Baby Booties and a Papal Mass

Having missed most of the events from the papal visit (I fell asleep during his session with the bishops), I decided that I would just relax and watch the papal Mass yesterday.  First I had to decide whose coverage I would- or could- watch. I quickly grew tired of EWTN and FOX. Why is it that everyone must insist that this visit is the most "_________- est" (insert your own superlative) visit ever made by a pope, ever, in history? Could it be that this is just a normal papal visit, in a long, long line of papal visits to other countries? Go to the blog Hallowed Ground sometime to see photos- yes, real photos!-- of what other popes have done and seen in history. Fr. Neuhaus, God bless him, just needed to stop talking.  I don't envy those who have to comment on papal events, but please: don't get caught up in the moment and start making claims about an event that, as healing and joyful as it was, does not rank among the top Ten Events of Catholic Church History.

I decided to make some progress on the dreaded booties while I watched the Mass. Suprisingly, I found John Allen's commentary on CNN to be the least distracting. He didn't make any broad, sweeping claims about this visit or this Holy Father. He even said (dare he?) that American Catholics should not lose perspective and think that their problems were central to the problems of the whole Church, and that they shouldn't think that the Vatican is intimidated by the American Church. Thank you.

He also said "mushy" stuff, too, things like the Catholic Church in America is like a big family in which all don't agree on all things, and that's ok. This sort of comment makes the Holy Father look like the hard-line (which he's not) patriarch of a large, traditionally Catholic but-not-always-practicing-the-faith family. I can just see all us American Catholics at a family barbecue, live-in boyfriends and girlfriends in tow, rolling our eyes whenever "dad" said something crazy and old-fashioned about values. Not so helpful....

But turning to the Mass itself. I loved the music- it was really reverent and well-done. And while I'm no fan of coercing us all to become bi-lingual- the fix is in, I've decided, regarding Spanish and the liturgy- I still found that the Mass was reverent, with few distractions. It was amazing, really, how reverent it was, considering it was in a baseball stadium.

About the time that "Ode to Joy" began as the Recessional Hymn, I had knit to the rib-stitch cuff part of the baby bootie, with the tricky increase-decrease slip stitch parts behind me. Whew. I had the feeling that it was "good to be here" while watching the Papal Mass, and was done with the bootie in no time. 

For more complete footage (no bootie pun intended) of the papal visit, check out:

http://www.americanpapist.com/blog.html

http://amywelborn.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/open-yankee-stadium-liturgy-thread/

Have a wonderful week!