I thought it might be interesting to just post a few pictures from today’s mass at Yankee Stadium, to give you a “Deacon’s Bench” glimpse of the day.

My wife and I left Forest Hills, in Queens, about 9 a.m. and — this is unreal — we were at the stadium and walking through the turnstiles before 10. Below is the scene you encountered at that hour at the entrance to the stadium. Not too bad. The mass, of course, wasn’t scheduled to start for another four hours.

A brother deacon and his wife made the mistake of arriving about an hour after we did. And they bumped into the throng below. They had to wait a couple of hours before they even got into the stadium. Meanwhile, we were cooling our heels — literally — up in the loge. The place felt like an icebox, with the wind whipping around. The forecast had been in the low 60’s. Felt more like the upper 40’s. To bide our time, we watched people getting ready. The MC’s rehearsed the seminarians and various ministers, and had the people presenting the gifts practice kneeling and bowing and what-not.

Below, a priest prepping some of the many ciboria.
Finally, at about 2:15 p.m., we got our first glimpse of the popemobile. The crowd went nuts. And the pope took a short tour around the lower half of the in-field.
He popped out just below where we were sitting, waved again to the crowd, and then disappeared to get vested.
About 10 minutes later, he emerged, and the procession to the altar was underway. Again, more cheering and chanting (“Ben-e-dee-to!”) and much enthusiastic waving of white and yellow cloths (which had been helpfully provided to each of us with our program when we entered the stadium.) Benedict, for all his shyness, showed a genuine love for the people who — it must be said — genuinely love him. He did seem energized by the crowd. After mass concluded, he departed again in the popemobile — but covering the other half of the in-field, so that everyone else could get a good look at him. That’s when I got the closest to him, as he rolled by our seats. The whole thing was over around 5 p.m., and my wife and I joined the human cattle being herded down through all the ramps and back out into the street. It took us a good half hour to get down to street level and work our way back to the subway. As we were climbing the stairs to the elevated train my wife said, “Hey look. It’s the popemobile.” I turned and sure enough: they were loading it up for its next stop — presumably JFK Airport for the pontiff’s departure. Despite the mob scene, people were exceedingly polite and well-behaved. It took me over a half an hour of waiting in line to get a tee shirt at the souvenir stand, and there were only two young women handling hundreds, if not thousands, of customers. But everyone was unfailingly nice. The girl who rang up my sale said, “This is worse than a Yankees game.” And I said, “Yeah, but aren’t we so much nicer?” She laughed and agreed.

Anywho: my wife and I made it home around 6:30. Tired. But invigorated. And grateful.

FWIW: You can read some of my other details about our adventure right here. Otherwise, stick a fork in me. I’m done. I’m going to bed. G’night all.