Kamila was born on August 25, 2013 and is the third daughter of Agnieszka and Rafal, whom Fr Jarosław (excuse me, now Fr Jay) tenderly calls “Brussel Sprouts”. They stand behind the organization of the Programs for the Development of Marital Relations in Belgium. Moreover, Agnieszka has helped me create the English version of this blog and recently she has been patiently translating the posts on her own.

We would like to offer our somewhat delayed congratulations from the bottom of our hearts and wish all that Heaven can give to Kamila’s whole wonderful Family!

And for all the parents, in particular those feeling the toil of parenthood, a little anecdote. Sue Hilgers told me once the story, in which their already adult daughter Teresa, reproached for some trifle by her Dad (she is known to be the apple of his eye), replied: “Wait, I’m the supreme gift!” 🙂 It was of course the quotation from Pope Paul VI’s encyclical – the document which inspired Dr Hilgers to develop the science of NaProTechnology: “Children are really the supreme gift of marriage and contribute in the highest degree to their parents’ welfare”  (Humanae Vitae 8).

So let our children hear it as often as possible. Let them wake up and go to bed with that news in mind. “You are a fantastic gift for us!”. “You are one of a kind!”. “You CAN do it”. “I’m happy to see you!” (not because I believe you’ll fulfil my expectations, ambitions and dreams).

Let the children be strong with our love, so that they don’t need to compensate it anywhere else. “Anywhere” may leave wounds for the rest of their lives.

Margaret

I thought I knew something already
that I understood and I could manage
thet I had found a way to deal with You
and a solution to each of my faults
but thanks to God
everything has finally fallen into pieces
I am left with my empty hands
and Your love

Sister Maria of the Compassionate Christ

Often, when the order of our lives falls into pieces, we experience a complete peacefulness of God. But what could seem His detachment or iindifference is rather a moment when He asks “Let me be who Iam – God who redeems, lifts up, works, loves. And let yourself be a creation that needs Me”. That needs God not as a pleasant extra but as a necessity of life. Like a child needs a Father, like someone who is forever hungry for love. Who asks and receives.

M

Several days ago I saw the words in an old issue of a Polish Catholic weekly: “Take this baby and nurse him for me”, taken from the story of the little Moses, found among the reeds.

The last week at the Harbour was devoted to FertilityCare – taking care of those who fight for their parenthood against complex medical problems. At the other extreme there are children awaited by nobody, the ones that are seen as a burden or whose birth is hanging by a single thread. I think about them when I read those words. In Exodus they are uttered by the pharaoh’s wife but what would happen if we saw in them the desire of God Himself? “Nurse them for me”? For the Father who walks the different paths of life and collects all those abandoned, defective, unwanted? No, we should say: the Father who is the source of life of each and everyone and existence has its deepest and unique sense in Him only.

He is also the Father of children whose parents overestimate their role. Then the children become “mine”, “own”, “planned”. We worry to death about them and agonise about their future, including the defence of M.Sc. thesis, of the Ph. D. thesis or possibly even further. And then “nurse him for me” brings the parental omnipotence back down to its natural, limited dimensions.

Children. Born for eternity. Born with the desire to meet Love that has called them to life. Like each of us.

M

Countryside. I decide to take the children to the forest on bikes. Although Grandpa says it is dangerous like like the whole life, because a branch can fall down and kill you without a warning for example. We go.

Karol, the 7-year-old son of the neigbours, takes the lead, my children call after him in the dust of gravel road. I go at the end. Karol suddenly turns and disappears. When we reach him, he says he will lead us because he knows here everything. I oppose a bit as after the rain it night it is wet so it can turn out that the road will be impassable further ahead and we’ll have to go back.

At the folliwing, pictoreaque turn Karol stops again, waits for us and explains: “There will be a big pool but we’ll manage to go through the middle. Then two big holes on either side. But we’ll manage. Going through the middle”.

We go, the pool is enormous, the mud unbelievable, but we go through. In the middle. And I am full of admiration. If I should ever be responsible for people in any kind of undertaking, I’d like to have Karol’s style. Not Grandpa’s with the vision of a catastrophe. And neither being left in the dust behind the leader. I’d like that devoting time to telll about things ahead and ways to conquer the obstacle. And the encourage “we’ll manage”.

Such leaders are so needed in life. I was to take the children for a bike, but the children have taken me.

M

A long time ago I heard a story that has stuck in my memory ever since.

War. Two brothers in arms. A company is forced to retreat under heavy fire. One of the two is severely wounded. After some time the latter becomes aware that the other one was left on the battlefield. He comes back, looks for him among the dead and finds him still alive. He takes on his back and carries him under fire.

When he reaches the camp, his friend is dead. His wounds were too severe and there was nothing to be done anyway. His colleagues ask him whether it was worth risking his life. He looks at them, astonished, that they ask such a question. He says, “When I found him, still conscious, he said “I knew you’d come”‘.

Coming back instead of pushing forward, taking a roundabout way, exposing oneself to a danger, giving one’s life for the others. Even among nonsense and turmoil. The final proof that you’re important to me. My husband, my wife, my daughter, my friend.

M

On the beach by brother tells me a joke:

– For seventeen years of our marriage you have been correcting me every time I say something.

– Eighteen.

On the trams I sometimes saw the inspiring slogan “Keep the distance”. Also in a marriage if we don’t keep the distance we might come to the erroneous conclusion that the spouse is only good for corercting. Weithout the distance that presupposes respect for differences we are not talent hunters we do not care for good and do not support the development. We are then rather a toxine that clips the wings. But there’s a chance even for the couple from that joke: eighteen years is still something else than fifty years. The parrot sentence “you’re wrong” can still be reprogrammed to “It’s very interesting, why do you think so?”.

M

In the morning I see a paper in the hall with the hours of the Adoration at night. Well, I don’t know, I say to myself, I went to the Adoration yesterday, if I go now, I might snatch the place from somebody who did not put his name on the list in time. The hours available are far less numerous than participants. Besides, would He like to meet me again? I decide that if by the time of dinner “my” hour stays free, I’ll take it. Before dinner the whole list is full, save the time slot between 2 and 3 am. The time I had hoped for so much is free.

He waits for each of us so much. No-one can take your place in His heart. Looking at you, when you enter, He welcomes you and invites you. Nothing will frighten Him or seem to Him too complicated. Even if sometimes in a room full of people you feel so lonely because of your difficulties that your only friend seems to be a spider on the wall, He is infinitely close to you . He saves you, protects you and frees you from isolation. He knows that you need His love, healing and grace to love and forgive and to save others.

Blessed are the hours when He wants to pass time with us.

M.

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick”. (Matthew 9:12b)

Retreat is the time when we show our wounds to God. First you think that you need to arrive combed and well clad so as to make a good impression on Him. Sometimes you can also come very worried, feeling that you don’t fulfil the expectations.

But for God it is important that you are accepted regardless of what you are like. And that you are so long awaited in father’s house not because of what you can offer but to be offered. To be assured that you are loved and to be healed because in today’s Gospel He says about Himself that He’s a doctor.

He is an exceptional doctor. When He exposes the sore and wounded places He does not humiliate the patient but does it very gently. Sometimes everything is dried up, sometimes the wounds rankle and sometimes the patient has lost hope for a good prognosis. It’s good because we can finally let the Specialist take care of us. He is a patient doctor who has time. There is no queue in the waiting room and He knows the whole medical history, all the injuries and wounds. And He know the best cure.

We call Him through our sufering, limitations and sin that He can touch with His love. The first contact aid.

M

The school year has just come to an end. We can tell it also by the piles of materials, certificates, and textbooks brought home. I find our son Christopher’s kindergarten religion notebook. In it – the letters written with a visibly great effort: “Jesus, I trust You”

“Oh, you how wonderful!”, I’m saying with joy. “I copied it”, Chris proudly replies. Does he already know it’s good to follow the example of the Saints? 😉

His work impresses me. You can say: even a child knows. He knows more than an adult person, what trust means. Trust is about letting things go off your hands and letting Someone else to catch. To trust is to accept your poverty, so that Someone else can fill it in the way He wants it. To trust is to let the others take care of you, when you don’t really know what to do. It’s accpeting your husband’s advice when he tells you: “don’t take anything more on your head”. It’s about setting off on a journey even if you don’t know all the answers. Just as you set off on a holiday, and surely you won’t be able to remember about “everything”.

In order to trust, you need to find a child within you. Imperfect, writing badly formed letters, but drawing huge hearts. Imperfect, but loved without end.

M

The other day I went to the cinema to see “Mud” (USA 2013). In choosing the film I took a blind shot, so to speak; I guess if I’d known before how difficult that movie was, I’d have waited for the newest “Star Trek”. It is a difficult film, because with the eyes of a 14-year-old boy we watch the world in which adults just fail to be what they were meant to.

When the boy’s father says that he and his mother are going to file for divorce, the boy expresses his deeply-rooted natural belief that in marriage people should love and support each other. “That is not so obvious,” his dad replies, thus declaring the bankruptcy of the relationship with his wife, and – for the boy – announcing the end of his own safe world.

There are more noteworthy secenes. For example, when the father and mother are trying to prove to their son who is more to blame, who’s worse in their marriage. And they don’t see that their child couldn’t care less about that, because his world collapses the moment their unity breaks. Or the scenes in which you see that they’re so overwhlemed by their own problems that they don’t find time to continue the conversation with their son beyond the brief “are you hungry?” or “where’s that black eye from?”.

So much depends on us, adults, parents – no matter how “incompetent” we sometimes feel in that role. And it’s not only important what and how we act seperately, but what we create together as a couple.

M