Inspiring to see a church full of welcome

This week’s Mediahuis Irish regional newspapers’ column.

Michael Commane

Friday, December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, was the first time in my life that I sat in front of a television screen for two hours forty minutes watching a Mass from a Catholic Church. 

It was the funeral Mass of Shane McGowan in the church of St Mary of the Rosary in Nenagh, County Tipperary. The officiating priest was Fr Patrick Gilbert, who is the pp in Nenagh.

Can anything ever be the same again in the Irish Catholic Church? Here we are, in a more or less shambolic state, churches emptying by the hour, fewer and fewer weddings taking place in churches, children not being baptised and in the blink of an eye a church in Co Tipperary is the talk of the town, indeed, of the world. RTÉ News Channel, Sky and BBC  carried it live.

Okay, it was the funeral of a world famous pop star, it had all the drama that that entails. Many of the great and good were there. But there was far more to it than that.

It was an occasion of prayer, people gathered in God’s name. It was a genuine attempt linking the God beyond us or ‘out there’ and the God ‘in our midst’ with words, music and dance. Fr Gilbert did a brilliant job in choreographing the Mass from start to finish.

It was a Eucharistic celebration, where people genuinely praised God in word, song and dance. Isn’t that what the seven Sacraments are about, making real the incarnation, making the life of the God man Jesus Christ run live through our veins?

How often do we go to liturgical celebrations where we are bored? How often is there complete disconnect between people and priest? What is happening liturgically in the Irish Catholic Church right now is bleak.

 

It was all different in the Church of St Mary of the Rosary for Shane McGowan’s funeral Mass.

Can ever again priests dictate to people how a funeral or wedding Mass is to be conducted? Of course there are protocols to which we have to adhere but meaningless rules and regulations are part of the reason why the Irish Catholic Church is where it is today.

Not everyone can speak like Shane’s sister Siobhan or his wife, Victoria Clarke. My heavens, did they pull you into their words.

I did not think it appropriate for someone reading a lesson to address the congregation on completion of the scripture reading. Nor was I impressed with the antics of another reader while he was reading. But they are small issues looking across the entire canvas.

The dancing at the end of the Mass happened so naturally, spontaneously too. They were celebrating the life of the mortal remains of the man in the wicker coffin but they were also celebrating resurrection.

Words from Fr Gilbert: ‘Your life gave growth to so many of us Shane, and your bright light gave salvation to our often dark and empty skies.

‘Not the end, not the end, just remember that death is not the end. Rest in peace Shane.’

Interesting that this happened in Ireland on the feast of the Immaculate Conception.