Each state in the United States has a slogan that represents their state. The slogan for Nebraska is “The Good Life!”. Nebraska is an excellent state to raise a family. It is not a very large state. In fact, there are more cows than people who live here!
Fr. Jay left Nebraska today for his home in Poland. During his time here he was the spiritual shepherd for 100 students from 16 countries and 29 states in the United Stateswho attended our advanced training in FertilityCare and NaProTechnology. These students greatly appreciated his participation as a spiritual father to them.
This is the first time in over 30 years of conducting our education programs that we had a priest as a fulltime Faculty member. The Pope Paul VI Institute Faculty and Staff were very grateful that Fr. Jay could come to Nebraska to assist us.
Our program concluded late Saturday evening. This morning, I drove from Omaha to Lincoln, Nebraska and took this photo of the Chapel of the Holy Family* that serves the travelers along interstate 80 that connects much of the United States east to west.
For each of us, we want to live the “Good Life” but, even more importantly, a better life! Certainly, with a focus on faith and family, this will happen! Fr. Jay, and his love of the Lord and sharing with us during his stay here, indeed helped us focus on leading lives that will be not just “good” but better and better.
Thank you, Fr. Jay!
Sue Hilgers, Omaha, April 23, 2012
*More impressions from the Holy Family shrine at the outskirts of Omaha, Nebraska:
For more photographs, please see HERE.
You can see in Warsaw (and maybe elsewhere in Poland, too) an advert of something (no idea what exactly) which is summarized provocatively: “Tomorrow is today, only tomorrow”. The phrase was coined by a famous Polish playwright, Sławomir Mrożek.
How about going backwards?
My yesterday is today, only yesterday? The past is gone, you have to live here and now. Why do I want to go back to my yesterday?
Because I’ve been spending the whole week with the doctors and instructors of Creighton Model and NaProTechnology, who – after the day packed full with lectures and study sessions in small groups – in the evening meet their Supervisors, to give attention to the problems of each person they are assisting in their work.
Those meetings for people working on the Creighton Model are difficult, because they show all the mistakes they’d made. And it is always tough to face your failures (we’ve been trying to do our best, but…). There’s no point explaining, oh, I didn’t know, or: it’s not about me, as the precision of the record included in The Creighton Model is simply amazing.
But – even if it is so difficult to meet someone who would point out all your mistakes – the verification of “yesterday” can make you a better person today. Historia docet. History teaches. Also the history of my failures, slip-ups, and words – spoken or unspoken. On condition that we meet our “Super-viewer” who cares so much for our better tomorrow.
Fr. Jay
„…As the soldiers led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus.” (Luke 23:26)
Even though he acted under constraint, we remember him each time we reflect upon the Stations of the Cross. Because whether he liked it or not, he carried the cross – as long as it was needed. His effort became the part of our Lord’s Way of the Cross.
My little son’s weeping in the middle of the night, a sudden phone call with a request for help, illness of a relative or a child’s problem that demands a quick response. Sometimes I am also compelled by the situation to do something urgently, at this very moment. It is most difficult when I’m just “on my way in from the country” – when I’m dead tired and all I dream of is to take a rest.
It is not always easy to make a gift of myself. Sometimes I even have to force myself to manage the task with love. And it doesn’t always feel great to do so. What helps in that case is the consciousness that the gift of myself which costs me much, when I offer it to the Lord, becomes the parable “talent” that He may use as He wishes, thus multiplying its initial value. Doesn’t it please Him – also this effort which I force myself to make – out of love? There are the days when you have the opportunity collect a lot of such “talents” for Him.
Basia
“If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)
Jesus offers the truth that liberates.
Every day, from the morning on, I learn to use the gift of freedom. And this is not easy at all, since the impulse to dominate and to fulfill my selfish needs makes me try to subordinate my husband and children and thus abuse this gift.
And yet Jesus wants me to see HIM in the other person, so in my closest family as well. He wants me to renounce myself and to change – not the others, but myself.
Then I’ll really be free.
Dosia
My students told me, if they were to have a heart transplantation, they would pick me as a donor. Because my heart has not been used.
My mum loves me much and she thinks me the best of her sons. Because she has no other son; there are only my two sisters with my brothers-in-law and 6 grandchildren.
I’m a son, a spiritual father, a brother, an uncle, a brother-in-law, a friend, a confidant, a priest, a consecrated person, a lecturer… How many of us are there? Who am I in the end? Which of those words describes me best?
Who or WHO should I turn to in order to look for the source of my „self”? He told Simon: you are Peter, He named Saul: Paul. Only he knows me entirely. Only He knows my true name. Only He has the answers to my questions.
The most wonderful thing in it is that He knows me entirely, because He has loved me to the end. I don’t know who I am going to be at the end, but probably I don’t need to know it now. I know when I reach the end, I’ll find Love. But in order to be able to recognize and embrace that Love one day, I want to love as much as I can today.
Fr Jay
The title “Courageous” has been translated into Polish as “The Heroes”. So now, Ladies and Gents, it’s time for us. On high heels, in slippers, barefoot in the sandpit. Talented in metamorphosis.
Struggling with tiredness, struggling with another praline, but most of all – struggling with the pressure to fit the covers of all three magazines: Super-Wife, Super-Mum and Businesswoman of the Year. Superwoman.
Do I have to be “super-someone”? Every day I’m just busy juggling.* I toss a couple of balls in the air. Homework, petrol for PLN 5.74 a liter, rehabilitation, rolls, new English words, empty windscreen washing jet, powder, son’s birthday, fish, interpersonal training.
I try hard not to let them fall intthe bushes. But let’s be honest: even though I toss the balls, they don’t always land where I’d like them to. Fortunately! Fortunately, I don’t have to be super-anybody. People don’t like super-humans. My family doesn’t like me in a superhuman version. They prefer when I smile.
I smile. I’d like to remember always not to pursue anything at any cost. To remember that people are far more important than things. That success is a relative notion and sometimes it looks like a cheese pancake. That I don’t “have to” do anything but love – and love entails a lot of brilliant things. Even if they cost me my place on the cover of a magazine.
Małgosia
* “I Don’t Know How She Does It”, Douglas McGrath, USA 2011
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she hasn borne?
Though she may forget, I will not forget you!
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.
(Isaiah 49:15-16)
When my husband needs to make sure he won’t forget something important, he writes it with the ballpoint pen on his palm. Sometimes, when he comes back from work he asks me: “Look, it’s all blurred, what did I mean?” It might be a phone number, time of the meeting with his employees or a request from me: buy dishwasher tablets.
I like to hear how very important I am. Sometimes I worry when I don’t hear it for a couple of days in a row, because I start to suspect something might have changed. I could ask God about it every day, to make quite sure that He’s carrying me somewhere close to His heart, that He hasn’t taken offense and He’s not keeping me at an arm’s length.
So He wrote it down. He wrote it down with the wounds piercing His palms right through. He let people hurt Him just to convince me that He’s not interested in keeping anybody at a distance.
I may also write down on the palms of my hands: “I am loved.” In order not to forget.
Małgosia
The longer I live, the more I admire St Joseph.
Who was he that God should want to share with him the title of the “Father” to His Beloved Son?
Who was he that the Immaculate Mother of God would choose him among all men to be her closest life’s companion?
Who was he that Jesus would call him “Dad”?
We know Joseph must have pronounced the name of Jesus when asked how to name his SON, as that was the father’s responsibility back then. Apart from this – silence falls over his entire life. No miracles, no great deeds, no revelations. And yet he has come to mean so much in heaven – the Protector of the Holy Church! And its unofficial Minister of Finance. We also venerate him as the Protector of Families.
St Joseph, you lived your earthly life in gentleness and humility; teach me to accept from God’s hand whatever hurts, humiliates and mortifies me, so that I may become gentle and humble in heart like Jesus. And like you.
Fr Jay
If Captain J* had a built-in tachometer, it would show the value surpassing what an average employee of an international transportation company could be proud of. But it’s not about the records. It’s about what’s left in the places he’s travelled to.
Today, after he lectured and stayed with the families in Wrocław (Poland), we could all cover with fine print a volume the size of a telephone directory. I’d like to recall just one comparison that has stayed with me for years now and comes to me each time I turn the computer on. When the programs show they’re ready to work one by one, I remember that Fr Jay compared that moment to the process of realizing – each morning – who I am. So, in the first place: God’s child. A woman. A wfie. A mother. A daughetr. A teacher. A friend. I can define my identity in relation to the One who has called me by name, and then – in relation to Improtant People.
Some roles are fairly easy to assume, the other ones – require more effort. When you remember that you can only do well the things you love doing, it would be great if you could develop some passion in those most important areas of life. You don’t love doing the things you come out mediocre in or which leave you with the sense of incompetence. In anticipation of potential failure, the instinct prompts to escape.
That’s why we’re very grateful to our friends who encouraged us to take part in workshop on bringing up the children just when me and my husband started experiencing a heavy deafeat in that field. When we acquire new skills, we feel more confident as parents. We find more joy in the role of parents when we don’t feel like children lost in the fog in that subject.
In short, let’s take advantage of available updates to our life roles. So that we may give a creative and passionate performance.
Małgosia
*Captain J = Fr Jarosław Szymczak
He was despised and rejected by mankind (Isaiah 51:3)
Judgment. Being judged. That is what Jesus experienced when he was numbered wit the transgressors. The sentence: death punishment! Even before He embraced the cross, His heart was crucified – by evil words.
What a disastrous mistake one can make while judging! How easy it is to cast an unjust accusation right in the middle of the other person’s heart!
It amazes me what words can work. The same tongue that may create the realm of love and peace, can also become the instrument of destruction, dealing blows; of making unfair and hurtful judgments.
So now I understand why Jesus so often warned: “Do not judge…” Because we’re so easily swayed by emotions and prone to assuming that the appearance – or the shadow deformed by mere interpretation of things – actually is „the” truth.
While contemplating the First Station of the Cross, I feel how immensely important it is to cultivate the habit of defending my spouse from accusations in my own heart!*
When my heart gains more freedom from judging, I find it easier not to join in the company of accusers whenever I become unintentionally a part of somebody else’s “trial”.
Basia
*One of the follow-up e-learning tasks after the “You and I = We” Program.
