They can change our lives so much and centre them around people and not about things to do.

Today, on a winter’s morning, I went for a run (and to think that in Poland it’s so warm and here I shiver from cold before I do the warm-up. It’s so unfair!). The rain changed smoothly into nagging hail and then into snow. But I didn’t wait for this last development. Beaten with hail, I had an additional motivation to come back home as soon as possible.

On the way I met some cars that waited to join the traffic. It is really so nice when you see the drivers pull back when they see you running so that you don’t have to change your route. It is a simple gesture but not seen for the first time and it is always so heart-warming. Someone has seen you and helped you as much as he could. And ten someone will hold the lift for you or bring you some water. Our life consists of so many small gestures. You can find so much kindness in them.

I send you greetings, full of kindness.

Fr. Jay

continuation…

As you can see, our Men’s Club has grown in number:

October 2012, you can read about it HERE

April 2013

In keeping with the tradition, during EP in Omaha there is one evening out for men exclusively. The menu and the place remain the same: Anthony’s Steakhouse.

Of course “to have a steak” was just an excuse – the real goal was to meet again, talk, be with one another. Every of us has a different story to tell, and different experience, so it is good to listen to one another and discover how much we can share and pass forward.

This time we were joined by guys from France, Poland, Mexico and Peru – and apart from other new men in the club, we also had two American priests. How good it is to know we can count on each other. If need be, we know were to look for each other. Because the support among men is always necessary. And what’s more – women liked the idea of men’s evening a lot. They know that men need their own company  from time to time. And afterwards, they come back as better people. 🙂

Fr. Jay

When I look at the education program participants, it feels like home. They look just like our external students. The overwhelming majority are women, some of them expecting children, there are the husbands who look after children while their wives have classes. The breaks are filled with convesrations and the classroom is filled with prayers, becoming a chapel for us. It’s no wonder we had the sense of proximity right from the start.

Maybe that’s why it’s easier to endure the sense of longing for home. In places like that everyone feels important, needed, loved. So this is the time not only of an intense immersion study, but also of a retreat. You can pull yourself together, get ready for the mission, for the service. And the first and foremost message is: “I want to help you, because you are a very important person to me.”

Remembering all of you, especially those at Home,

Fr. Jay

We  are all thunderstruck with the news. Terrorism has never got this far. But maybe there is some logic in it. Hatred towards human being must reach also those areas where man is trying to challenge his weakness and find enough inner strength when all in his body and soul is crying for rest, for giving up. At the marathon finish line there are no losers, even if you failed to carry out your timing plan. My friend, a marathon runner, told me once: “there is no result, but no shame either” (he took part in this marathon too, and arrived at the finish 15 minutes before the explosions. Fortunately, he’s fine). Anyobody who reaches the end, carries to the finish line all the hours of training and the effort they cost. And that is a great value in itself: through training you’ve learned to be systematic, hardworking, you’ve deepened your sense of duty and got used to overcoming difficulties, obstacles, and pain…

I pray for those who lost their lives, and for those who are fighting for life in hospitals. I pray for marathon runners, because they inspire us to desire to be “better versions of oursevles”.

Tomorrow morning I’ll offer my running for them, adding the sweat of effort to the words of my prayer.

Praying for you, too

Fr. Jay

Finally we stayed with Michał in Chicago. We re flying only tomorrow provided our plane takes off. So we had a whole day for ourselves to recover after the very active time and after a long journey. Our friends from Chicago, Janina and Janusz, took care of us. They collected us at night and just before four o’clock at night we were in beds. In this way Michał could see Chicago (from the windows of the plane) and admire the real skyscrapers – they truly seemed to scrape the sky because of the rain and mist that obscured their tops. But we visited the monuments of Kościuszko and Kopernik.
We also had time for a Holy Mass in a true Chicago parish (the parish of Father Tadeusz), where everything is in Polish, all the inscriptions, although there is an English translation for foreigners as it turns out that there are still people in Chicago who don’t understand Polish. So we had a very flexible beginning of our stay in the States – we were abroad but everything was in Polish. Tomorrow the real stuff begins – everything in American.
Thank you for your support – thanks to you we manage to cope:)

Your foreign correspondent
Fr. Jay

This moment will always stay in the consciousness of Darek and ours. At this time Bishop Marian Błażej Kruszyłowicz, bishop suffragan in the Archdiocese of Szczecin and Kamień Pomorski, gave Father Dariusz the sign of peace, which completed the ceremony of his ordination. Our new Brother in priesthood stood at the alter right afterwards and concelebrated the Eucharist. At the end Father Dariusz thanked everyone. It was difficult to hold back  tears.

When I passed the tables in the dining room in the seminary, where all guests gathered, when I saw so many people from our Groups, I thought about his future. How many people are waiting for his ministry, how many confessions he will hear, how many couples he will unite.

This is Christ’s ministry in human hands. A fifth priest is joining us today.  Finally we can work in a stronger team. And perhaps it is not yet the end?

Today all the media are focused on one thing – the Pope has been elected! Thousands of journalists have come to Rome just for this one purpose: to report the few days of the conclave, which have become the major interest also for those who were never interested in the issues related to the Church.

Who is that man, or that Office, all the media want to write about?

We know that we mean a man who stands out from the rest through his love to our Lord Jesus, who is ready to walk on the water, who will lay his life for Him.

And that is how we receive him, with the greatest joy that he is among us again – God’s chosen one to represent Him on earth, the man who’ll lead the Church.

We hear his name – Francis. And in it we see the simplicity, poverty, being oridinary – but we also hear Lord Jesus’s words to St Francis: “Rebuild My Church.” The Church never stops renewing to be closer to man.

And from today on, the whole world will pray for him in the Eucharistic Prayer – for our Pope Francis.

So good you are with us!

Fr Jay

home is the most beautiful place. Here we can feel in our place completely, even if we easily feel at ease everywhere.  . Some people are like that. But nothing is really like home. It’s so good to return to the rhythm of everyday duties, activities, meetings and rituals.

We can say that trips away do us good because when we have a break and are way from our daily routine, and later we come back with newer energy and enthusiasm.

Unfortunately during this trip I had to stop doing sport. It’s a pity about those “lost” days but now I am coming back to systematic training all the more joyously.

And if i managed to take to those place far away, now we can return to our rituals with zeal.

I always remember you fondly,

back with you,

Father Jaroslaw,

As always, what’s most important is the joy that in spite of all the difficulties, obstacles and severe time constraints we have managed to carry out te Programme. A big thank you to the people who took care of the children. It was certainly helpful that they had experienced a change in their relationship and now they know how important it is to have time for themselves only during the Programme.

It seems that the children also know it somehow because they spend bravely thee time without their parents, only the youngest ones want to spend some time with them once in a while.

This time, although the Programme takes place in Brussels, only Karolina and Tadeusz can go out to explore the city at night and only for a short time. There’s no time. So we just keep on promising ourselves that perhaps next time it will be a bit longer and perhaps we’ll  see something more. For the time being we must be happy with the promises.
Winter has come back to Brussels. It’s good because the participants need some long winter evenings to finish their reading and finish off their marriage hours. For it’s a bit worse because we don’t know what to expect on our way to the airport, which is – as is usually the case with cheap flights – some distance from the city.

Thank you very much, our friends, graduates and people waiting for the Programmes, for your kind comments and prayers. You have also earned our success.

See you on the way to a better version of ourselves so that others are happier with us. It’s worth believing Love.

Always yours

Fr. Jay (slowly coming back to the Polish Father Jaroslaw)

Our friends from Brussels, Agnieszka and Rafal, ardent supporters of Programme 1, have organised again Programme 1 for Poles working in Belgium – this time it was for 7 couples. As migrant families can only count on themselves and there are no grandparents, family members or neighbours that could take care of children), the parents came with the kids. People who took part in last year’s Programme 1 have organised activities for children and the parents have time for themselves.

This time we meet in Brussels, in the house of the Good Shepherd Community. Several different houses, all rather poor, clean but it’s clear that the days of their glory are long gone. They welcome different groups, unfortunately mostly elderly people. So in the dining room a big group of elderly persons meet with our group full of children, where the youngest one is only 7 months old, and the majority is around 5 years old. The elderly look with joy at our kids. Their grandchildren must be grown-up, they may even have great-grandchildren. A look at children is always a look into the future. The more children there are ,the more joyous this future is.

I remember here a conversation from Scotland. A Scotsman expressed his discontentment with the fact that his Polish colleague from work had so many children who were a burden for the state budget. He heard the answer that those children would be in the future the source of income for the country. He was then silent.

The future of the Church and of the world depends on the family, in the words of blessed John Paul II. It’s so good that our families are so open to life. Perhaps in the future we’ll need to change the words of our national anthem – “Poland, Europe has not perished until we are alive”.