Tom McMahon got a bit sidetracked somewhere between sitting down to write this week's commentary on the beatitudes and actually finished it. In his opening he apologises for that as you'll read. Most readers will forgive him as this turns into a fascinating commentary applicable in different ways to all of us, and the families we come from. It's essentially an analysis of that complexity of social forces that shape up individually and which also shape the institutions and types of societies we build. It's a sidetrack from the Beatitude, "Blessed are the Pure of Spirit", but perhaps not too much of a sidetrack. Enjoy!

Tom's intro...

While nearing the end of a lengthy commentary on tthis week's beatitude ("Blessed are the Pure of Spirit") I went back into my archives to a long article that looks at the human plight and imperfections of the McMahon clan. First I thought I would quote partially … but then, no. It was too hard to cut up what I had worked so hard on in 2007. With tears I could not take a word out of the piece and I hope Brian feels the same. My people were clean of heart, genuinely human and plagued with human problems. They were a Jesus' people who lived the beatitudes and were loved by their Creator. My Mom used to refer to them as beautiful people. My Mom saw all creation as a beautiful gift.

"A LITTLE BIT OF HEAVEN FELL FROM OUT THE SKY ONE DAY…" You know the whimsical song and it fits well into this third generation American with the genes of Irish great grandparents who came to America in the 1850's. Four generations back for me; these same Irish genes float somewhere around Australia today also: my cousin exiled to Botany Bay sometime around the 1840's. Convict Bill's parents are my great great grandparents. Hello to my Australian cousins wherever you are!

My great grandparents brought to San Francisco a beautiful work ethic, a respect for their fellow human beings, and the joy of living life. Quietly they lived the Beatitudes. They also brought along a confusing mixture of a love-fear of their God. In the 2007 paper that follows read of their human struggle and how they coped. I saw in my ancestors a purity of heart that was contaminated by the ultramontane church. I shall write more about this next week. My extended and immediate family has not been happy as this "ex-priest-turned-psychologist" analyzed the McMahon family system … the prophet is never accepted in his own country and truth is sometimes hard to work with.

Back to the Pure of Heart and Rome next week. Encouraged by James Joyce and Tim Unsworth's HERE COMES EVERYBODY, I invite you to read experience of my McMahon clan. These are some of the forces that shaped our Christian Catholic human story...

Our family buries one of its members … memories and genetics… a paper in response to young cousins asking me for history and family stories ... part of the McMahon clan history…

The tangible remains of the deceased are reduced to an urn of ashes and a Blessed Mother holy card with a few simple facts telling much of his life story; there are three significant items on the holy card that occupied me during Michael's funeral mass, namely his last name McMahon, the year/date of his birth September 19, 1948, and the Serenity prayer. There are five persons alive today who are old enough to know how to weave together current historical facts that have had impact on the lives of the McMahon clan and particularly Michael himself; four of these are blood line Irish descendents, namely Joanie McMahon Hautzinger, Dr. Jack McMahon, this writer Tom, Sister Thomasine McMahon (Midge), and Betty, Michael's mother, who enters the McMahon family system through marriage.

These are bronze sculptures depicting victims of the Irish Potato Famine on public display in Dublin. Click image or HERE for source and to enlarge image. The images used in the headline image are also taken from these sculptures and an enlargement and further details of those images can be found HERE.

My purpose is to piece together historical data that I believe we McMahons carry genetically since the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840's. Allow me to flesh out the genetics carried as best I can trace and appreciate them as driving forces in the Irish–American tribe called McMahon. I am genetically an Irish story teller. In Butte at a funeral one would say repeatedly "I am sorry for your troubles". This simple statement brings together a multitude of historical events that are carried in the blood of American Irish. This piece is not an apology nor a accusation; it is homespun research falling back on my knowledge of family history, psychology, and sociology. I for one am willing to admit the whole McMahon clan has had its share of glory and Irish troubles. An historical Jesus would be today a consoling factor, not a condemnation.

The Mc (=son of; O' designates grandson) tells me we are the offspring of perhaps a Mahoney (or some phonetic spelling of people from an ancient Celtic tribal unit in the region of My Many); Celts are interesting in that original European pre-Christian groups laid claim to no land, migrating across what we now call old Europe to keep away from the likes of Julius Caesar who was determined to destroy them; the Druids are more than likely their lawyers, teachers, and priests in disguise and Gypsies as modern day counterparts come closest to the original migrants. Celtic mythology is a blast to study. Irish history is more than difficult to appreciate. Our more immediate family people survive during a period of Irish history in which they being deprived of education were illiterate, unable to read or write; we might say they were old world — third world people. Some of my descendents were taught in "Hedge School", literally behind the hedge by a daring rebellious young priest who defied the older pastor and English law. The 1860's deed of purchase for Bresnahan property at 664 Natoma is signed with an X, with back up witnesses. The 500-year long Little Ice Age had brought havoc to Europe, the impact on the Irish was experienced mainly in the blight of the potato, Ireland's staple diet. The 1837 Report On the Poor of Ireland estimates that 2,385,000 persons in Ireland were in a state of semi-starvation every summer; I marvel at the genes brought to America by my founding grandparents as I calculate that my great grandparents were adults in 1837. Grandson James Bresnahan, my maternal grandfather, is born in San Francisco in 1866.

During the famine Irish aristocrat Cardinal Paul Cullen, living in a castle in Rome, condemned the Irish people as faithless, preaching that God had cursed the Irish people for their infidelity; nearly three quarters of Ireland died of starvation and typhoid, at times boarding up shacks with the sick inside and then burning the whole when all were dead. In desperation they took clothing off their dead after they buried them and a shame-filled image of themselves was dominant. Cullen removed the clergy from the hovel plight of the people and an apartheid division was established/cemented between clergy and people; this is a separate history, yet profoundly influential on my ancestral kin. Cullen is no Jesus.

Leon Uris gives a powerful accounting in TRINITY as does his daughter in her picture book of the savage beauty of Ireland. There are many sociological books such as Thomas Keneally's THE GREAT SHAME; yet Irish history is very secretive and the genuine Irish man and woman never speak of those tragic days. I treasure Anne Carpenter Hayashi's FAMINE AND FAITH, THE EMERGENCE OF IRISH CATHOLICISM, a thesis dedicated "to Jane McGuiness Baggott and all my family who braved the coffin ships to find an end to suffering and to be free". In 1965 Vatican Council Two paved a path for all peoples to break through the national barriers of guilt. Sin is a middle ages archer's term meaning "missing the mark"; the erroneous misunderstanding of venial and mortal sins that we knew as children originates in the 16th century and has no place in a Jesus' religion or a history of a devastated people.

Church records in Virginia City, Nevada show the donation of $100 in gold by the McMahon family to the building of St. Mary's of the Mountains church; please forgive me as I view this as payoff money. Our family was bedeviled with guilt, sexual ignorance and immaturity, and the need of and fear of priests and the attachment to the church for eternal salvation. The physical condition of the people became irrelevant as the Irish bishops were placed in power positions as the institutional Roman church attempted to bring the Irish people from poverty to an English style respectability; the denial of human suffering was covered over by the emphasis on saving one's soul in a far-off world. Guilt was the heavy glue that joined doomsday and earthly joy from early childhood and God was mistakenly taught as distant and punishing. Children's confession can be traced back only to 1910; in America innocent children at age 5 were taught that they could offend an all loving God. Insistence on unworthiness still dominates the Catholic liturgy, especially through the pipeline of immigrant Irish clergy. Catholics are known for their sense of guilt. Children of our age were unknowingly traumatized by fear. The God proclaimed by Jesus (Abba or loving Father) got shoved to the background until Vatican Two; our Creator loves all of creation. I firmly believe God loves me … and you!

The Irish who came to America were traumatized people...

Driven from Ireland by tragic national illness and the will to survive two brothers come to Virginia City, Nevada in the 1870's to work in the Comstock Silver Mines. One, the benefactor of Primo Genitor laws that favor the eldest son, returns to Ireland and establishes the McMahon clan in the Ring of Kerry, while Alexander John McMahon remains, marrying JoHanna Bresnahan. I have their marriage record dated October 20, 1878. My uncle Will is born in Gold Hill, Virginia City, Nevada in 1879 and Midge's and my father Alexander John McMahon in 1881. In 1886, along with newborn Mary and mother in some kind of wagon, Will (8) and my Dad (5) hike with grandpa Alexander to Butte, Montana to find work in the Anaconda Cooper Mines. The sociologist in me probes the genetic profile of descendants of this rugged, pioneering, courageous, lonely Irish–American family and I can only guess at their stress patterns — the Irish who came to America were traumatized people.

What traits do I see emerging over four/five generations, aware that genes can be recessive? I now watch cautiously and carefully my grandson, Sebastian Koyla McMahon, age 15 months and removed from his great great grandfather by a period of 155 years; I sense in my own son, Stephen, a genetic likeness to his grandfather, much more than myself his parent. What traits did I see in my cousin, Michael, deceased February 5, 2007? Observations are my only interest; interpretations and moral judgements as to good or bad, right or wrong are not in my mind. I look for patterns deeper than external behavior. Human beings are essentially good; there are driving factors in our blood that dictate how we handle life, particularly crisis. The priest spoke of Michael having a big heart; this generosity, along with the drive to survive loneliness and hardship and the insistence on education are in the McMahon genetics. Along with the tragic plight of the Potato Famine there is a genetic attachment to a harsh version of the Roman Catholic religion. Like all Irish families we live with a haunting sense of guilt, superstition, ignorance, a wonderment about God's love for those with troubles, as well as a great love of life.

Family superstitions run deep. What a conflicting message that the God who sends difficulties also is the problem solver? The saying "God's will" is human-made and useless. When the immigrants left Ireland, never to be seen again by their relatives, funeral dirges were played at dockside; sadness and melancholy predominated. Acceptance in America was chancy as the immigration authorities carefully screened out the unhealthy. "Irish need not apply" signs were both challenge and discouragement to the weary immigrants. There is the legend in the Bresnahan family that my grandmother avoided Ellis Island, crossing the Isthmus of Panama on a donkey and sailing up to San Francisco. Work hard, stay out of the limelight, prove to America one could be a good citizen, and when one celebrates one need stay close to the family. The majority of Irish who escaped during the Famine were Protestants. The Irish immigrants of the American Civil War are a special study as well as those who came in the early 1900's, the "Angela's Ashes" era; there is no way to compare these to the migration of the Potato Famine people. Silent and cautious, frightened and bold, they kept to themselves, inter-marrying with the world only after World War Two. Up until the 1960's large families dominated Catholic Ireland; human sexuality was unspeakable and often alcohol was a substitute for the human sexual drive that was commonly looked upon as sinful. Narcotics kill the power of testosterone; the pain killing narcotic of choice for the Irish clergy was alcohol, the secret cancer that has destroyed the Roman priesthood. For males the first son could marry while his brothers could work a lifetime for the elder's farm never to marry or have his own family; migrate to Australia, Canada, or the USA; or become a priest. The immigrant priests that populated San Francisco from 1900 to 1945 were men who by seminary examinations did not qualify for parish service in Ireland; they brought with them their own brand of guilt and arrogance, as well as a demand that the people live like the clergy. The old Ireland so attached to the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the Rising in 1916 has ceased to exist in the age of technology. Ireland has closed seven of it major seminaries that once filled the world with priests.

Recently my wife Elaine and I saw Eugene O'Neill's play, LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, the story of O'Neill's Irish family and the its destruction by substance abuse. Elaine found the play depressing; with my Celtic roots I never missed a word, realizing the textbook account of the Irish dominant father and the roles assigned by fate to mother and sons in a dysfunctional family. During my 26 years as institutional priest I saw the clerical system at its worst, struggling with alcoholism; from my boyhood days on 15th Street, San Francisco I am one of four priests ordained from our one block; two died of alcoholism and it was only in the 1970's that pioneering priests introduced AA to the clergy.

We need go back to the infant who survives the 1886 trek to Butte, namely Aunt Mary. The drive for education produces a fine school teacher in this woman, especially after marrying Fitz and Detroit money; childless and as certified high school teacher, Mary sets the family goals high and wields a powerful family influence over her siblings who are born in Butte, but not over Will and Alexander. With Alexander John Sr. early dead from miner's lung disease and mother JoHanna deceased as well, Mary will push for the education of Edmund Steven at Greighton Medical Center in Omaha and will oppose his marriage to Nellie Collins of Walkerville. Internal family friction is well underway as Uncle Will becomes an administrator in the Anaconda and his children attend the public schools (seen by the family as a virtual forfeiture of the Roman religion), while my Dad refusing to work in the deadly mines takes to the road, literally "riding the rails" looking for work, worldwide. My father's nickname was Bo aka HoBo. Mom told me my father always called Tramps "Knights of the Road". Aunt Mary is upset with my father for not sharing in the cost of Doctor Ed's training; the different directions of the lives of my father and his brothers Will and Brandon needing separate books for satisfactory understanding. There is also the story of Uncle Tom. Here I need stay with how the McMahon genetics influenced Michael's life. We can easily trace the "generous McMahon heart" back to the 1800's and stress on the heart throughout multiple generations.

I recount an unrelated story, perhaps with a clue and a boost for the women who have entered the McMahon clan by marriage. Shortly after marriage to my mother in 1922 Uncle Brandon came to San Francisco and Dad and Brandon celebrated at Lally's Bar on Mission Street, Joe Lally being a full fledged Irish born Montanan, a Butte Catholic to a fault and generous to all except his own family. Midge tells the story well as she recalls Daddy and Brandon coming home tipsy and mother's negative reaction; my mother, second generation native daughter of San Francisco and fiercely a Bresnahan (the families were distantly related in Kerry), always refereed to "those McMahons" while I, clinging to my father's blood line, always protested. This story and others have me inclined to suspect the use of alcohol was an Achilles' heel in the offspring of my Virginia City grandfather. Our Roman Catholic faith treated alcoholism as a moral secretive sinful disorder whereas today we understand the scientific pathology. Addiction to alcohol is genetic; confronted with stress our family system often proved inadequate for healing. I was happy to see the honesty of the Serenity Prayer on Michael's holy card. Members of our family system have suffered for misunderstood and unsupported generations, while the women who entered the system by marriage contributed great strength, as well as many tears. Tracing the genetics of these "female outsiders" is impossible but their wisdom is well-known and appreciated. As I read the history of the Irish Potato famine and the overwhelming demanding pressures to succeed, let alone survive, I can see the value of a narcotic to ease the pain. High achievement, often too high, is in the McMahon genes; our ability to cope with stress is minimal. Here I will not go into the chemical details that interact in the human body. Alcohol is addictive and alcoholism is hereditary. How mysterious is life with its complications of genes. There is no room for judgement. As for myself I am a workaholic and an addicted adrenaline junkie; only after prostate cancer and open heart surgery have I learned to relax.

We expected perfection, pretended it was possible and demanded the impossible...

In my high school days, late 1940's, I visited Butte, Montana. Brandon McMahon, son of Nellie and the Doctor, was home from New Guinea with a Japanese bullet still lodged in his arm. Wounded in jungle fighting Brandon had slipped out a window of the military hospital and rejoined his combat unit. Brandon was wanted for being AWOL while being awarded a medal for bravery. Like all wounded soldiers Brandon was given drugs to lessen pain; along with physical pain I have often wondered what psychological pain combatants endured as human beings virtually face to face tried to kill one another. The term "monkey on your back" comes from WW2 and the use of morphine and heroin for the combat wounded; no psychological rehabilitation was offered to these men and in many cases the women they married bore heavy burden. The family expectation was that Brandon become a doctor; when I had arrived in Butte Brandon had run off to marry the Protestant girl from Deerlodge before a Justice of the Peace. Welcome Betty to the McMahon tribe and our uptight and unpredictable Catholic ways and expectations. We expected perfection, pretended it was possible and demanded the impossible. Michael is born in the chaos of 1948. After Michael's funeral I said to Betty:

"the priest spoke of big hearts in the McMahon clan and I agree, yet the bigger heart is yours Betty and you bore lots of our family pain. As a McMahon I apologize and I thank you for being you and the gifts you gave to us."

So here's to the JoHannas, the Nellies, the Bettys, and the Colleens, and so many other good women, who carried us into life and bore much of our family pain. We are a better bunch of blokes because of you and thanks for your patient understanding.

I clumsily give names to the genes of the McMahons, rugged courage, impulsiveness, patriotism and Catholicism, generosity and love, openness and secretivity, imprudence and often poor judgement under emotional stress . . . . and you my reader may see more. We McMahons are very human and not too different from the rest of humankind. Life in America is a mixture of stresses, joys and disappointments, unfulfilled expectations and delightful exchanges. The complex mystery of life is when one experiences the unexpected. Our human family has had it share. At Michael's funeral it was good to see the togetherness and family strength. For the sake of future generations I presently explore a spirituality for the age of technology; a medieval church with its outdated sacraments is not able to aid today's people.

Having truly never known my father who died of a train-related accident when I was two in 1931 I can not relate to parental family pressure and expectations. My mother never pushed me nor did she want me to go to seminary, in fact just the opposite. I knew of the expectations passed on generationally in the McMahon families and the confusing pressure that the old can bring to the young. Personally as one who became a parent near the age of 50 I learned from observation of the whole McMahon family system; I personally saw the impotency of the Roman clergy to offer appreciation and understanding of human conduct, a condition that led me to become a family systems licensed mental health therapist. During seminary I envisioned service to others as a priesthood based on the style of the historical Jesus and I promote the service priesthood of the laity, the very word meaning "duty". I have never been effective working with alcoholism, perhaps because of our clan genetics and the problems I saw from early childhood concerning substance abuse. Yes, it was in my mother's family as well, my Uncle Jack, a brilliant engineer trained in the School of Mines in Butte; the 1906 earthquake crushed Jack's confidence in life and he became substance dependent. My Uncle Jack, one of the most loving men I have known, made for me childhood toys; I can see as if it were yesterday his being brought up the stairs of our home by San Francisco police, there to be taken care of by his sister, my mother. The terror in my mother haunts me, especially when in 1936 they argued for hours about the dollar he had stolen that Mom said was the last she had for food for the kids.

I encourage theologically the position of St. Thomas Aquinas that human nature is not corrupt but wounded and capable of healing. Martin Luther taught that humans were corrupted dung hills and redeemed only by a Jesus' grace (sacraments to Roman Catholics). I hold today that we can help one another to enjoy the gift of life, standing by one another in our mishaps and supporting one another in our failures; this is the grace way of Jesus our Christ. People have discovered that the God of those early days of first communion and early confession has changed to a God of understanding and merciful love; we are worthy because we are God's creatures and God loves creation. As humans we have no power to offend the God of Jesus; we may in turn love and forgive humans and accept from others this same exchange. Thank you, Michael, for the Serenity Prayer — your need for it is a gift to us as we journey along in this mysterious experience called life. Perhaps the gift that both Brandon and Michael offer us is their valiant and confusing fight with pain, disappointment, and human frailty.

I can see Uncle Ed (Doctor) and/or son Brandon with head high, pontificating with broad smile, each telling his fabulous story, and roaring with laughter and sweeping hand gestures. They were story tellers with a great sense of life. The pieces of the puzzle I cannot connect are Grandpa Alexander and great grandson Michael, perhaps because I had little or no time with either. Michael gave me a book called THE RAGAMUFFIN GOSPEL and I knew immediately the struggle he was in. I regret that cancer and surgery derailed me in my contacts with Michael in the past ten years. I advantage my study of the McMahon family by collecting their/our stories; Grandpa Alexander, long dead before I arrived, becomes a living person as I watch and listen to his offspring. I understand Grandfather Alexander John played the violin and died a horrible death; perhaps his serenity prayer was his music and his children.

Forgive me, you offspring of Alexander John and JoHanna McMahon if I offend your eyes with what I write. A pure beeswax candle that has burned with warm illumination always has a tiny black burned wick; the latin root HUM, the core of human, humor, and humble means EARTHY and that's what our tribe is — a human bunch who were lead astray by our grade school teachers when they taught us that we had to be perfect . . . . . . . . . and yet we can still try to be as good as possible in this glorious struggle called life. I was genuinely impressed at Michael's funeral how the family membership supported one another. Each I am sure has a human story to tell. Personally I am pleased to be member of this tribe with its in-laws, outlaws, and human beings. There are no experts and none of us are perfect!

Tom McMahon in San Jose. Ca., proud to be a 3rd generation descendant of Alexander and JoHanna. (07/06/2010 latter part of this commentary on the McMahon family history written 12/02/2007.)

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