Yankee Stadium

(Herald photo by Bill Howard)

Click to enlarge any photos from NYC blog posts.

I'm wrapping things up quickly here before heading to the airport, so I may have more random thoughts of the weekend tomorrow, but some thoughts on the Yankee Stadium Mass...

1. The Mass experience was awesome, and the Mass itself was pretty well done. Pope Benedict XVI seemed to be energized by the crowd. I was surprised that the altar was placed over second base and not in the outfield, but I won't complain as my seat was amazing... I was literally sitting right next to the left end of the visiting team dugout, in front of the altar and just two rows from the field and the popemobile route. I have to thank Melissa Ferguson and Mark Tamisiea for hooking me up with a ticket late in the game. It was quite the blessing.

2. Nothing says papal visit like . . . dove performance art? The pre-Mass concerts either need to be dramatically changed or stopped altogether. It did nothing to prepare people for the Mass and I felt more like I was at a pre-Olympic ceremony than preparation for a historic papal Mass. I didn't catch all of Dana's performance (which was one of the few that seemed to "get" it), but there was scarcely any recognition of just why people were there. You had some artists thanking God for their careers and introducing some of their classic hits, but no talking about the Catholic Church or the pope... at least not until Harry Connick Jr. While his orchestra and swing-tinged songs were probably hit and miss with viewers and attendees (I liked the orchestral part and his rendition of "How Great Thou Art"), he actually mentioned the words "pope," "His Holiness" and "Catholic Church." I appreciated Dana and Ronan Tynan's songs, but the rest made me wonder just what the point of all of it was.

3. It was great to see so many happy priests, nuns and deacons running around the stadium. One of my favorte parts was seeing about six rows of nuns in the farthest corner of the right field upper deck help get the wave going. It was cool to see blocks of seat in white with vested priests. The priests who participated in Communion and some of those who sat on the stage entered and exited the field through the visiting team dugout, and their joy was obvious.

4. The Mass seemed more in line with what Benedict would appreciate liturgy-wise than Washington D.C. Just a note now that all of the Masses are done... I think Benedict got the point that we are a multicultural church on the first day of his visit. Why do we have to drive that point home at nearly every event? OK, don't answer that. While I'm not a big fan of mixing languages in the same reading (as happened during the Y.S. Mass), the different cultures represented during the intentions was interesting. I had never heard Igbo before. But it made me wonder... these kinds of Masses often don't seem to take into account what the pope might want. The Yankee Stadium Mass was more solemn than D.C., which was nice, but I can only imagine what we're going to get at World Youth Day in Sydney. I hope I'm wrong, but I envision that there will be a need to shoehorn in so many cultural and politically correct messages to "cover the bases" that there could be little that feels authentic. Again, I really hope that's not the case, but I just feel like we have yet to really figure out how to hold Masses of this magnitude, crowd-wise and do it right. It's about directing all of our gazes to Christ, not back on each other. And there were times during the Mass when rogue sections of the stadium forgot this was a Mass and started "Benedicto" and other chants out of over-enthusiasm. A couple of times Benedict acknowledged it, and other times he just kept on going, which I liked.

5. Tenor Ronan Tynan was sitting a few rows away across the other side of the popemobile track (closer to the altar... in the celebrity/honored guests section), and I could see him following along at Mass. I could only wonder how awesome it would have been sitting near him and hearing him sing all of the reponses, hymns, etc...

6. The overall experience here was great. You could sense that NYC still has deep wounds from 9/11, and having the "Pope of Hope" there for them really impacted a lot of people. I don't know how the pope kept up his travel schedule, but it's quite impressive what he's able to do at his age. Having watched most of the events, it seemed like he was most energized that youth rally, although he seemed very pleased to be at all of the events. I believe he will come back again in a couple of years... maybe to the south (he has friends in Texas) or to the west coast. At any rate, it was truly a gift to be here and I look forward to sharing some pictures from different events in the next Herald. It will be a mix of CNS photos and Herald photos from unique vantage points that I and Esperanza and Mark Griffith had at different events.