Tom McMahon begins his commentary today with a correction to last week's: "The interruption of last week's commentary with the announcement of Tom's fourth grandchild has the baby's name wrong. 'The naughty lady from shady lane who's got the world in a whirl' is ADRIANNE. See what happens when 81-year-old granddads are left out of the family communication system. Welcome Adrianne Phoenix McMahon! It's a great world with many human-made problems." This is a moving commentary from Tom exploring the first three of The Beatitudes...

Jesus the human therapist … the woman at the well scenario … human.

The 100-year-old picture that inspired me to write this commentary has disappeared when my new computer was installed. It now lies somewhere in the volume of paper that surrounds me in my back home office. I will continue to search, needing to move into this commentary on the Beatitudes … someday, Thomas, you dreamer at 81, I will clean up the mess!

In the background St. Patrick's Seminary is visible, my trained eye aware that the photo is taken after the Fire and Earthquake of 1906.

The original fourth floor is missing destroyed by the famous earthquake. In the foreground sits a woman in long Victorian dress and large hat while her mustached husband rests against a palm tree, head topped with derby. They are fifty miles south of San Francisco in Menlo Park on a monthly visiting Sunday as their son Thomas Ignatius Bresnahan prepares for the Roman Catholic priesthood. The photo is taken in 1910, Tommy Tucker, 14 years old, eventually to be ordained in 1922 as the 8th native son of Baghdad by the Bay. The couple are my maternal grandparents and I suspect that the picture is taken by their 13-year-old daughter, May, my eventual Mother.

More on Anita Gaspari and the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart mentioned in last weeks' commentary

Tom has located the book that tells the story of Sr Anita Gaspari and the Crisis faced by the Immaculate Heart Community of California. I've added the book to the Catholica marketplace and the Amazon site contains selected excerpts from inside the book.

My trained eye easily picks up the lack of tension in the faces of the middle aged couple; they seem so relaxed. Little did they realize as faithful Catholics that one of their great grandchildren would be a mental health therapist as well as an ordained Catholic priest and fairly proficient at understanding body language. Relaxation is one of the major health tools of the age of technology. 65% of workers in the Silicon Valley would leave their high paying tech jobs tomorrow if they could find work where there is less stress. Stress is becoming a major killer, causing cancers and mental breakdowns across the globe. The Beatitudes of Jesus the Christ (title = savior of humankind) are filled with human relaxation techniques. My favorite image of Jesus is the therapist listening to the troubled woman at the well.

Heh, reader keep in mind this is little Tommy McMahon writing, the fatherless kid from 15th Street, San Francisco, born and raised in the Great American 1930's Depression. Yes, I happened to go to that same seminary for 12 years becoming an ordained cleric and by chance a priest pursuant of mental health problems of all of God's people, including myself. Now how do the Beatitudes fit in? I prefer being categorized as a maturing human being rather than the classification of being a professional. Jesus was neither pro nor academic. Jesus was total human being who lived and worked among human beings. His way of life is very human and I believe salvific.

Blessed are the poor in spirit; theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Remember we saw Webster offer "happy" as a definition and Matthew's Gospel uses happy as well.

I like this being the opening one of the eight beatitudes, it telling which doorway to enter if I wish to find the kingdom of heaven. One needs to seek, to look around and try it out.

The reformer Jew, Jesus never looked beyond into the far off skies. His Father's kingdom was right here on earth — earthiness very much detailed in all eight beatitudes. As I watch our grandchildren grow, now almost 5 and 3, I see the poverty of on hands experiences that attends their innocent lives. Everything is new. They are content in their poverty (lack of) yet eager to learn and absorb the goodness of creation that surrounds them. In the midst of a consumer society they will lack nothing in the way of material goods and comforts, perhaps growing into adulthood without ever being sensitive to the millions of children who die of starvation and destructive wars in other countries of the world. I was blessed as a boy to have the nuns teach me of famine in 1930's China and the penny mite box has never been far from my adult mind. I live today in a family virtually oblivious to world problems. They are classic well-trained in Roman Catholic isolation and self-centeredness. My hope today is that I will leave a legacy of awareness of how others live. This leads me to the Second Beatitude — the one about gentleness and, like all the others, it deals with human relationships.

Happy are the gentle; they shall have the earth for their heritage.

Three California pieces of property bear my name as one who pays bi-annual taxes. My eldest son pointed out to me that I am among 2% of the world who owns three homes. It's a bothersome title for me as I well know the number of world homeless and those struggling to make ends meet. I won't try to explain to you how this fatherless boy from 15th Street became property-rich and money-strapped because his ancestors took up residence in California in the 1850's. At 81 I know that passing on land title to my children and grandchildren is not going to make them happy or gentle. The gentleness of my widowed mother remains for me the greatest of my inheritances. I have not been perfect in imitating Mom, so often blowing it with burst of anger and frustration. Yet Mom's gentle approach to her fellow human beings remains one of the beacon lights of my life. My Mom was never feared and virtually penniless in my youth. Mom had many friends. Mom treasured and possessed the "earth" in which she lived. I know something of my Mother's relationship to men, based on her written 'memories' of her father and the lasting love Mom had for my father; Mom made good choices and my elder sister tells me of the gentleness of our father. I was conceived and raised in a family blessed with gentleness and the art of forgiveness. Money and power can't buy happiness. Hilary Clinton tells us that "it takes a village to raise a child" and I see it so clearly as my now four grandchildren are being prepared to run full speed in the human rat race.

Blessed are those who mourn; they shall be comforted.

Along the path of life there will be doorways of disappointments and failures, portals that we may not choose personally to open but will spring upon us with bitter enforcement. I have seen many persons become bitter toward God (their childhood idea of a mechanical god who is a by product of the Industrial Age) because a loved one developed cancer or was killed as an innocent bystander to criminal activity. The world is a gigantic place with a huge human population. I see no micro manager deity as did the Greeks with Zeus and the Olympian gods and goddesses who by the way distained humans as creations of the semi gods (Along with DaVinci Dan Brown we call them today "angels and demons") … nor can I place faith in a God who sees to it a professional baseball player has a home run because he made a hasty Sign of the Cross as he steps to the plate. The Roman Catholic Church is paying a terrific price for teaching 5-6 year olds that they can offend the God who created the heavens and the earth — a Mystery who shows only love.

Those who mourn are able to get beyond self-love and truly grieve the loss of a valued person.

Death brings great loss to the living one who dies and this I mourn. As my Mother departed this world, actually never truly ever leaving it (me), Mom returned her gift of life gratefully to her Creator. Mom mourned my father for 60 years until the day she herself died. Her mourning was a silent appreciation for the love she shared with my Dad. Mom was comforted with the memory of a relationship two human beings worked at. Hundreds of people will come and go in my life time. Precious are those who hold me close no matter what my failures; it is so human to die and to undergo ten thousand deaths before I breathe my last. (Living Your Dying by Stanley Keleman) Blessed are they who accept me as human and who faithfully wait for me to experience a Jesus' resurrection to new life … long before I am finalized in my body.

Virtually every day I envision Jesus, the man from Nazareth, taking time to sit at the well with the village woman. Surely people gossiped, the man breaking man-made rules about a male Jew talking publicly to a high risk female, she having a bum reputation. How simple is the Jesus' therapy, how humanly genuine. As a Roman celibate I have had a life time of talking with troubled women (there was gossip) and married family man who had friendship with other females. I have often asked myself "what would Jesus do?" … and I calmly recall tension-stressed, disturbed villagers who took up stones to cast Jesus out because they were threatened by his style of living. I have searched the scriptures never to find an unhappy Jesus … and don't quote to me that Jesus was angry when he chased the money grabbers out of the temple. Jesus was happy to be angry and to boot the swindlers out of his Father's house and I am sure the people were delighted. I encourage that the Jesus of Community (People of God) rejoice in the present day catching and exposure of the scallywag clerics who have been posing as Jesus priests just because they got ordained.

P.S. Cheers to Reporter Joanne McCarthy, as carried in Catholica 23/5/10 [LINK] and her article showing her living the beatitude of gentleness … happy the pure of heart.

Tom McMahon in San Jose. Ca.. Beatitudes to be continued … I am enjoying and benefiting spiritually. (25/05/2010)

[Index of Commentaries by Tom McMahon]