Thursday 19 April 2007
After practicing on the 19th of every month, the big day finally arrived today - it is April 19, the saint's day of St. Expiditus! (Patron saint of overnight mail carriers.)
He has quite the following here in Buenos Aires (probably because he is actually the patron saint of just causes, and porteños always feel that their cause is just) and has a church devoted to him just around the corner.
There were people lined up all the way around the block, around two corners, in two different directions, all day today, waiting to to get into the church to light a candle and say a prayer. They were there in the morning when I checked it out, and the line was still going when I got back from work after 8pm. Hundreds of thousands of people must have filed through that church throughout the day. (Or, the same ones just kept getting back into line!) Mass was said every hour.
There were lots of tables selling religious knick-knacks, as usual (We saw them staking out their spaces the night before!) and everyone had to buy something to commemorate the day. And, of course, they had to get these things blessed. Good thing they had this priest! He was out there blessing people and things non-stop, doing blessing session after blessing session. He was like a blessing machine!
He has quite the following here in Buenos Aires (probably because he is actually the patron saint of just causes, and porteños always feel that their cause is just) and has a church devoted to him just around the corner.
There were people lined up all the way around the block, around two corners, in two different directions, all day today, waiting to to get into the church to light a candle and say a prayer. They were there in the morning when I checked it out, and the line was still going when I got back from work after 8pm. Hundreds of thousands of people must have filed through that church throughout the day. (Or, the same ones just kept getting back into line!) Mass was said every hour.
There were lots of tables selling religious knick-knacks, as usual (We saw them staking out their spaces the night before!) and everyone had to buy something to commemorate the day. And, of course, they had to get these things blessed. Good thing they had this priest! He was out there blessing people and things non-stop, doing blessing session after blessing session. He was like a blessing machine!
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