For the steward in the basilica, the gathering in Knock, Co Mayo, yesterday was "a great crowd". "Sure, we had 10,000 miraculous medals and they're all gone." The medals were given out to people as they gathered for the Mass, writes Patsy McGarry in Knock
To his right the Primate, Archbishop Seán Brady, was being mobbed like a pop star as he tried to make his way to the sacristy.
Informality marked the Mass of thanksgiving for the beatification of Mother Teresa.
The very personification of ease, Mgr Joe Quinn, parish priest at Knock, had pointed out earlier that Mother Teresa had been there 10 years previously, in 1993.
There were 50,000 people there then.
"Grow old very, very slowly," the then archbishop of Tuam Dr Joe Cassidy had advised her. "He gave a great sermon on the dignity of human life," Mgr Quinn recalled of the day.
"You know he's just like Fr Horan," the steward in the basilica said of Mgr Quinn admiringly.
He was referring to the late Mgr Horan, the famed former parish priest of Knock.
The Mass brought to an end this year's pilgrimage season at Knock, Mgr Quinn told the congregation before suggesting there were even greater things ahead.
"Next year we celebrate the 125th anniversary of the apparition (at the Marian shrine in 1879) and the 150th anniversary of the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception," he said.
They are used to large crowds in Knock.
A plaque at the foot of the Celtic cross commemorating the Pope's Mass there in 1979 ("the greatest event in Irish history since the coming of St Patrick") notes that 450,000 people were present that day.
No wonder Lourdes is interested. "The daddy of them all," is how Fr Richard Gibbons, curate at Knock, refers to Lourdes. He was explaining that the rector at Lourdes and some staff from there visited Knock recently.
At the entrances to the shrine campaigners for the inclusion of God in the EU constitution were busy. They were collecting names on a petition.
"They can impose anything on us," said one women seeking a signature.
To which a willing signatory of advancing years added, "and I suppose the young people will fall for it".
At another entrance a campaigner told the interested: "They don't want God. Sure he made the whole lot. Jews, Christians, Muslims are all working at this one."
Two men collecting signatures were John Ferry and Frank O'Brien from Sligo. They are part of a European-wide campaign and hope to have a million signatures collected before the EU heads of state meeting in Rome in December. They were very heartened that Church of Ireland Bishop Ken Clarke of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh had lent his full support to the campaign.
Garda Insp Tom Fitzmaurice passed by. There was a mild Garda presence and it was he who later estimated the crowd at 10,000.
In the village, the St Martin, St Anthony, St Brendan, and St Jarlath souvenir shops seemed to be doing well. As was St Anne's restaurant and take-away.
Postcards of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta were selling at 60c. Souvenirs of her were on offer from €1.30.
Such was the shortage of her relics in the basilica that Mgr Quinn told the congregation they were "not suitable for individual veneration". They were held aloft by Archbishop Brady.
Outside, there were Blessed Teresa key rings, rosaries and car magnets for sale. Statues of "Madre Teresa" were going for €30 and €25, proving that in Knock, as elsewhere, it pays to shop around.
And, above it all, the pining of a male singer for "beautiful Eileen Mahon, the pride of Erin's green shore" came from another stall.