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It unofficially began in 2006, when Msgr. Robert Ritchie was standing on the steps outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral following the 5:30 p.m. Saturday Mass on Marathon Eve, watching the traffic flow down Fifth Avenue
“People were coming up to me and saying, ‘Father, would you give me a blessing? I’m going to run tomorrow.’ That happened at least 10, 15 times,” the rector of St. Patrick’s Cathedral recalled this week. “So I thought, you know what, next year we’ll do something special.”
Runners have been blessed ever since at the now annual “Runners’ Mass” offered at St. Patrick’s the night before the New York City Marathon. Runners are invited into the sanctuary near the end of Mass for a special prayer and blessing with holy water. Some runners even bring their shoes for blessing. About 15 runners came up that initial year in 2007. The number has since grown to several hundred runners from around the world filling the sanctuary.
“They’re from all over the place,” Msgr. Ritchie said. “There’s a lot of Europeans. There’s a whole group of Italians that come every year. There’s a big Irish group that comes each year. A lot of them are from parts unknown. Then, of course, there are the local runners.
“And then everybody goes out on the front steps and takes pictures.”
This year’s TCS New York City Marathon is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 1, beginning as usual at the Staten Island end of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
