Greg Daly
The Pope in Ireland
Even wind and rain couldn’t dampen the spirits of up to 300,000 pilgrims who made their way to Dublin’s Phoenix Park on Sunday where a carnival atmosphere surrounded the closing Mass of the ninth World Meeting of Families.
A host of performers ranging from Audrey Assad and Eimear Quinn to Daniel O’Donnell and the Northern Irish Rend Collective entertained pilgrims before and after the Mass in the Park’s Fifteen Acres, with children breaking out into dance at the fringes of the gathering.
The opening hymn to the Mass was Ephrem Feeley’s ‘A Joy for all the Earth’, the official hymn of WMOF2018, sung by a 3,000-strong choir, and then ceremonies took on a sombre tone, as Pope Francis read in Spanish from a handwritten note he had penned that morning, begging forgiveness for abuses committed by members of the Church.
Fr Liam Lawton’s psalm ‘The Lord Hears the Cry of the Poor’, written especially for WMOF2018, followed the first reading, read in Irish from the book of Joshua by Clontarf’s Marie Whelan, one of those who has worked on the new Irish translation of the Mass.
The second reading, from St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, was read in the Pope’s native Spanish by the Argentina-born Teresa Menendez, marketing manager of WMOF2018.
Dublin’s Deacon Paul McHugh read from the Gospel of John, with the Pope then stepping into his traditional role of confirming his brethren in their Faith, encouraging those gathered to hold to their Faith even if it seemed hard. The Apostles’ Creed was then sung to John O’Keefe’s own composition, with Fr Pat Ahern’s ‘A Thiarna Éist Linn’ being sung between the Prayers of the Faithful.
Olive Foley, widow of former Munster coach Anthony Foley, and mother-of-five Emma Mhic Mhathuna, accompanied by their children, were among those who brought up gifts in the Offertory Procession to the strains of Z. Randall Stroope’s ‘Caritas et Amor’, with the bread and wine being placed on the altar beside an 18th-Century penal cross.
After the consecration, priests and filed out among the people, with yellow umbrellas marking those whose ciboria contained gluten-friendly bread as Communion was shared with over a quarter of a million people.
Several hymns later, the priests returned to their seats and the ceremony was brought to a close: Cardinal Farrell announced that the next World Meeting of Families will be held in Rome, the Pope gave his final blessing, and the Mass ended, while the festivities continued as the crowds trailed out to take the message of WMOF2018 to their families and communities.