Hundreds of cyclists received blessings in the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York on Saturday, a ritual for a quarter of a century aimed at protecting riders from accidents.
Cyclists in racing togs lined up next to everyday commuters to receive a sprinkling of holy water.
“May the wind be ever at your back. May your paths be always joyful. May all your journeying be joyous... May the Lord hold you and your bicycles in the palm of his hand,” proclaimed Reverend Patrick Malloy, dean of the cathedral in northwest Manhattan, one of the largest churches in the world.
Photo: AFP
Greeting a particularly large crowd this year after the lengthy COVID-19 pandemic, Malloy rode his bicycle through the entire nave sprinkling holy water on his congregants after reading from the Gospel and delivering a homily.
“Nothing is going to happen to your bike today,” said Malloy, a high dignitary of the Episcopalian Church, a branch of Anglicanism in the US.
Once blessed, the cyclists applauded and rang their bicycle bells, and then went around the nave and transept of the late 19th-century neo-Gothic church, modeled on the architecture of medieval French cathedrals.
The “blessing of the bikes” — open to all faiths and nonbelievers alike — has been a beloved service for 25 years at the cathedral near Columbia University in the Morningside Heights neighborhood.
As elsewhere in the world, cycling is encouraged for environmental and public health reasons by the New York City Government.
However, in a city of 8.5 million, sprawling and chaotic, cyclists dwell in a kingdom of cars and trucks, and face mounting perils.
New York Department of Transportation data showed that 17 people died on bicycles last year in the city’s five boroughs, and at Saturday’s ceremony, worshipers recalled the names of 13 people killed on the streets so far this year.
They also remembered the 132 pedestrians killed in crashes in the city last year.
“It’s a real travesty that it’s so dangerous to be a cyclist in New York,” Allison Considine, a 28-year-old environmental advocate, told reporters as she left the church. “A lot of motorists drive really dangerously in this city and think that the road is just for them.”
She said city officials know what works — dedicated bike lanes along city streets and on bridges, and even streets closed off entirely to vehicular traffic.
“Every year that passes that they don’t do that, they have to do things like the memorial for people who’ve died,” she said.
Katherine Schoeller, a 32-year-old manager from Austria, said that she felt glad to be among so many cyclists.
“It’s nice to know there’s a lot of people out there who bike and, you know, want to be, like, safe,” she said.
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