When I visited Bishop Carlos Briseno straight after my arrival, we talked about the areas and limits of my involvement so that there was time for everything. Of course I was supposed to support the local church with my knowledge of marriage and family, and offer my assistance in the trainings in NaProTechnology and FertiltyCare led by the Omaha team, as well as through the Programmes. This was clear and the next time we were to talk it over more specifically, with concrete dates.

This time we went to this meeting together:  Eloisa, Beatriz and me (Eloisa started promoting NaPro in Mexico and is the first trainer of the Creighton model and you know Beatriz from Programme 1 that was organised in May). The meeting was beautiful and fruitful, even more than I’d expected. There was only one problem: the Bishop wanted me to start with the information and motivation meetings this Saturday, so I have only this day to think over all the things I’d like to share. Perhaps it would not be so difficult as such but it will be in a language foreign to us all so I hope that Mexicans will forgive me mistakes in English.

So please pray for me to Mary of Guadalupe so that I receive the light and the wisdom and ease of speech and so that I can find the right words. I would like to try for the first time in my life to speak everything from the heart and from from a sheet of paper. I have found out many a time that when you speak from a sheet of paper, the words go also to the sheet of paper when the listeners take notes but if you speak from the heart it is also where the words go. When we speak the grammar is less complex. Please pray so that I can perform my task as the Holy Family wishes. If I survive the meeting, I will let you know what it was like.

Remembering you

Padre J

I have mentioned before that waiting for a place in Bishop Carlos’ parish I stay in the family of Beatriz and Pepe. I participate in family life full of rituals like children going to school in the morning and their return, family dinner when we wait for Pepe to come back from work, plays and trips, doing homework and other duties.

I know this all so well from other homes that I visited during our meetings or programmes. But normally it was for 2-3 days and now it’s a bit longer. Ten days have passed since I landed in Mexico and there are another ten to go.

My favourite ritual has become the evening rosary. Of course, when we go somewhere, for example to a sanctuary of Mary, we pray on the way but if we are all at home, we meet together, preferably in the children’s room, when the kids are in pyjamas and ready to sleep. .

I remember all these homes where rosary is prayed with the whole family, every day. In the beginning it will always be difficult but slowly it becomes a wonderful part of the day that you look forward to. Can you imagine something more beautiful than a family that meet for rosary? It is so good to see a small daughter that falls asleep on her father’s lap during the prayer. We can lose so many grudges, purify so many desires. Perhaps we could continue with the rosary, even though October has come to an end?

With my prayers for you,

Padre J.

– is the place where I mostly spend the days of this week. In a large portion on confessing and conversations. It turns out that not only the EP students need  a chaplain. So does the staff.

Thanks to my ministry I can also hear the hidden and so far unknown life of the Institute. Like for example the phone system equipped with loud speakers, through which different information is shared (the Mass in five minutes, lunch for all in a quarter of an hour or that it is time to say goodbye to our Maureen, who is retiring).

I also heard a short prayer flowing from te speaker. For all that is happening in the Institute, for staff, and for patients. A small reminder that we are not alone, that our work is a service and that God is lovingly watching over us – and it is Him that we serve.

Maybe we shouldn’t naively expect that we’ll be able to have the same sound system in our workplace or at home, but it is good to find something in the usual pace of the day which will remind me of the sense of my life and my work. It used to be the bells, tolling three times a day to encourage us to pray Angelus. But today in many mobile phones you’ll hear the alert reminding of Angelus, the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy or Rosary.

Whatever it is, it’s got its role – to tell me I’m a part of a larger project: God loves me infinitely and wants me to be with Him. In giving His love to the others.

With heartfelt prayer,

Fr. Jay

Thank you all for the words of support in this new challenge. It helps me when I know we’re together.

The journey was long, but so was the distance. Almost 10-hour flight, 6 hours of waiting at Chicago airport, and one more hour needed to get to Omaha, where I’m going to spend the next few weeks, devoted to the ministry at Pope Paul VI Institute.

Tomorow begins for the 36th time the Allied Health Education Program for Creighton Model Parctitioners and doctors interested in NaProTechnology. We’re expecting over 80 students from many places in USA and from other countries. It’s a special time for the whole Faculty. The days start very early in the morning and finish very late at night. Parallel to EP1 of the Program is the Love&Life Unlimited Conference for all who care for life and who would like to learn something more about Creighton Model and NaProTechnology, as well as acquire more theological knowledge in that area.

For me it is in the first place the time of meetings with the Students and of my ministry as a chaplain. So many good things are happening in this time. It is also amazing that we can support one another despite the distance.

Keeping you in my prayers,

Fr. Jay

Today I’m going on a long journey – for a year. I have one aim: to be everywhere where the Holy Family wants me to be and only there.

The beginning is Omaha, NE and a NaPro course. At the end of the month I shall move to Mexico for 3 months. Then further stages will follow. I spend the last night packing. How can you pack for the whole year, given that airlines limit your luggage to 23 kg?

I shall spend this day on airports and in airplanes. I will get to Omaha only on Thursday morning (Polish time). I have so many questions and emotions. Please remember me in your prayers.

Best wishes

Father Jarosław now, soon Father Jay

Every time we’re supposed to run one of the Programmes, I am asked to prepare a post to the Harbour. We could count one day how many such notes I’ve made already. It is becoming a challenge for the writer – how many times you can announce the same Programme, how many times you can write about the same things that are going to happen?

Today, when I was planning the new entry, I thought about… myself. So many years, the same texts… It is a bit like the same perfomance over and over again… and still differently, although there are many elements in common.

Yesterday evening I read all the surveys. I tried to imagine all the situations described- often so dramatic and painful. In the coming hours I will be able to touch them, show their roots, suggest possible solutions. The same Programme, the same human problems, and yet always the meeting with a living human beaing that longs for marital happiness  that’s inexplicably gone. But perhaps it is possible to explain? But how should I say it so that they may want to do something about it?

Please support our couples and the trainers with your prayers

Father Jarosław

Perhaps that would be the shortest summary and closest to the truth. This time it was really very hard. For everyone the temperature: 27 grades was hard to bear. The last 12 km were on an asphalt road and in full sunshine. Legs just wouldn’t run. The only thing left was the will to run till the end.

It was an extraordinary experience to meet those I met last year. During a marathon everyone runs at their own pace, so sometimes you catch up with someone, someone catches up with you, you run for a while together, then again apart and again together. I was impressed by the runners who were older than me, sometimes much older. I managed to catch up with some of them. For a while.  .

This year I ran on my own. Nobody from our team could join me. I was all the more thankful to my sister Ania and my brother-in-law Paweł, who gave me moral support (and a drink) in the same spot as Jacek Kubrak did last year. And, what is more important, they ran a bit with me. And then they welcomed me at the stadium. Since I ran in the clerical collar, I was welcomed in Wolgasta as the priest-runner. Fortunately the end was in a good style – thanks to the magic of the stadium.

Thank you for your support. I finished the race only because of the intention of Pope Francis. Had it not been for it, I would have probably surrendered and walked until the end. I was also helped by Stas, who after his half-marathon ran in front of me and then till the end with me. Thanks to all of you who were sent by the Angels. See you at the next marathon!

With a thankful prayer

Father Jaroslaw

It’s today. From 10.30 am until… we’ll see.
Yesterday the priests participating in the training left to get on time to their parishes. They looked happy. I was very satisfied. It was a very good time and it looks promising for the future of the Programmes. You’ll probably meet some of them at the next Programme 1.

I had some time for myself to prepare for the marathon tomorrow. When I looked for an intention, I thought about the suggestion of Pope Francis I – for peace in Syria. It will certainly be a good opportunity to fast but also for a concrete effort. This marathon is good for it as it is a joint initiative of Poles and Germans – who used to be enemies but now are neighbours who get to know each other. We will run side by side, in the spirit of fair competition. Until the end you run the marathon as friends in a common effort and only at the very end there is fight for who comes first.

As always before a start (iit sounds so serious! But it’s the fourth one in my life) there are many fears: if I will manage, if I will come a bit more early than the last time, if I will have an injury, how I will feel during the last kilometres. This one is technically difficult – a lot of hills and uneven surface. I know I have been training as much as my crazy schedule allowed but I feel it has not been really sufficient. I have run for almost 520 km altogether , left for trainings about 60 times and spent almost 60 hours training. Is it much or little? In the rain, in the heat, in the cold. Usually early in the morning, on my own or in a bigger group. It is certainly a good training of persistence. Today I celebrate. I wanted to run in a group but they didn’t come, so I am alone. Well, not quite, I run always with my Guardian Angel. If your Angels wanted to join even for a few kilometres, it will be more fun.

See you after the marathon. Defeat or victory:)
Father Jarosław

Immediately after the training in Łomianki came to an end we went to Wisełka to meet with priests who wanted to get more acquainted with the First Program for the Development of Marital Relations, I+You = We.

Priests from the following dioceses: Opole, Siedlce, Warszawa – Praga, Warszawa, Bydgoszcz and Szczecin and friars:   Divide Word Missionary, a Brother of  St. Anthony Mary Claret and a franciscan. Each of them has seen already in their service that there is nothing more important than serving the family. They want to learn and share. So we are together from the matins until late at night. Work, prayer, recreation, some moments of reflection and laughter, the stories of achievements and failures. There has never been such a meeting in isełka – there is not enough space in the presbitery for all the celebrants.

The prayers of so many families that were here over the summer touch us so much. We don’t know yet what fruits this meting will bring but we give to God every moment and difficulty, tiredness of the people living here who have been ceaselessly serving here since June and people from Łomianki who have come here. And we ask you, dear families, for support – pray for those priests so that their hearts burn with an even greater love for families, so that they leave this place strengthened and enthusiastic about this beautiful, if difficult ministry.

Remembering you fondly

Father Jarosław (3 days before the marathon)

[Note from the translator: Please forgive the longer pauses now. Only a week ago our child was born and I am unable to translate regularly. As I have no backup, it means fewer posts and longer pauses.]

I have recently spent some time in a parochial church, where in a separate chapel it was possible to adore Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrament. I like sitting in the first bench so as to be as close to Him as possible.

Of course I knew that there were also other people in the chapel but then it was only me and Him. At some point I began to notice that there were other, probably elderly, people around: sighs, shuffling of pages, whispered prayers that are still audible. I admit that in the first raction I thought it was a pity that someone came and disrupted the peace. But then the reflection came that I was witnessing the different ways in which pople were bringing their lives to Jesus. And when someone began to recite the Chapelet, taken up and repeated by everyone, I thought that these were the pople who kept the world in reins. This prayer, so humble, ordinary and full of human presence, makes the Church serve.

So when someone approached me and asked me if they could confess, it was no longer difficult to leave “my” prayer and “my” time with God but I could joyously fulfil my mission. I am ashamed of this first reaction of mine but also thankful bacuse God has broadened my heart and look.

How many mothers and fathers like that keep praying for their children and in so many other intentions? We can do so much with our faithful prayers, we can save so many souls.

Remembering about you during the second period of retrat in Wisełka,

Father Jaroslaw