Spy Wednesday

When I was laid off on January 22nd, I had a vision of what April would hold in store: 60-70 degree days, playing soccer in Central Park, margaritas outside, and wandering the streets endlessly. Well, that happened on Sunday, and now by Wednesday we're back to sub-40 degrees with some snow flurries this morning.

I was a bit restless this morning as my laptop is currently being repaired for a hard drive failure, preventing me from accessing the lifeblood that keeps me going, wifi and rosetta stone. I woke up fairly early, went to the gym, and after starting to check emails realized that this weekend is Easter and Passover is apparently tonight. As a general agnostic, and part-time Hindu, I never really keep track of this stuff but decided that maybe I should head up to a weekday church service; see what all the buzz is about.

As the saying goes, go big or go home, and I went big. I made my way up to St. Patrick's Cathedral on 5th ave in midtown for their 1pm Holy Week mass. The scene when you walk in was the very definition of breathtaking, and by breathtaking I mean I actually gasped and under my breath uttered "Holy Shit!" The ceiling soars above you and the amount of ornate gold structures and statues throughout definitely humbles you. I remember visiting the Vatican while in Rome with a Catholic friend, who as we walked in and were both just dumbfounded, smirked towards me and said, "this stuff really does kind of make you think we're the right ones, no?"

I've never attended an actual Catholic mass before, but been to numerous Catholic weddings and I never have absolutely any idea of when I'm supposed to do things like sing along or kneel. Luckily St Patricks is so immense that you can have a good view but kind of hide to the side and keep to yourself. The mass was actually really interesting as today apparently was "Spy Wednesday", the day Judas cut the deal to sell out Jesus. They described the Last Supper at length, during which I realized that the recent South Park on the economy actually was fairly faithful in its depiction and the different interactions that take place during the event. The priest also somehow calculated that Jesus was sold out for today's equivalent of $19.27, don't ask me what shekel exchange rate he used or inflation he calculated this off of, but he hammered this point. While the whole experience was somewhat somber, it definitely reminded me that religious services are definitely a good indoor activity to do if the weather continues sucking like this. I wonder if countries that suffer from terrible weather (i.e. Britain) are much more devout.......