January 22, 2012

Announcements

THIS MONTH WE HAVE OUR ANNUAL DIOCESAN- WIDE SEMINARY COLLECTION. On the back table are brochures, which introduce our 28 seminarians and the different seminaries they are attending. There are collection envelopes for the Seminary Collection. Please be generous in financially supporting those called to serve us in the Oakland Diocese as future priests, they need our support. Thank you for your generosity.

JESUIT RETREAT CENTER OF LOS ALTOS COMING RETREATS 2012: Jan. 27-29—The Healing Touch – of Christ Dir. Fr. Joseph Specht, S.J. Silent retreat for men Feb. 4 (Saturday)—At Play in the Fields of the Lord—Dir: Fr. Kevin Ballard, S.J. Non-silent Day of Recollection for men and women (includes continental breakfast, lunch and afternoon Mass. www.jrclosaltos.org 650-917-4000.

BUSY PERSON'S RETREAT Our annual threeday personal retreat returns on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday January 23-25. Sunday evening January 22 retreatants are invited to a short orientation session at 6:15 pm in the chapel. On Friday January 27th we will have a prayerful evening of reflection on your experience in the Lounge from 7:30 till 9 pm.

CHAPEL CLEANING CREW We welcome volunteers who feel called to “join the crew” in this quiet and gracious ministry to the whole community. Maintaining a clean and welcoming sacred space is essential to our communal worship. Cleaning of the upstairs and downstairs chapel floors takes a couple of hour each week, and with more committed volunteers one’s “call to service” could be only once every 4-6 weeks. If you are willing to “join the crew,” you will find a form on the Welcome Table in the lobby. Ask the Receptionist to place this completed form in the Chapel Cleaning Crew mailbox, or email Julia Casella at casellajul@aol.com with any questions.

WEEKLY CHRISTIAN MEDITATION at NEWMAN Monday nights 7:30 - 8:15 pm in the Gallery on the first floor. Learn about and experience this ancient Christian tradition of contemplative prayer, which seeks God in silence and stillness—beyond word and thought. Questions? Call facilitator: Klara Komorous-Towey (510) 548-9808 or email klara@ktarch.com. Also: Jeannie Battagin (510) 849-2181.

YOUNG ADULTS GROUP THURSDAY NIGHT JANUARY 26—MOVIE NIGHT. Yaggies will be cosponsoring a showing of the film "Freedom Riders" with the Newman Nonviolent Peacemaking Group. The movie chronicles the story behind hundreds of civil rights activists who challenged the racial segregation of the American interstate transportation facilities by traveling together in small interracial groups and sitting where they chose on the buses and trains, to demand equal access to terminal restaurants and waiting room, and to bring racial segregation national attention. For this week only, Faith and Fellowship will begin at 7:00 PM at Newman.

THE NONVIOLENT PEACEMAKING GROUP invites you to join us as we present two showings of the award-winning documentary "FREEDOM RIDERS” on Thurs, Jan. 26th @ 7pm (cosponsored by the Young Adults Group) and Sunday Jan. 29th immediately following the 9:30 a.m. Mass (cosponsored by the Junior & Senior Faith Formation team).

FATHER ROBERT BARRON’S CATHOLICISM series continues Monday, January 23 at 7:30. The title of the week’s DVD is Word Made Flesh, True Blood Of Heaven: The mystery of the Liturgy and the Eucharist. There will be a discussion of its major points following the showing. (Note that each DVD in the series stands alone. Viewers can appreciate any one of the series without having sent the others.)
Monday, January 30— A Vast Company of Witnesses: The Communion of Saints
Monday, January 26— The Fire of His Love: Prayer and the Life of the Spirit
Monday, February 13— World Without End: The Last Things

RESTUFFED AND RECOVERED SOFAS are in the lounge. Sparkles up the place beautifully. Thanks to all whose generosity in our "Matching Sunday" Appeal in October made this beautification possible.

CONFIRMATION CLASS FOR STUDENTS and other adults who have been baptized and made their first communion and who would like to complete their initiation into the Church are welcome to attend classes beginning Tuesday January 31 at 7:30 in the Lounge. Classes will continue each Tuesday through March 13th.

16% OF AMERICANS ARE LACKING a regular and dependable source for food. Would you please consider bringing a can or two of food or cereal for our hungry neighbors and their families?

THE LGBT CATHOLICS GROUP will take a break for the winter and resume in February 2012. For more information on the group or to get on our email list, contact Antonio Salas at (510) 663-6302 or LGBT_Newman@yahoo.com. All are welcome.

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ARE YOU SMART ENOUGH TO WORK FOR GOD?

Recently I have begun reading Are You Smart Enough to Work for Google? by William Townsend. He details the kind of questions that are thrown at you when you interview for a job there. One of my favorites is “what is the next number in this series: six, four, eight, eleven, fifteen, thirteen, twenty-two, ____?” (Check the parish website for the answer.) Google and other companies prize creative thinking in their employees more so than grades, experience and IQ. Some of the questions may not have a right answer, but there is always a better answer. Basically, they want to watch an interviewee wrestle with a question and show her thinking process. Seems to me that it’s something like letting you twist in the wind…..

Working for God? Does God hold interviews? What thinking process does God prize in us? What valuing process does God want to see at work in us?

Here are some interview questions that God might ask: “How can people who are married act like they’re not married? How can those who are mourning act as though they’re not mourning? How can you buy and then act as if you have no possessions?” These seem like strange questions, but this is what St. Paul urged of his Corinthian Christians. See in our second reading today (1 Corinthians 7:29-31) where Paul says “the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let those who rejoice act as though they were not rejoicing….”

How do we make sense of this puzzle? The answer lies in the fact that there are two kinds of time. There is chronos time, which is what we are most familiar with. It’s every day time. Normally, we think of time as chronological. Things happen in a given order, effects happen after their causes, or at the same time as their causes, but never before their causes.

However, time with God is different. Rather than being chronos time it is Kairos time. Kairos involves living in the moment. Hours can pass like seconds. Time is not before or after—it is now. Kairos time is kingdom time, an eternal now. Kairos time is time outside of time. It’s God’s time. We have moments of Kairos time in which we feel joyful, and at one with the world. We sense that everything and everyone in the world is in touch with us and we are in touch with everything and everyone in the world.

In these moments, sometimes called peak experiences, all time is now, and normal rules don’t apply. Things can be yes and no at the same time. Like the Qubits of quantum computers which can be 1 and 0 at the same time. Quantum computers, because they allow paradoxical behavior and a holiday from cause and effect, may be able to solve problems that ordinary digital computers can’t handle.

Imagine holding the opposites, the contradictions in our lives at the same time in our hands, in our hearts. Imagine giving up the need for certainty, letting go of cause and effect. Imagine being interviewed by God and being at home with paradoxical questions. Just like applicants to Google, imagine thinking outside the box and coming up with answers that are right for us, right here and right now, even though they make no sense to anyone else but God.

By Fr. Bill Edens