DAWN MASS
“There are limitless possibilities within each one of us and, if we give ourselves any chance at all, it is unknown what we are capable of.”
In the early 1990s John initiated the idea of a Dawn Mass on Easter Sunday—a practice that has since grown in popularity across the country. He chose a very special and sacred site—the magnificent ruined abbey of Corcomroe in the heart of the Burren, Co. Clare. The abbey was built by the Cistercians in the eleventh/twelfth centuries. It was quite an extraordinary sight to see a procession of cars snaking along Burren roads to the abbey in the dark of the night (around 5 a.m.). The Dawn Mass was very much a community effort, as the local parishioners prepared an altar in the cemetery surrounding the abbey with a huge paschal fire nearby. They marshaled the traffic. Local musicians provided traditional airs throughout the ceremony. And there were tea and buns for everyone at the end of Mass. Hundreds of people have converged on the abbey. What follows is taken from a recording made on Easter Sunday, April 15, 1992. The light of the paschal fire pierces the dark and the first twitterings of the dawn chorus are heard as John begins…