Mass 8/1/04

I went to mass today with Maria. It was a crowded, sweaty affair. We didn't manage to get seats, so we stood, subway style, at the back of the cathedral. An enormous old galician woman kept elbowing me until I was forced to step behind Maria. Then she started elbowing Maria. She's darn lucky we were in a church.

The highlight was of course the botafumiero, a huge censer held aloft in the middle of the cathedral by a long rope which hangs over a pulley on the ceiling. 5 men hold the other end of the string and swing the botafumiero higher and higher across the whole space, filling the cathedral with incense smoke. The clerymen who swing the botafumiero are treating like rock stars by the congregation, everyone claps and shouts when they step up to the altar.