“What shall I return to the Lord for all his goodness to me?I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord” (Ps 116, 12-13)

I forget too easily – under the burden everyday cares – to thank the Lord for all that He has planned for me. What can I do, when I’m too tired to sing glory?

Maybe in times of short text messages (when you can sum up the whole communication with a colone and half-bracket) – it would be good to text the Lord? When it’s hard and all goes wrong – simply: “Jesus, I trust you”, and in the moments of success: “My Lord and my God!” (because I’m a tool in His hands).

So I tap on the keyboard my everyday message to my Best Friend and I let Him act, create and heal. And I’m waiting for His answer. He always writes back.

Karolina

Days of the week are traditionally assigned to particular Persons or events. And so Monday belongs to the Holy Spirit, Tuesday belongs to Angels, Wednesday is St. Joseph’s day, Thursday is the day of the Eucharist, Friday commemorates the mistery of the Cross, Saturday belongs to Our Lady, and Sunday – to the Holy Trinity.

We owe so much to our Guardian Angels. Their task is not easy – “to light and guard, to rule and guide.” What’s more, they watch us with no time off, as they guard us also in our sleep. Ever since we were conceived till the moment we stand for the judgment (and they’ll be our advocates), and in eternity – they’ll be our friends. Guardian Angel – my own and for the whole eternity.

Let’s find many occasins today to thank Him for His care, friendship, attention, for sharing the whole life with us. And for being such a special gift from the loving Father for me, His beloved child.

“Angel of God, my Guardian Dear, to whom His love commits me here, ever this day (and night) be at my side.” Please!

Fr. Jay

“Love cannot be learned, and at the same time – nothing is more learnable than love” (blessed John Paul II)

Each day is a new chance for our love to grow. How can I show it to my family today? With a good word, an encouraging look, things I wear, an act of selfless help, cheerful spirits, gentle voice, listening to them patiently or my honest work…?

Love can be expressed in so many ways! Which of them did I give up using? Which of them would I like to use more?

How good that love is not something “ready made”, as Karol Wojtyla wrote, because there is still a chance for a more beautiful “today” and “tomorrow.” Let’s take it.

Basia

come and visit My Home.

Even though everyone may come, your place cannot be taken by anybody else. Even if your name hasn’t been written down on the church pew – remember? – it’s engraved on the palms of My hands.

Come and be My family that I look forward to seeing: my brother, sister and mother. Become one of My near ones, as I am always the closest to you.

And I haven’t planned neither Myself, nor you, as an isolated entity. Even though you are so Exceptional and Dear for Me, I haven’t shut you out in the pain of your loneliness.

Your

God (Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit)

I found that motto in a book by Jerzy Skarżyński on marathons and ultramarathons. When you want to take this serious challenge as marathon is – 42.195 km of pure run – you can’t approach the subject as if it was just a morning jog to keep fit.

As a beginner, you need 27 weeks of training, scheduled in the “magic” rule of  3 x 30 x 130, meaning 3 times a week, 30 minutes each, with the pulse of 130.

That sounds very safe. We’ve got a lot of time, so we strat from walking, then we add a run-walk workout, in order to be able to cover the first 30 minutes of running at a stretch. But as soon as you’ve got registered to the marathon, paid the fees and received your starting number, the situation gets serious. From now on each time you miss the training – it is not only about giving up a jog. It’s a loss on your physical condition for which you’ll pay the price in the actual marathon. And you’ll have to pay for each day off. Believe me.

How happy I was when I’d got through the well-known crisis of the 30-31 km and I knew I’d be able to finish the run! How really happy I was! I was happy especially about those trainings when I’d been dripping with sweat, or when – during our pilgrimage with my Brothers in priesthood to the Holy Land on the 25th Anniversary of the Holy Orders – I’d set out for the training while they’d been just siiting to supper. How happy I was that I’d managed to ignore the “protective” inner voice telling me: “take a break today, it’s raining, it’s cold, you’ll run more tomorrow.” NO! You have to do today what’s for today. And you know what’s there to do, because you don’t run any more – you’ve started training.

And nothing will take your satisfaction away from you, because you didn’t compete with people – you’ve won your own weakness.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7) How about your way to Heaven? Do you run, or have you started training?
Fr. Jay

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of Godmay be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

God knows us very well, he knows we give up easily while facing failure or hardship. Aware of our weaknesses, He doesn’t expect us to become perfect right away – so that we instantly accomplish the ideal of sainthood.

He wants us to be saint and He gives time to go the way. And in His Word He equips us on that way with specific hints, advice and inspiration!

It’s only up to us – whether we use them or waste them.

I wish you all a good day 😉

Dosia

Already as a young clerical student I heard about one candidate for sainthood – that his personal ideal and life vocation, as well as the key to understanding all life situations was: “to be a living tabernacle.” If I’ve received Lord Jesus in my heart, it means He lives in it, so I’m a living tabernacle and may bring Him to all the places where He is most needed. And from my heart – He can radiate on the other people, places and situations.

Today our towns and villages, streets and squares, roadside Saints  and the windows of our homes are welcoming Jesus, who wants to visit us. He wants to be there – where we run to work, go shopping, meet our friends or business partners and clerks…

Our celebrations are very festive – thank God, because there are the countries where such processions don’t take place any longer. 🙁

But it’s also up to us – if we let Him visit our homes, our marriages and families, when He comes in a most discreet ways: in the hearts of our “First-Holy-Communion” children, in the heart of the wife coming home after the day of work to her husband, or in the heart of the husband returning to his wife, waiting for him at home. And maybe on Monday, from my heart I’ll show the Lord round my workplace and colleagues?

Fr. Jay

Round anniversary of our friends’ wedding… Occasion not so extraordinary… But…

When four years and a half ago we were expecting our middle child to be born, She was waiting, too. We exchanged the news “from our bellies.” Their son was born first. Earlier than ours. And not in a way that all had expected.

He was baptized very quickly in hopsital, before his first (then it turned out – one of several that followed) operation. Afterwards – there were four years of struggle, of everyday laborious rehabilitation… Strength and kindness flowed from that Family. Small successes. Small joys.

So the Anniversary Mass is not quite ordinary. Because it takes place in the Intensive Care Unit, in hospital. The four-year old child is unconscious, and his parents, engulfed with pain, are asking the Lord to keep him alive, if He wants him to be healed. On the other hand, they are close to accepting the doctors’ diagnoses – so they ask for no more suffering for their child.

And there is this extraordinary priest with these extraordinary words. Not preaching about the pain. Not talking about leaving and losing. About Love. About the support that the spouses may give to each other. And that in the first place, the Husband is there for his Wife, and the Wife – for her Husband. And only then for their children, and for the rest of the family.

He also talks about the Marriage Vows – that they never become outdated, they have no expiry date. And that one for the other is a support on their way to salvation. And that it is Love that wins. And Love brings peace.

And that it’s good to be grateful for all the good things – and cherish the memory of those things, multiply them and share them. In good times and in bad.

That was the sermon, in those circumstances. Addressed so much to me. Also to me. To you, too… ?

Agnieszka

PS. A couple of hours after the Mass I recieve a text message that the doctors have declared the child’s brain dead and the small Angel is already in Heaven.

or on the potential of love:

“Love is never something ready made, something merely ‘given’ to man and woman; it is at the same time a ‘task’ which they are set. Love should be seen as something which in a sense never ‘is’ but is always only ‘becoming,’ and what it becomes depends upon the contribution of both persons and the depth of their commitment”. (K. Wojtyła*)

* Love and Responsibility, William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1981, p.139

…to find time for organizing Program 1: “You and I are We” (couple reatreat) in Łomianki, Poland, together with the marriage preparation course “Gaudium et spes”. We welcomed a dozen or so couples.

The schedule was arranged in such a way so that I could move from the married couples to fiances and back. For the former group of participants – the program was a chance of coming back to each other, finding each other after months of years of being lost; for the latter –  it was the opportunity to face the questions that one doesn’t notice at this stage of relationship.

When I do Program 1 I always recalll those who have already taken part in it. I would like them to find some time to moor in our Harbour despite their manifold activities and tasks.

Together with you I make the first steps in this new week: on Monday – I remember the lesson of gentleness, on Tuesday – I’ll remember how to show respect, Wednesday will be my day of creativity, freedom and joy in treating my life as a gift for the others, Thursday will refresh my rituals, Friday is the invitation to dialogue abounding in tenderness, so that on Saturday my gift could express the purest word of my love.

It doesn’t take much for a married couple to nourish the love necessary “not only to survive the joys and sorrows of daily life, but also to grow, so that husband and wife become in a way one heart and one soul, and together attain their human fulfillment” (HV 9).

It doesn’t take much, does it?

I’m keeping you in my memory.

Fr. Jay