Séamus Ahearne: Sentry Duty

ELECTRIC PICNIC AND CROKE PARK: 

I struggled this weekend with a Sentry; with Conflict Resolution; and with Treating people like a Pagan, or a Tax Collector! So I tried to gather something together with three women and a token man! I see that tickets for Electric Picnic 2027 sold out within an hour. Some 80,000 tickets and  €325.50 for general admission. With no Acts yet announced. There is a Cost of Living crisis! Where is it? 

KATIE TAYLOR: 

Katie Taylor sold out Croke Park too for some 80,000 last evening. The Razzmatazz was something else. I asked at Mass this morning – did everyone watch it yesterday? The response was interesting. No. No. No. Boxing is barbaric. A woman boxing is even worse. And so say some of us.  However, this young lady has been a model for many. She is quiet. She is calm. She is most impressive. She is full of faith. Everything about her contradicts the business she was in. She is also an example too of someone making the most of herself and her life. She was a Sentry for God and for life. Sheer tenacity. 

DOLLY PARTON: 

And then there was Dolly Parton from rural Tennessee, who died on the 25 August. And ‘I will always love you.’ Who was bold enough and strong enough to say NO to Elvis, who wanted that song and whose management wanted 50% of the Royalties. Whether we liked her singing or not she has made a deep impression on everyone. Her Business Acumen. Her Philanthropy. Her arrival from poverty. Her success in the dangerous world of entertainment. Her Goodness and Generosity and her Graciousness. Her Godliness. She made so much of herself and was that Sentry for living. In the midst of much dullness and badness in our world, she shone out. A light. A Sentry. 

THE SIGNING OF HELEN: 

And then there was Helen.  She was deaf and dumb. Her husband Cathal was deaf and dumb. Everything was ‘signed’ in that family. Nothing stopped her. She could do everything. She was straight. She was ‘loud’ and ‘direct.’ She knew her mind and she had her ‘say.’ Her home was a thing of beauty. Her work with embroidery and crochet was extraordinary and beautiful. She made flowers. She made bags. She swan with dolphins. She worked hard. Nothing ever was beyond her. The rest of us find excuses to limit what we do, for all kinds of reasons. But not Helen. What a privilege it was to be let into the intimacy of a silent world and to be exposed to such possibilities? She was a Sentry. 

TONY:  

Oh yes – the token man! Well Tony died at 88 and we had his funeral yesterday. His last words to his wife Cecilia were: ‘Four hungry children and a crop in the field.’ His children weren’t hungry but he enjoyed their rearing. And his consistent, and then last word was – Thank you. A Sentry for God. None of the four above, spoke of being ‘seduced by God’ or fighting with God and being weary trying ‘to resist the fire within.’ But they gave in the Seduction. ‘I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full.’ (Jn 10.10)    

A STODGY CHURCH AND THE WORDS OF PHIL LARKIN: 

However, the challenge (weekend Readings) isn’t about pointing out the faults of others (even in Confession) but rather helping (as we say with children) ‘to be their better selves.’ Katie, Dolly, Helen and Tony were their better selves. They stretched the muscles of their imaginations and reached out and up. In Church life, we need more stretching, and more reaching out, and much less dead formality and ritualism. A Stodgy Church is not Godly. God is with us in the poetry of the ordinary. Even Phil Larkin was right in ‘Church Going’-  we touch the Pews and the Books and the Baptism Font, and we are handed the ‘baton’ for the relay race of faith. 

Seamus Ahearne osa 6 September 2026.