understood the conversation. Beforehand, our emotional support team (Deacon Bill and Paula) [regaled] us with their own stories of helicopter flights. We got the rundown from the pilot and Deacon Bill about the specific chopper we were flying.”

The helicopter flew the St. John Paul II Family of Parishes perimeter, which includes the cities of West Carrollton, Moraine, Washington Township, Miami Township, Carlisle, Franklin, Springboro and several bordering areas. In sprinkling holy water over these locations, Father Fox blessed more than 130,000 people.

“The wind made it very difficult to use the holy water sprinkler; I didn’t want to explain losing it to parishioners, and who knows what it would do to someone’s windshield!” said Father Fox. “But as far as I know, there is no minimum amount of holy water required for this sort of blessing.”

The mission was part of SJPII Family’s new initiative: Open Wide the Doors to Christ. Their parish family consists of Our Lady of Good Hope (Miamisburg), St. Mary of the Assumption (Springboro) and St. Henry (Dayton). “We are not just serving the [registered or active parishioners], but … everyone in the 55,000 households that are within our parish boundaries,” said Rachel Prindle, SJPII Parish Family Director of Involvement and Engagement. She said that one of Father Fox’s first acts when he received his assignment was to drive the entire parish boundary line. “We brainstormed going up and flying the perimeter of our parish boundary and blessing the line from the sky.”

The SJPII Family of Parishes hopes to have a similar adventure in the future.

“Our parishioners really loved the fact that we were doing it,” said Prindle. “We’re really trying to make a focus this year on opening wide our doors for everyone within our parish boundaries and [to make] sure they know that we are here as a place for them to grow in their faith. This has been a fun first step in building momentum toward that big picture.”