September 23, 2012

Announcements

PRAYER REQUESTS We would like to include in the bulletin and on the website, those in our parish, and their family members, who are sick, or who have died recently. This list will be updated weekly – with your help. Could you please send names to Colleen at colleenlenord@gmail.com, or leave for her at the Reception Desk, by Tuesday for the following weekend’s bulletin.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS Please remember Tuesday, Oct. 16th Joseph Komonchak, formerly professor of theology at Catholic University, and an expert on Vatican II will speak here at Newman at 7:30 pm.

DVDs AVAILABLE Please do take advantage of the wonderful DVDs and CDs that are available for you at the front desk. Much good spiritual nourishment there, drop by and look over the selection and see if there is one for you!

NEWMAN HALL YOUNG ADULT GROUP (YAGGIES) Welcome back to Berkeley! The Newman Hall Young Adult Group is excited to begin another year of social, spiritual, and service events. Whether you have been involved with the Yaggies for years, or you are new to the area and interested in meeting new people, we hope you can join us for as many events as possible! Thursday, Sept. 27th, 7:30 p.m.: Project Linus. Our first service project this semester will be making blankets for ill and traumatized children, through a program sponsored by Project Linus. Never made a blanket before? Don't worry! Just join us at Newman and learn how to make the easiest blanket imaginable as we share our time and talent with those in need. If you have them, please bring scissors for cutting the fleece. We'll provide everything else.

NEWMAN FICTION GROUP We will meet on Tuesday, Oct. 2nd, at 7:00 p.m. at Newman to discuss Regeneration by Pat Barker. For further information or to receive e-mail notices of our meetings, email Michael at michael@donahue.com.

LGBT CATHOLICS “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” (Matthew 5:9). Please join the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Catholics for an evening of reflection and faith sharing on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. We meet Thursday, Oct. 4th from 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. in the lounge upstairs. 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!

CELEBRATING MYSTERY Parishioner Dan Cawthon, professor emeritus at Saint Mary's College, will lead a morning of reflection for Eucharistic Ministers, Lectors, Musicians, and all Liturgical Ministers, on Saturday morning, October 13, 9:30 to 11:45 in the Hecker Room. The theme of his reflections will be "Celebrating Mystery--in the Liturgy and in our Lives." All parishioners are welcome to attend.

GETTING MARRIED? The Church requires couples to go through a Marriage Preparation program, and Newman's is coming up. Two Saturdays: Oct 13th and 27th, from 9 a.m.—3 p.m. It's led by a few parish couples, and it's a great opportunity for engaged couples to discuss how their married life can grow. More info: Fr. Bernie or Howard/Katherine, 510-525-5231.

REGISTER TO VOTE Starting Sunday Sept. 23 and continuing on 9/30, 10/7 and 10/14 at the 9:30 a.m., 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. masses we will be focusing on registering students to vote after mass. All unregistered Newmanites are welcome to register. If you have any questions contact Alan Roselius 510-881-2879 or Francisco Antonio 951-231-8982.

HEAR YE, HEAR YE! The Pastoral Council has been discussing the acoustical circumstances in the chapel. ARE PEOPLE ABLE TO HEAR? If you are finding that you are having regular trouble hearing in the chapel, there is a short form at the front desk that we ask you to fill out. We are seeking to determine if our hearing problems are rooted in our microphones/speakers or whether those possible problems spring from inadequate projection from various human speakers.

FOOD BANK BARRELS Please do bring food for the hungry to our Alameda County food bank barrels near the front desk. Times are very tough and many have little to eat and count on this distribution service day-to-day and week-to-week. Thank you for your generosity!

INTERESTED IN DEEPENING YOUR PRAYER LIFE? Have you ever wanted to make the 30-day Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius but simply could not get away for that long? The 19th Annotation Retreat of the Spiritual Exercises is another way to experience this gift of St. Ignatius. This is mainly a journey, through prayer, in which a deeper, more intimate relationship with God is experienced. Please contact Antoinette (Toni) Betschart at 510 502-1256 if you wish to learn more about the 19th Annotation or have questions.

SMCHS GOLF INVITATION Saint Mary's College High School, Berkeley, will hold its 28th Golf Invitational at the recently restored Mira Vista Country Club in El Cerrito on Monday, Oct. 15th, 2012. Benefits the school’s tuition assistance program. For information and reservations, contact Joanne Marchetti Howe in Saint Mary's Advancement Office, at (510) 559-6227 or jhowe@stmchs.org. The event is part of the school’s Sesquicentennial Year celebration.

DSPT GUEST SPEAKER Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ will present “The Evidence of Creation and Supernatural Design in Contemporary Big Bang Cosmology and Space-Time Geometry Proofs” with responses by Fr. Michael Dodds, OP and Fr. Anselm Ramelow, OP on Saturday, October 13th at 10:00 am at The Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley. For more information call 888-450-3778 or visit www.dspt.edu. Open and free to all.

ADDITIONAL ANNOUNCEMENTS NOT IN THIS WEEK'S PRINT EDITION:
SMCHS GOLF INVITATION Saint Mary's College High School, Berkeley, will hold its 28th Golf Invitational at the recently restored Mira Vista Country Club in El Cerrito on Monday, Oct 15th, 2012. Benefits the school’s tuition assistance program. For information and reservations, contact Joanne Marchetti Howe in Saint Mary's Advancement Office, at (510) 559-6227 or jhowe@stmchs.org. The event is part of the school’s Sesquicentennial Year celebration.

FLOWER MINISTRY A practical way we can all participate in enhancing our unique worship space as well as perhaps sharing special events in our lives with the community, is by contribution to the Flower Ministry. Donation envelopes are available at the Reception Desk. All contributions will be acknowledged in the bulletin unless otherwise requested. If you have any questions, please leave a message for Colleen.

WELCOME TO NEWMAN HALL LITURGICAL MINISTRIES! If you feel called to join any of these ministries: Music, Communion Ministry, Lector Ministry, Chapel Cleaning Ministry, Sacristan, etc, you will find the information at http://calnewman.org/liturgical-ministries/ or on the information sheets on the Hospitality Table near the Front desk. Colleen would be happy to talk further with you, email her at colleenlenord@gmail.com.

2012 NEWMAN COUNCIL ALUMNI ESSAY CONTEST FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS. "What Does it Mean to Be a Catholic Student at Cal." We invite students to write a reflective essay of 500-1000 words about your answer to the question above. You may use specific examples from your own experience, observations you have made of others, or any of your reading. You may also want to reflect on the quote by Cardinal Newman below or on the biographical information about him available on our parish website. "A university... educates the intellect to reason well in all matters, to reach out towards truth, and to grasp it."–Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, The Idea of a University. First prize $500. Prizes of $300, $200, $100, and $50 will also be given.

DSPT FILM SCREENING The Decalogue, Kieslowski's dramatic cinematic masterpiece, was produced in 1989 for Polish television, and consists of ten 1- hour films, each loosely based on one of the Ten Commandments. Join us to watch one, several, or all of these artistic, probing, and daring investigations into the human condition. Conversation to follow each screening. All screenings start at 7:30 p.m (Saturdays and Fridays Sept. 7th to Dec. 1st). Be sure to RSVP for each screening by following the links below or calling (888) 450-3778. Space is limited. RSVP at anyvite.com/events/home/eoamhza3sl.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On September 8th this year, while presiding at our daily Eucharist, it dawned on me that this was my 50th anniversary as a Paulist. The first six years were spent in Washington, DC as a student preparing for ordination. My first month of school was dominated by the most stimulating and breathtaking conversations at the dinner table with my fellow students. The conversations spun together every bit of information that was available through the weekly magazines: Time, Newsweek, Commonweal, Scientific American, art books from the Metropolitan Museum, as well as religious journals both Protestant and Catholic and the daily Washington Post and New York Times. We read omnivorously!

Just at the beginning of October The New Yorker was the rage at our table conversations. In its pages was "A Report from the Vatican" as the Vatican Council was to begin. A "Xavier Rynne" was the author who laid out all the "behind the scenes" stuff that was going on in preparation for this Council, which I must confess both as a senior in high school and student at Holy Cross College, I had heard little about. This article, accompanied over the next three years by twelve more lengthy articles, created a conversation trail in me that has endured to this day. At the time, I must say I was shocked to read of the political fighting and subtle and not so subtle behind the scenes foot-dragging that accompanied the preparations of the Council. At the direct invitation of the Pope every bishop, abbot, major superior of men, and the presidents/rectors of the 38 major universities throughout the world offering advanced degrees in the sacred sciences were invited to submit their thoughts and concerns in what would lead to a revitalized Church in a world rent with divisions, economic, political, religious and cultural. The response (over 2000 extended responses from individuals and groups) were then sorted out and assigned to ten working commissions preparing for the council. The rector of The Catholic University of America, who lived but 800 yards from our house and whom I would meet on occasion as he took an afternoon walk in the neighborhood, received his faculties' of Theology, Religious Studies and Canon Law report. He reviewed their extensive comments and then threw them in the fire not wanting to bother Rome with such prattling. He also informed his friends in the Roman Curia of his actions and was roundly congratulated. Early in the Council's first session he joined his 37 other presidents/rectors for a private meeting with Pope John XXIII. As he approached he could hear the old pontiff warmly thanking his peers for their cooperation in the preparation for the council. When his turn came the mood and words were icy, "How dare you disobey a direct request from me!?!" Bishop McDonald left a much smaller man and returned to Spokane, Washington to live out his years knowing that he had missed his opportunity to participate in history.

Xavier Rynne was a pseudonym for a Roman priest, who only years later revealed his identity as Francis X. Murphy, a Redemptorist priest and scholar. As hard as it is to imagine now, to be publishing such (true) secrets in 1962 could have put his life as a priest and scholar in serious jeopardy. In later years I had the pleasure to join him for dinner and some theater in New York. One could not find such a delightful conversationalist, who graciously opined that the two greatest Redemptorists were Alphonsus Ligouri and Issac Thomas Hecker, founder of the Paulist Fathers.

Though he was to live only an additional eight months after the towering figure of Vatican II, both then and now, was the peasant priest from Bergamo who was John XXIII. On October 11, 1962 he addressed the assembled bishops and in a distinct departure from previous councils, also representatives of various Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches. The council was to be a venture in hope where the church's mercy and compassion would be prominent and where condemnations would be unwelcome. He urged his hearers in the vast church of St Peter's, and all over the world including our dining room at St. Paul's College, to let history be our teacher and not the counsels of gloom that so often seeped into the church romanticizing the past and bemoaning the world in all its present yearnings. The words of this courageous and jolly soul have shaped me and so many Catholics and non-Catholics since then. As another John put it, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us..."

Bernard J. Campbell, CSP