I was asked to write something about the sunset.

I was getting ready for that task all day long. In fact, I didn’t do any literary exercise like for example: “Ths sun is slowly descending to the horizon, giving a reddish hue to the sky, which is farther shimmering with all shades of orange. As the sun is withdrawing from our sight, it’s leaving behind a colourful streak of light, above which the sky is growing dark, with the sun slowly sinking in the ocean below. In the end, it disappears completely, leaving the sky at the disposal of the night” (not so black, actually, because we’ve had the full moon these days.

I was planning, however, to write about it in front of the house where I’m living at the moment, with my eyes fixed on the sky, and my fingers tapping the keyboard, to be able to catch up with the beauty of the sun setting in the subtropical zone. I wrote “I’m living at the moment”, because I’ve been roaming from place to place for several days – as human being is known to be homo viator. But even such a rolling stone like me needs a home from time to time (at least for the night), though here, under the Tropic of Cancer, you appreciate a piece of roof above your head also during the day – like the trees which you call here “umbrella trees”.

Seeing that the twilight started falling, I made one more phone call (looking for a home for one night in another city) and I was just about to go out of the house. It turned out to be too late. It was already the night. Because this is how it looks here: the day breaks wide awake and ready to live a life of its own – and so does the night.

So I don’t know if I manage to describe the sunset in the following days, because life is moving really fast in here. And I have to rest, because this is my vacation. So I’m quickly going to bed, maybe I’ll manage to catch the sunrise.

Fr Jay

This notion changes in time. First, your vacation used to be so long that it seemed to have no end. Then it got shorter and became the time necessary to earn money for the rest of your vacation, or for your university fees, or to aid the family budget.

Today we have vacation, but we spend our time on making vacation for our children. We go to the seaside, because they need the climate change, or to the mountains, because it’ll make them healthier. Sometimes the place of stay is determined by the family budget – our own garden or weekend trips out of town will do.

Vacation shows the truth about parenthood. It’s entirely directed to children. When they grow up they’ll spend most of their vacation without us, until they become parents themselves and will use their vacation to make vacation for their kids.

But there is also another way of spending vacation, when all of us become equal and stand before the same God, who made us all into His children – it’s the time of summer retreat for parents and their children. It’s been happening for so many years in Wiselka*, in Poland. Both parents and children are looking forward to that time. Is it going to be the time of taking a rest? Surely no, but each child, no matter how old, will be able to come back to their Father – who gave us time to love.

Time is… love. As the time of vacation of our children.

Fr Jay

*Wiselka is a Retreat Center of the Institute of the Holy Family

So many parents keep on asking themselves: “Where did I go wrong?”

It’s good to examine one’s conscience.

But it happens all too often that we examine the wife’s or husband’s conscience instead of our own. “I did my best, and the problems are his fault, because he was such a poor role model for the kids…”

Or: “I did my best, and she…”

And maybe again we need God’s point of viiew?

Maybe we should stand in the shoes of the One who did His best, who gave to His children all He had…

Maybe we need this experience to feel the pain of God, who is suffering because His beloved child is rejecting His love? And maybe then we could endure this pain of unreciprocal, rejected love, preserving hope and love?

And hope does not disappoint.

I’m very close to you in my prayers,

Fr Jay

Parenthood in relation to the children who have left Home and became independent is a completely different kind of parenthood. This is the time of pride, of becoming parents-in-law (?), grandparents, advisors…

Sometimes it is the time of confronting life which is entirely different from our expectations: abandoning faith, choices we’re not able to accept, rejection, resentment which we do not deserve…

And yet, whenever I talk to parents like those, I always admire their infinite love, patience and hope that their children will find the right path, that they’ll stop rebelling and return to faith.

Thanks to them I come to a better understanding of the love of God, who never turns away from his child – especially the one who got lost.

My special prayer is with you, dear Parents who suffer when you witness the choices of your children. Your children are also the children of God, who loves them even more than you do.

Still on the way,

homo transitus 😉

This is how the last big city on the trail to the Wild West says goobye to all those setting off on their journey: with a rainbow – the sign of hope (a riddle again: where am I?).

The sign of hope – of God, who is faithful in His covenant with man. It’s good to realize it day by day that we are His children. All too often we let the other people determine who we are. And yet it was God who invited me to live. It was Him who called me. Only He knows the magnitude of my calling, of my life tasks, and their meaning. He gives the scope to my life and puts it in the right perspective.

When I was taking the picture, someone took a picture of me. Can “hope” come to mind when one sees a priest?

Fr Jay

– read the inscription on the T-shirt of the Ordinary Bishop of the diocese I’m in right now (has anybody guessed where?). He has completed 18 marathons, and the members of his diocese may meet him each day on the running trails. Today he was running in the comapany of one seminarist and one priest from Poland 😉 . 7 miles.

So the three of us had this convesration about running, faith, and – beyond the third mile, when the seminarist left us – also about faith, challenges, prayer while running and about the necessary time of solitude.

The runners have a world of their own, and the running priests – are a separate subgroup. You can take God on the trails of your city and enfold the place in your prayer.

Yesterday I visited the Museum of Abraham Lincoln, where you can have some glimpse of the President’s life (a lookalike impersonates him each Friday and Saturday of the summer). And today I had the opportunity to get to know the city from its Bishop. History instructs. Illustrations lead. Historia docet, exempla trahunt. Each meeting may bring something valuable to our life.

With warmest memory of All of You,

Fr. Jay from…?

Someone wise made this remark that marathons are terrible – too far and too long but… there’s nothing better than training for a marathon. And this is where that major difference comes to the fore. Stop running… start training. When you take to doing something, use your head. Training teaches you how to be systematic, persistent and responsible; it emphasizes the need for both: effort and taking a rest (which is also part of training). When you take such challenge as training for a marathon – you have a great opportunity to practice self-mastery.

Many people I met here had taken part in a marathon, semi-marathon or 10-kilometer race. I meet so many people on running or bike trails. They differ by age and expertise; you can also see married couples and parents with their kids.

And you can really envy the excellent running/bicycle trails they’ve got here. Near housing estates or along streams, parallel to roads connecting towns (at a reasonable distance, of course). Those trails – for runners and cyclists only, as no motor vehicels are allowed – are well-marked with all sorts of signs (e.g. warnings of the obstacles). I especially liked the last trail. It goes along an old railway embankment, so it’s perfectly straight, even, with an excellent surface – and it’s miles long. I’ve checked only 15 kilometers of that trail and there was no end to it. Definitely, when you have such great facilities, you will be encouraged to do something to keep you fit.

But when you train for a marathon, it doesn’t matter what the conditions are. What matters is that yesterday was a day of taking a rest, and today… it’s time to run.

Fr Jay

It’s impossible to go on for too long without the adoration of the Holy Sacrament. Last week, after a couple of days in SLC, I managed to spend three hours in the church. I wanted to be as near the Holy Sacrament as possible. I need so much to be close to Him, not to do a lot of talking, but only to be with HIM. In His company everything calms down, goes back to its place, and my “inner man” gains strength.

There are so many churches all around. Every 360 families (i.e. three wards, 120 families each) are assigned to one parish. On Sunday most of the church members take part in a three-hour program. That is really impressive.

But there are no Catholic churches nearby – if “nearby” means a place where you can walk or run to (as running is always some option 😉 ) And I’ve been missing adoration so much. The Holy Sacrament for us is the place we meet the dearest Person: the One who has loved us, who sees us as His brothers and sisters. It’s so much easier to define our identity when we come close to Him. No moment is worth as much as the whiles we spend in His presence. Even though  “in Him we move and have our being.”

With warmest memory of All from the Harbour,

Fr Jay

It seems American people like parades (which Poles associate with the former communist May 1st celebrations). In July there’s a special occasion for that in Utah, commemorating the arrival of Pilgrim Fathers at the Salt Lake Valley to make their home here.

I must admit this is s a great experience. Whole families are camping along the longest street of the city – on chairs or blankets – to watch the 2-hour march.

The parade gives the opportunity to show everytjing that serves the local community (and to advertise our businesses, of course). So there were firemen and policemen, mayor and city authorities, Miss Utah, hospitals and health care units, schools and university, shops and offers for leisure (to start with dancing and finish with bike trips), projects for volunteers and old cars, soldiers who’d been in Iraque and Afganistan, and WW II veterans, school bands and a jazz band. Almost 70 groups altogether.

It was great to watch elderly people enthusiasticaly greeting “their” secondary school which was just passing. It was wonderful to see the viewers reactions, which expressed: we are proud of what we do, we want to share that joy, we want to “infect” you with our enthusiasm. And now we’re happy to be here, thanks to our ancestors who came here – thanks to them, here is our home.

Maybe this sounds very American, but I would like to witness an event like that in my hometown of Łomianki near Warsaw.

Fr Jay

So the Harbour lived to show the photo of the captain. It was posed, of course, but I was invited to take over the helm on the way back from the other side of the Bear Lake to the marina.

The first part of the water sports schedule for today was to have consisted in taking me out of water on a board (similar to a snowboard). Six attempts failed and that was it. The other part was simpler.  Not to fall from a floating tube, as it is called here. Falling into water was fun, not to mention desperately trying to hold on.

The weather is great, but the sun liked me so much that my skin looks like the sun’s surface and has got similar temperature right now. I’m scared to think of the night ahead. Maybe that’s how the “old man” will peel off quicker from me? I got some aloes just in case, as Polish traditional ways to deal with the problem are not available here. I wonder if there’s any room in this climate for a white man. If so, perhaps only if they’re in a cassock and a wide-brimmed hat.

I’m curious what tomorrow will bring.

Fr Jay