It might be kind of weird for a Mormon to love midnight mass, but I love it. For one thing St. Peter's Basilica is amazing. Some day I am going to go see it in person. On TV it's so impressive that I can't even fathom how huge it must seem in the flesh.This year, as always, I spent Christmas Eve in front of my television set watching the Catholics in their Christmas worship. If you've never watched, you really should. A couple of things stood out. First of all, there's always a group of people that get to take the holy communion directly from the Pope. You know, he just sticks a wafer in their mouth. This time while the Pope was distributing the wafers the commentator (he's like a play-by-play announcer) started talking about who those people are getting the wafer from the Pope. He probably covers this every year, but for some reason this time I tuned in long enough to gather that essentially these are people who have paid for the privilege. So this left me thinking, if I had the opportunity to take the communion wafer directly from the Pope in St. Peter's Basilica, would I do it? I think the answer is "yes." Maybe that makes me a bad Mormon, but I don't think I'd be able to pass up that kind of an offer.
I was still contemplating this while I was watching the Pope leave the Basilica. He was walking out past the pews full of worshippers, doing that thing with his hand which according to the commentator is some sort of blessing on the people. Then all of the sudden I saw this woman lurch into the corner of my television screen trying to hurl herself at the Pope. It didn't happen of course. She was wrestled to the ground and dragged out of the shot at an impressively rapid speed. The commentator just made some obvious cover up remark about a worshipper being overcome with excitement and having to be restrained. Then the whole thing continued on like nothing had happened. The next morning I looked everywhere for it on Youtube and couldn't find it. I was starting to think I'd imagined the whole thing, but today I searched again and I found it. Turns out she was trying to bite the Pope. Here's the story, and video. Enjoy!
2 comments:
That is so bizarre. And why to bite him? She must be a Tyson fan.
I don't think it's weird that you like Midnight Mass. We always go to a Christmas Eve service at a Brethren church down the street from my parents house. It was the church where my school choirs always had their Christmas concerts, and one of my brothers always sings in their service, and the candle lighting and carol singing at the end is pretty sweet, in my opinion. So...good on ya, and I hope your Italian Christmas dreams come true!
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