Tom McMahon's commentary today includes a link to a photo essay on Tom's friend, retired Sacramento Bishop Francis Quinn, which is well-worth the visit for looking at the face of a truly pastoral bishop. Following Jesus is about living in relationship with others, not some game of trying to prove we have all the rules, or know all the rules, and the rest of society doesn't. How did dogma creep into Catholicism to replace the Beatitudes?

Off I Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder … a different setting for age old wisdom … Jesus in the modern world

I open this commentary with an alert! To understand this Tom McMahon fellow I (Tom himself) have to sit back now and then, virtually everyday, and check list the world in which I live and how my brain functions in this mystery called life. Jeff Burns, archdiocesan archivist, married deacon, and university history professor said of me "Tom, you have one foot in the old world and the other in the new". Sean O'Connell of Northern Ireland flattered me by referring to me as a Frontiersman. I continue to refer to myself as the San Francisco kid who grew up in the Great Depression, was blessed by Catholic grandparents and parents who loved life and nature, and has lived long enough to see the modern reform of religion in Vatican Two. I'm genetically wired to watch what is going on and compare newness to old. My motto continues to be: "there are no experts".

I'm addicted to WW2 History Channel videos. I learn humans are capable of marvelous inventions, one case being the 1943 invention of the P51 airplane and its ability to fly all the way to Berlin and back, protecting US bombers. The P51 was the brainchild of scientists and engineers who met a desperate need. My confusion comes when I realize that human ingenuity protected mechanical airplanes at the cost of the lives of many young German pilots. My brain discovers confusion when I study the insanity and horrors of war and man's inhumanity to man … and man/homo here includes women. I need to step back and take a hard look at myself and the rest of my fellow beings to see how human I am. I know that being a Jesus follower demands I look behind the socially acceptable and the technical to see the human. Human beings are not perfect. I sense that women have a better understanding of human nature.

Charlie Rose series on the Brain

The Charlie Rose show has been running a series on the Brain. The eighth program in the series to which Tom refers can be viewed online at: www.charlierose.com/

With fascination I watched Charlie Rose, speaking with gifted scientists about the human brain, today's show featuring fear and trauma. The female brain is 7% smaller than the male and works through different cortex. The Rose film will be restudied particularly in our Senior Health program of which I am moderator. Silently as I watched I slip in my long-held concepts of the fearful trauma introduced to Catholic children at First Communion time — ideas about sin and guilt and the innocent child being taught he/she could offend a far off God. Someday the system will be seen as child abuse. Misunderstood traditions can pass on such dreadful mis-information. Teaching children to go to confession started around 1925, perhaps even as late as the early 30's … What a crime? Today my sense is that few Catholic adults use the confessional box and the practice will just disappear. Is it time for a new sign of Jesus' human mercy? I recommend a private adult examination of conscience based on the beatitudes and healthy life examples for the kids.

The settings in the above examples are for me dualistic, my childhood memories of a war both my brothers fought in and my present stand as a peace advocate, along with weekly confession for 12 years as a seminarian while I had no concept of real life. There are times when the old Catholic in me collides with the informed reformer. Sin and guilt are long gone as I search for and thirst for knowledge, especially where Jesus can fit into this world picture and how a Creator-God functions in my life — and yours.

Now back to the Beatitudes which I consider as sleeper keys to human sanity and happiness. Hello Matthew, Chapter 5. I view the beatitudes as summaries of various themes that Jesus promoted in his ministry. I read them individually as Jesus guidelines, it being up to me to match up life examples, more than the mere words.

Blessed are those who hunger & thirst for what is right; they shall be satisfied.

O come on Jesus … take a look around at the history of wars and the injustices that attend to daily life of so many innocent human beings. Justice for the people? OK, I hear you. You really believe justice is possible? I know that inner peace that comes when I refuse to buy into contaminative conversation about those newcomers who have fled poverty and injustice and appear now to be taking a piece of my hard-earned pie. (The immigration issue in America and I suspect in other countries.) It's your word HUNGER that frightens me and I have confusion at times keeping your use of "yearning" in mind.

As an American living in Silicon Valley who has easy access to a remote that can switch TV stations I really don't know what the word yearning means. I have never been hungry even as a 1930's depression kid and I have spent a lifetime without having to yearn for something … except peace and what is right for others. I am not going to waste my time wondering about the other fellow who may have been taught from childhood to hoard his share … and maybe a lot more. Jesus addressed him in the parable of the land owner who had lots of barns filled to the brim but got called by the Grim Reaper without warning. (I hope this one is not read like a guilt trip lesson.) I've got enough "goodies and toys" to fill ten thousand 1930's Fibber Magee radio closets and I know that there are many "out there" who haven't got a daily ration.

Photo Essay of Bishop Francis Quinn

The article about Bishop Francis Quinn to which Tom McMahon refers is available for purchase in the archives at the Sacramento Bee. You can though still view for free a moving photo essay of the aged bishop on the newspaper's website. The five frames above are just a sample of the photographs in the collection all of which are available for purchase. Click on the image above to see the complete photo essay at full size on the www.sacbee.com website.

I have a dear friend, a Roman Catholic Bishop whose style of life haunts me. Francis Quinn lives today in a home for the elderly, crippled a bit at 88, Frank has his picture in the Sacramento Bee "reading the newspaper to Stan Gilliam 85 a former Bee writer whose eyesight is failing". (Article March 10, 2010, Sacramento Bee by Jennifer Garza www.sacbee.com/livinghere/ No longer freely available online. Available from archive search at $US2.95.) Frank is my hero. When a pastor in San Francisco, Frank slept on the downtown streets to experience first-hand the plight of the homeless. Upon retirement he went to Tucson, Arizona to minister to the indigenous Indian people. As editor of the local Catholic paper back in 1965 Frank published two articles of mine on Vatican Two. I blame Frank for my flexing forth to the world on how I think. Frank is a happy man as he has yearned for and practiced justice all his life. He's a Jesus' man.

On June 30th I shall motor to Sacramento, paying $45 for a ticket to a BEACON OF HOPE program celebrating the dedication of QUINN COTTAGES and SERNA VILLAGE. I'll just silently watch with great pride and joy as this humble priest is remembered for donning an apron and serving food to the homeless and his spiritual leadership in projects like Aids Hospice, protests of the death penalty and nuclear armament, immigration reform, and the problem of homelessness. I see over 1200 children will no longer be homeless because Frank sat down with city officials and envisioned a solution to a horrible human problem. When I see Bishop Quinn I always come face-to-face with a gentle Jesus' smile, the sure sign of a Jesus' servant priest.

Happy are the Merciful; they shall have mercy shown to them.

MERCY IS THE ON-GOING EXPERIENCE OF BEING ABLE TO LOOK BEYOND ONE'S SELF AND APPRECIATE THE PAIN and NEED IN ANOTHER. HAPPY THE MERCIFUL; THEY SHALL HAVE MERCY SHOWN THEM … AND Tom adds: mercy seems to be self generative, the reward of joy is recyclable.

Tom McMahon in San Jose. Ca., getting old and enjoying any mercy shown to me. (01/06/2010)

[Index of Commentaries by Tom McMahon]