selective memory

June 10, 2013 12:02 pm

For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. (2 Corinthians 1:5)

Dear Reader, if you are the kind of person who always sees the donut not the hole, we’re happy for you! The world needs you so much!!! However, if you don’t belong to that minority group, feel invited to stay with us for the next several lines.

You might have not noticed until now that even in real hardships the Lord is giving you reasons for joy and so many proofs of His concern for you. He’s sending His Angels, often in the person of actual people, who for instance will tell you on the phone: “Where are you? In a shop? is there a mirror anywhere near? Come closer to it. What can you see? A smile? See, that’s not so difficult.”

And yet among many memory disorders, apart from total amnesia, there’s a very dangerous disease of “selective memory”. It chooses from the whole day only the things that went wrong. The dinner was too late. Even though you should be grateful that it took place at all, and you all could gather and have it together (which is not so obvious, if someone in the family is ill or away). 

Of course one should neither ignore real suffering, but try to help it, nor neglect problems that need solution. But optimism brings us closer to God’s view of things. The lives of the most cheerful people I’ve ever met were not all roses. But when they checked the balance of each part of the day, they were always “in the black,”, and not “in the red”. They could notice even the smallest things that worked out well. And they were also able to appreciate other people’s efforts in a similar way.

Margaret

bus stop

June 7, 2013 11:00 pm

The Corpus Christi feast octave finished yesterday. But I’d like to go back in memory to our Lord Jesus, whom we met at the bus stop in Wisełka, during the Corpus Christi procession in the parish neighboring the retreat House of the Holy Family.

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He was standing there and waiting. Not for the bus, to be sure. For me, totally surprised at where He’d taken a break, for us all. For you, Dear Reader. To tell you that He is with you, also when it seems that nothing is happening. And when you are in between point A and B of your daily schedule. And when you’re in a hurry, and don’t know what to start with. Or when you’re alone with your thoughts and it no longer matters what scientific degree you have and who the others think you are. And also when you are so troubled that you cannot speak. He’s listening to your heart and waiting for you to tell Him all. He puts His arm around you to assure you that He always lifts you up, rescues and defends. He defends you also from your own self, when you lose patience with yourself.

Today is the feast of His Most Sacred Heart. The Heart full of love to be given away. It’s waiting for those who will come and take it as it is. He is asking you to let Him love you. In everything. And in time, everything will change.

M

Noah's Ark

June 2, 2013 10:31 pm

We have already written about the preparations to build the great boat.

Twenty-odd families from the Wrocław Group but some families that trusted us so much as to join our team for the first time, came in the morning of Corpus Christi to Wisełka to set up a new playground in the retreat centre that hosts us kindly every year and witnesses so many miracles in our lives.

It is such a great joy for us that this project has come to fruition precuisely on the Children’s Day. A year ago one of us, Jack Jacket, said to us: Let’s do something like this because they do so much for us. He said so and took resposibility for his words. It took sa many months to to the planning, designing, buying materials, preparing intermediate products as far as 500 km from the sea so that the work could be finished in two days… The we drove with the bus rented by Jack and with the truck that carried 2 tons of wood. And only 2 days for the work.

The men woke up at 6:30 am. They were divied into several teams and had to plan their work so that everything went well as a whole.
At the Mass celebrating the Children’s Day there were so many reasons for joy. The bons of friendship between us work well in working together. We know that we can count on each other. We can cede the leadership because not everyone has to be a leader but we all need to serve with our ideas and gifts. Thanks to this wonderful adventure we felt again a family of families where we feel well.
God blessed this effort with good weather. Today in the morning a flood began but we have an Ark:).

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What comes next

May 23, 2013 1:21 pm

Sometimes it is worth quarrelling with the Husband, to finally remmber that:

– it’s difficult to come up with “sorry” earlier than him,

– he has good intentions just as I do and he fails just as I do,

– he’s so wonderfully creative that he can make a beautiful – and memorable – morning out of a spoilt evening:

Obrazek
Our repeated texts in a quarrel mean boredom that depresses us so often once the emotions quieten down. But the real challenge is in what comes afterwards.

M

Habla con Ella: talk to Her

May 3, 2013 7:09 pm

 When Jesus saw His Mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her,“Woman,[a] here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your Mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. (John 19:26-27)

Worshipped in so many different representations, always showing herself akin to the culture She is coming to visit, She’s offering you this kind of proximity which binds together closest members of a family. And if you have never known the loving presence of a mother, she heals you to be able to experience it. Her Son wanted you so much to be part of His Family.

Our Lady of the Snow, Illionois

Our Lady of the Snow

Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe

Our-lady-of-Guadalupe-

Our Lady of Częstochowa, Queen of Poland

Matka-Boża-Częstochowska

And here someone took a picture of Her in the company of St Elizabeth:

the_nativity_story_20

M

Women's Club

April 20, 2013 8:32 pm

– or Praying Mantis Club. The tradition of Wrocław, Poland. Yesterday again.

For how many years have we met in the company of wives? We tried to count, but even though women have a detailed mamory for EVERYTHING, we didn’t manage.

When I call the restaurant to book a table and I say: for 9 women, the man I’m talking to understands what I mean when I’m asking for a quiet place somewhere aside. Then, I and Dear Jacket are desperately trying to find an-impossible-to-find-on-friday-evening parking place and I have to call him again to keep the table for us – and he understands, too.

And he keeps calm when he’s waiting for us to place an order – and we are talking all at once and to one another, multiplying anegdotes on the subject of  parking the car, drinking wine and calories*. We’re not worried that half the items listed in the menu are unavailable and simply not there.  It’s important that WE are here. Wearing high-heeled shoes and necklaces, because it is our time, when it’s not our usual turn to serve the table. Even though we love our Families very much, we need to feel – from time to time – like princesses.

Halfway through the meeting we’re joined by a friend of ours, who’s just driven from another city, 100 km away. A couple of years ago, in similar company, we bid farewell to her, because their whole family was leaving for Manchester, UK. We promised we would visit her. And so we did. The Praying Mantis Club conquered Manchester, too.

After several hours the waiter is asking if we need anything else. And we say, no, thank you, we’re fine. But I wouldn’t like to have you seating at an empty table, he insists But we have our mouths full… of words – Danusia replies.

modliszki

With warmest regards from Poland for a change,

Margaret

*Do you know what calories are? Marta explained it to us: Calories are little dwarves who take in our dresses at the waist while we’re asleep. 

This Night

March 31, 2013 4:11 pm

He’s coming to you. And He has so much to tell you.

He’s coming to you who say that you haven’t got any strength left, and He says that He knows everything. He is not terrified by your weakness and His grace is enough. You shall have enough of His love to give it to others.

He’s coming to you who are in pain, and He says: I shall fill your wounds with my light and you shall carry them like medals, and they will remind you of the most intimate meetings with Me.  In those wounds you’ll meet many people whom you will give a word of consolation.

He’s coming to you – afraid of tomorrow – and He says that He is your tomorrow, and that He’ll never let you down.

It is for you that He’s gone through it all – and has risen. So that you’ll never be alone.

M

ties of blood

March 29, 2013 5:22 pm

On the cross He utters so few words, but He speaks with His entire self.

He says that every human being is valuable, that every person with no exception matters for Him.

That is the last way to say it to those who do not believe in any words of reassurance. Because maybe so much has happened in their lives.

For several years of His mission – He did His best to tell people about His Father’s love. He didn’t get much sleep, had no place of His own, looked for those who got lost and they looked for Him; He healed, forgave and defended. He showed the way leading to the fullness of life.

His final declaration of love is total, He opens himself entirely. To tell you about His love – He becomes defenseless. He takes your burden and lets the others hurt Him so much. When –  stripped of all dignity and rejected – He tells His Father about His loneliness, it seems He has no more faith or hope, and the message of His sacrifice is just limitless, “illogical” love.

For the Father. For you. So that you could accept Him. Believe Him. Let Him become the part of your life.

M

stay, don't leave

March 26, 2013 11:12 am

A friend of my Husband’s, a father to two small children, fell ill with cancer several years ago. The diagnosis leaving very little hope arrived during the Triduum. After a tough battle for life, which took many months, he and his wife very briefly shared their memories of that difficult time during a retreat for families. They said that it was very painful to listen to the phone which fell completely silent, to witness no more visitors, and to receive no more proposals of social events. They thanked my Husband for maintaining usual contact. And yet I remember him going to the hospital to see his friend after an operation which proved entirely unsuccessful. He was afraid and thinking: “What am I going to tell him?”

We could say, if you want people out of your way, tell them about your suffering to which you know no cure. Helplessness disturbs in people the memory of simple words and gestures which may bring relief to those in pain. We find it easier to be busy and “effective”.

What’s left to say to Jesus, facing the last days of His life, already doomed, sentenced to death? Well, He surely will manage somehow on His own, God’s ordained it all, there’s nothing to do to prevent it. Soon it will be Saturday, Easter Sunday and Monday.

And yet it does make such a great difference to Him – if there’s someone with Him. Someone – means you, because no one can replace you in His heart. He would like you to be there – with the small range of things to do. But don’t you hold your child’s hand when it’s ill? And if you were alone and facing the terror of death – wouldn’t you like to know that someone is there with you?

Certainly we all carry in ourselves Peter, and the potential for desertion, we’re no better than him. But we also have in our hearts John and Mary Magdalene with their limiltless and “irrational” love. Did Jesus, in the great spectacle of rejection, notice that they were with Him? His life faded in torment.

But even in fading, and maybe especially when we seem to fade away – don’t we need someone to be there with us till the very end?

Margaret

A riposte

March 20, 2013 7:51 pm

 “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”(J 8:31)

Unfortunately, sometimes we quarrel with each other. Even recently. And at the end; a riposte to the Husband. So that I got the upper hand. Perhaps many people would praise me for it and give me a “like”.

But in my heart of hearts U yearn for understanding, acceptance and closeness. I cannot obtain them by means of weapons. A riposte will not get me a sweet fruit of kindness. More likely, it will bring about self-defence.

With Jesus I can see what is underneath a grudge. Perhaps a fear of losing something, a fear about oneself. He is not afraid to look with me at the truth about. me. He can show me what truth about myself I can show to the other and how I should accept his deepest truth about himself: about his desires, dreams, needs etc. Jesus never stops believing in me and shows me that I can always be a gift to someone, even if I am weak.

Dorota

  and Małgosia,

the masters of riposte