This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.
Michael Commane
Croke Park, All Ireland Day, Sunday, July 27, Cusack Stand, Lower Tier, Section 304, Row FF, Seat 9; it was a great seat, even better because the two seats directly in front of us were vacant; maybe the only two empty seats on the day.
The person sitting in the seat to my right was not slim and his elbow was sticking into my side; he was eating the most horrible chips I’ve ever seen. He was a Donegal supporter from Derry; a nice fella and we shared a few laughs. I never mentioned about the chips but I think he read my face.
The game was a few minutes late starting; not professional I thought.
But once it started I never missed a kick of the ball. Let me explain I seldom if ever go to Croke Park or indeed any game. A fellow Dominican, who is good friend offered me the ticket to go with him. On a few occasions I go to games to watch Maurice O’Connell play for Castlegregory. I baptised him and take all credit for his great footballing skills.
The excitement and celebration of bringing Sam back to Kerry is dying down; the players are returning to their normal lives and the win is well gone from the front pages of the newspapers, even The Kerryman.
As a child I was occasionally frog-marched to Croke Park. I can still remember playing and running about in the press gallery. My uncle, John D Hickey was Gaelic Games writer with The Irish Independent. My mother thought it would be good for me to tag along.
That was fadó fadó. It was a completely different world on and off the pitch.
Up until the 1960s the Archbishop of Cashel and Emly threw in the ball at the All-Ireland final. The archbishop is still the patron of the GAA and is guest of honour at All-Ireland final day. Croke Park is called after Archbishop Thomas Croke (1824 – 1902), one of the founding patrons of the organisation.
Watching this year’s final, while concentrating on the game, I kept having flashbacks of another Ireland.
The new stadium is a masterpiece of design; my expert friends tell me it is a completely different game than was played when archbishops threw in the ball.
It might be an exaggeration to say that every second person in Croke Park would have been a Christian Brother or a priest but all those black suits and hats would have been well scattered around the grounds and there would have been many bishops, archbishops and priests in the VIP seating.
The times they are a-changing; that’s part of the living experience. I keep thinking how the GAA was hand-in-glove with the Catholic Church.
The GAA is constantly developing. Might the church get some tips from the GAA? If only the Irish bishops could seriously take on board the Synodal ideas, which Pope Francis initiated.
On the website diary of the Archdiocese of Dublin it talks about Friday, August 15, feast Assumption being a ‘Holy Day of Obligation’. What sort of alienating language is that to use.
I thoroughly enjoyed the game.
Up Kerry, and the church/the people of God too.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, to which you presumably ascribe, states:
ReplyDelete2041 The precepts of the Church are set in the context of a moral life bound to and nourished by liturgical life. The obligatory character of these positive laws decreed by the pastoral authorities is meant to guarantee to the faithful the very necessary minimum in the spirit of prayer and moral effort, in the growth in love of God and neighbor:
2042 The first precept ("You shall attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor") requires the faithful to sanctify the day commemorating the Resurrection of the Lord as well as the principal liturgical feasts honoring the mysteries of the Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the saints; in the first place, by participating in the Eucharistic celebration, in which the Christian community is gathered, and by resting from those works and activities which could impede such a
sanctification of these days.
2177 The Sunday celebration of the Lord's Day and his Eucharist is at the heart of the Church's life.
"Sunday is the day on which the paschal mystery is celebrated in light of the apostolic tradition and is to be observed as the foremost holy day of obligation in the universal Church."
"Also to be observed are the day of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Epiphany, the Ascension of Christ, the feast of the Body and Blood of Christi, the feast of Mary the Mother of God, her Immaculate Conception, her Assumption, the feast of Saint Joseph, the feast of the Apostles Saints
Peter and Paul, and the feast of All Saints."