IT WAS Croke Park, the hallowed ground, but not as we know it, sister.The sign leading off the players’ tunnel read: “Cardinals, Patriarchs, Archbishops and Bishops .”
Later, Cardinal Seán Brady would stand there, pensive and oddly alone – like many a team captain before him – waiting to lead out the hierarchy’s team.
On the pitch, a priest with a gaggle of pilgrims behind, held aloft a large Cuban flag, waving it from side to side like an officer motivating his troops before a battle.
A host of cardinals emerged from a tunnel on the Cusack Stand side, transparent plastic ponchos laboriously wrapped around their heads and bodies, the better to protect the red hats and resplendent, flowing robes from the cold, spitting rain.
Down the pitch, among the faithful, umbrellas went up and stewards hesitated, unsure about whether to enforce the “no umbrella” rule.
“Ponchos are for sale in the museum,” a volunteer steward shouted to colleagues.
But how do you tell a row of stately Legionaries of Mary, all the way from Winnipeg, to lower their umbrellas in the Irish rain? You don’t.
Around the stadium, on the fascia panels where sponsors usually advertise their wares and feverish fans drape their county flags, the names of parishes took pride of place – places such as Lordship and Modeligo, Knocknagoshel and Kilrossanty, Ballyneale and Castletownbere, Loughgall and Touraneena, Mullingar and Grangemockler . . . Flasks and sandwiches were unpacked as older eyes squinted at the instructions on the screens on either side of the altar.
How do you arrange for 50,000 Holy Communions on a football pitch?
Communion would be available at distribution points marked by white umbrellas (red for those with gluten intolerance), the screens informed us, and priests would receive by – brand new word here – “intinction”.
This is when the separate steps of receiving the bread and wine are combined into one for speed reasons and the host is dipped into the chalice, said Fr Kevin Doran.
There was also a “no kneeling” rule, since kneeling was banned – officially, for safety reasons.
Arthritic knees might have had more to do with it, not to mention the contortions that might have been required of those sitting in the stand.
At appropriate junctures, pilgrims would be told when to stand or sit by monitoring the angel-like symbols on the screens.
It was a small insight into the logistical challenges and the choreography surrounding an event for which 75,000 tickets had been sold, with all the demands of a rock concert.
“There is a God,” chortled Fr Aidan Devine, as blueish patches threatened the leaden skies over Croke Park.
In the ultimate act of faith, some cardinals – exposed to the elements in front of the stage with row upon row of archbishops and clerics – started to unwind the plastic ponchos.
Fr Devine, resplendent in a cowboy-style navy hat, a man descended from several generations of Newfoundlanders and still with a trace of a Kerry accent, had reason to watch the weather.
He was there when the closing Mass of the last Eucharistic Congress in Canada four years ago had to be cancelled amid a battering from rain and wind.
“So it’s not just Ireland that gets the rain,” said Mgr Alfred Culmer sitting beside him, who talked enthusiastically about the workshops at the RDS and one in particular that he finally gained access to after waiting five days.
Having flown from the balmy Bahamas (with 24 pilgrims), he was prescient in his choice of headgear. The black, woolly beanie must have been an object of envy later when a chilly breeze whipped around the stadium.
Here were two genial priests, happy to be there, with nothing but good to say about Ireland’s hospitality and the testaments of faith they had witnessed all week.
For about an hour at least, as the blue sky patches had their brief and joyful reign, there was an air of blessed festivity.
A lanky young priest with an iPad took photographs of bishops and cardinals. Grave eminences rose from their seats and glided around, chatting and renewing old acquaintanceships.
Bishops left their mitres on their seats to mingle.
Some glamorous Filipino women in seats of honour towards the front politely declined to say what their role was as it was a “surprise”.
Elvira Go, who described herself as a radio host but also turned out to be communications director for the Archbishop of Manila, spoke with great certainty about Ireland’s need to turn back to the faith and considered the irony of Filipinos becoming “the future evangelisers”, a role previously occupied by Ireland.
Since the Philippines – population 96 million – was named yesterday as the next congress venue, the odds are high Ms Go will have a prominent role in 2016.
Meanwhile, the part of the proceedings described as the Gathering was proceeding onstage, hosted by Joe Duffy and Eileen Dunne, with formal announcements for the entrance of the Taoiseach and the President.
Theatrical flourishes such as the loud “heartbeat” used to accompany Margaret Ó Dálaigh’s address – “Here we are, a gathering of people impossible to count, from every tribe and people and nation, thousands of hearts beating” – were balanced by inspirational insights into faith by people such as Meabh Carlin, a young teacher from Lurgan, Co Armagh, who was at World Youth Day in Madrid last year when she was hit by a car, suffered injuries to her pelvis and groin and now uses a wheelchair.
Majestic and memorable musical performances came with soprano Celine Byrne’s Ave Maria, Liam Lawton’s The Cloud’s Veil, The Three Tenors’ You Raise me Up and the Monasterevin Gospel Choir with He is High and Lifted Up.
Micheál O Muircheartaigh spoke the words of Ag Criost An Siol – “To Christ the Seed to Christ the harvest into the barn . . . ” – to the music of Fuaimlaoi, a group of singers and instrumentalists under composer Ronan McDonagh, who fuse liturgical music and Irish culture.
One of the most compelling features was black-and-white footage from the 1932 Eucharistic Congress – featuring the papal legate and hierarchy moving with pomp and majesty among the armies of feverishly devout faithful, amid streets filled with banners and bunting – and the singing of Panis Angelicus by Count John McCormack, which here was made to merge almost seamlessly into a superb rendering by Celine Byrne and others.
An effort had clearly been made to feature women conspicuously among those doing the readings and the Offertory prayers.
Still, as an Irish teacher put it, “the men still rule . . . No matter how well-disposed you are, it’s hard to get around that when you see them up there row upon row and all the male eminences on the altar – five cardinals, four archbishops, two bishops and two deacons. All men.”
As hundreds of the volunteer stewards queued up in their high-vis vests for Communion – their privilege to go first – up in the media box, Marie Collins, an abuse survivor, surveyed the scene.
She had come because her husband Ray was singing here with the Firhouse parish choir and it’s fair to say that she did not look hugely inspired. “It hasn’t really had a huge impact on me,” she said.
“I’m finding it very difficult, very difficult to sit here with Seán Brady up there presiding. I still find it very hard and I still feel very distanced from the institutional church.”
But like everyone else, she loved the music.
And in the end, someone with influence smiled on the occasion.
The rain that seemed to threaten at regular intervals was averted.
In the end, tens of thousands of people boarded the buses for home, with a sense of mission accomplished.