The Wind Beneath Many Wings

T. McMahon

"You are the wind beneath my wings"....two priests die, a time, a season.

Two weeks apart I sat in the back pew of the same church for two funerals; with love and fine ceremony the people buried two priests of Jesus the Christ and I rejoiced in knowing them and their work and I cried at their loss.  Jim was 94, a good person ordained in Ireland and retired pastor of the parish, a humble Christ follower; the other, 56, a female ordained by the acclaim of the people of the community and parish of Christ the King, Pleasant Hill, CA.  Margo was "wind beneath many wings." I have haunted my mind with the words of this song all week......*

Newly ordained James Wade came to the Archdiocese of San Francisco in 1934; along with two other priests who gave their lives for people and church they were sent back to St. Patrick's Seminary "to learn proper English."  Himself from people of balle Mitty, Ireland, Archbishop John Joseph Mitty and the Bay Area Church would pay a price for this galling insult to these bright Irishmen: there would by no more Irish born priest until the 1960s.  I want to tell a personal story of Monsignor James Wade.  Having embraced the teachings of Vatican II, by 1973 I found myself unwelcomed by older clergy.  We were perceived as "feely-touchy types," disloyal to church and God, because we had listened to and followed the reform of the Catholic institution, sanctioned by 1800 of our bishops.  I compounded my situation by getting marriend and fathering two sons.  One evening on our way to ski with J. Warren Holleran and Bill Leininger, we stopped by Christ the King rectory to pick up Brian Joyce, Wade's successor as pastor on Jim's retirement.  This married priest chose to stay outside rather than cause trouble.  Shortly, out came Jim Wade, with warm smile and powerful hand outstretched to welcome me and chat old times.  I was welcome and comfortable.  Jim had soul!

John O'Donahue, Irish priest and poet, speaks of soul as a fundamental experience of one's psyche.  In contrast to my grade school idea of soul, that bright shiny neon that I could besmirch with dark sin, O'Donahue invites us to examine the masks we wear, our personalities, the very fiber of our lives.  Like music from New Orleans, one's body vibrates with soul, the energy of love and life.  Few bishops and priests who have undergone automated seminary training have genuine soul.   Camouflaged beneath titles, robes and black attire, unaccustomed to and excused from social skills, and forbidden by clerical code to realize the value presence of females, they face difficulties in having soul.  Jesus addressed the issue by suggesting that it would be of little value to possess the whole world and lose one's soul.  On my health walk this morning, I thought of the few men who in seminary influenced me with their gentleness...Mike Sheehy, Spook Powers, Fr. Spike Redon, Beans Campbell, and John Ward.  I add to my list Monsignor Jim Wade and Margo Schorno; in these two I saw deep soul.

Margo Schorno graduated from Bishop O'Dowd High School in 1961; she entered Adrian Dominicans, dedicating her life to the works of her creator.  Bishop Floyd Begin gathered women from the diocese of Oakland to investigate ways to better use the female power of the Catholic Church; Margo offered him more than twenty improvements and Floyd finally cutting her short said "I only asked a rhetorical question."   There would be no mere rhetoric in the work of Margo for the rest of her life.   Brian Joyce, Christ the King's canonical pastor, offered a mile long list of accomplishments that Margo had orchestrated.  "......I was the one with all the glory; you were the one with all the strength."   ....As I listened to Brian's words, I meditated on the words of Irish Father Michael Drumm (The Furrow, Nov. 99: "The Catholic Priesthood in the New Millenium")..."One cannot understand the Christian priesthood outside of the community of believers."  Margo understood the document of Vatican II on priesthood, wherein it is stated the chief duty of the priest is to form community.   Drumm says "the single greatest threat to Christianity today is the privatization of life."  Margo drew people out of themselves into bonds of oneness in Christ; she formed the Body of Christ with encouragement to people to recognize their dignity and power for good.  Margo did not hide her talent; like the Gospel person she saw hers increase many fold by sharing with others.  One of the greatest compliments Brian Joyce offered her in life was her privilege of offering the homily at Mass; those of us who know this courageous pastor, priest of today and tomorrow, realize only the best mounted the pulpit of Christ the King.  Margo Schorno lived in and died in a priesthood fit for the people of God for generations to come.  Margo will live on in the consciousness of many.  Margo will be resurrected, along with Monsignor Wade, many times over.   "....you're everything I would like to be"  God's people will re-member them.

As my ski buddy of 45 years and I left graveside, motoring home to San Jose, we re-examined the mystery of God.  Dick Wesley of Chicago suggests that we have been arrogant and ignorant in knowing so much about the Creator.  Brian Swimme introduced me to the "God of Galaxies, the Source of evolution".  Bill and I mulled over resurrection.  I have long ceased belief in an upper regions place called heaven and wonder if I meet my deceased mother and father in new energy forms.   Bill suggests consciousness and I like.  I carry my mother with me always in my behavior, my attitude toward life, my belief system, my very body.  Paul the Apostle says the same when he offers "Christ Jesus lives in me."  Both Margo and Jim Wade will live on in the minds and hearts of many......"....thank God you are a wind beneath my wings."

I am a therapist, having forced myself into retirement by my unwillingness and inability to change people.  I changed myself massively when I entered the Preventive Medicine Research Institute (PMRI) almost two years ago, shortly after I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.  Through rigorous diet, yoga, and exercise, I have accomplished a healing life style change.  I am no longer a workaholic!  Once a classic clerical type A, I now stand to the side of the rushing traffic of religion and the quantum leap entrusted to us by Vatican Two.  I throw away unopened information material on a women's priesthood, realizing that I have already seen such in Pleasant Hill, CA, during my lifetime.  I smile when I read about the shortage of priests; really?  A 94 year old priest recognized Jesus in female form and I would imagine that he would have smiled at the robed clerics who stood around at his funeral, looking so romanly official. ".....you always walked a step behind...."   Jesus counseled us "he who has eyes to see, let him see."  The Father's kingdom is coming, has come in some places.

When young I put ashes on foreheads, saying "remember you are dust."  I wasn't too far off scientifically, as I realize now that I am primal energy, formed this time into a male human body appearance.  I am protoplasm with an ancient history and such a tiny bit of a marvelous creation.  Aware that I have cancer, I have put away my ego and humbly accept my place in the cycle of life.  I will in time be protoplasm that is recycled and am now willing to hear more carefully the words of Pablo Casalas "in the end it is only the smiles that count."  The Emmaus story tells me of a Jesus who ate in friendship with the travelers on the road.   Jesus lives on in the consciousness of those who can love.   ".....You're everything I would like to be."

"....I want you to know that truth: I would be nothing without you....."   When I was in seminary, as the profs droned on, I read books on the personality of Jesus.  With clerical priest as the then model of "another Christ," such writings were hard to find, and one had to be imaginative.  In 1980, the Roman church barred me from clerical participation....thank God!.....I had crossed the forbidden line, that mark in the sands of history dating back to 1139 c.e., in which the female was exiled, "to the back of the church bus" and looked upon as an occasion of sin to the cleric.  I hold my head high today, a well read, learned student of church, religion, spirituality and life because of women.  "...I want you to know the truth: I would be nothing without you."  I talked last night long distance to a 48-year old, he ordained but four years, and having announced to his parish community that he was leaving the clerical state so as to find the fullness of life as a human being.   I took off my shelf Gregory Baum's "Man Becoming; God in Secular Experience" (1970), and I recalled Iraneus sayng "the glory of God is man fully alive."  I am more alive today, more priest, more human because I was open to the grace of the feminine in my life.  As I listened to the words of "Wind Beneath My Wings," I floated spiritually on the warm currents of love and life energy that I have shared with the Creator's best.  "......I would be nothing without you; I want you to know you are my hero.....you might have seem to go unnoticed....you are the wind beneath my wings."  With the wind gone I see a burden that the remaining priest carries unless the "wind" left behind some strong "gusts" that will take her place.  "...I was the one with all the glory; you were the one with all the strength." Emotionally drained as I write, I value the older, so open to reform, and the younger who empowered so many.  Ah life, you mystery that will someday bid me to return my life gift.  This I accept as: for everything there is a season and a time (Ecclesiastes 3.1-8); a time to be born, to die, to plant, to laugh, to mourn, to dance, to keep silence, to speak, a time for love, and a time for peace....In memory of two influential priests who blossomed in season......

            T. McMahon   11/30/99

*Lyrics in bold italics are from "Wind Beneath My Wings" written by Larry Henley and Jeff Silbar

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Christ the King Catholic Church
Diocese of Oakland, Pleasant Hill, CA, U.S.A.
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