– worried several individuals and couples who visited me recently.

And experts on communication say: it is impossible “not to communicate.” People communicate things all the time. So where are those problems?

Is it so difficult to communicate: I love you, you are so beautiful, I like to be with you, I have to hold you close and take some of your courage and strength, I love listening to your voice, I fell in love with your eyes the first time I saw them and I’m so happy they are looking at ME with love… (you could continue for a looooooong time, for sure)?

Don’t the problems with communication arise, becasue we choose rather: He hasn’t said any good word to me for ages, when will I get his “thank you?”, he treats me like air, I’m only a money-making machine and an issue-solving robot, she wants something from me again, I’d like some peace and quiet… (you could continue for a looooooong time, for sure)?

And maybe you could start your communication adventure with repeating aloud: “Till death do us part”? From this perspective it may be easier to communicate what’s essential.

Fr. Jay

— „You are the most beautiful woman in the world!”

I saw at once I’d missed.

—„You bake the best pies!”

I was didn’t get too many points for that one.

— „You look great…  you are the most wonderful mother…”

I was trying to meet the needs. Unfortunately, the effect was poor.

—“Maybe you could tell me what you want to hear. Can you teach me?”

The lesson turned into a very nice evening. It’s good to start dialogue. 🙂

Michał

“Love cannot be learned, and at the same time – nothing is more learnable than love” (blessed John Paul II)

Each day is a new chance for our love to grow. How can I show it to my family today? With a good word, an encouraging look, things I wear, an act of selfless help, cheerful spirits, gentle voice, listening to them patiently or my honest work…?

Love can be expressed in so many ways! Which of them did I give up using? Which of them would I like to use more?

How good that love is not something “ready made”, as Karol Wojtyla wrote, because there is still a chance for a more beautiful “today” and “tomorrow.” Let’s take it.

Basia

Already as a young clerical student I heard about one candidate for sainthood – that his personal ideal and life vocation, as well as the key to understanding all life situations was: “to be a living tabernacle.” If I’ve received Lord Jesus in my heart, it means He lives in it, so I’m a living tabernacle and may bring Him to all the places where He is most needed. And from my heart – He can radiate on the other people, places and situations.

Today our towns and villages, streets and squares, roadside Saints  and the windows of our homes are welcoming Jesus, who wants to visit us. He wants to be there – where we run to work, go shopping, meet our friends or business partners and clerks…

Our celebrations are very festive – thank God, because there are the countries where such processions don’t take place any longer. 🙁

But it’s also up to us – if we let Him visit our homes, our marriages and families, when He comes in a most discreet ways: in the hearts of our “First-Holy-Communion” children, in the heart of the wife coming home after the day of work to her husband, or in the heart of the husband returning to his wife, waiting for him at home. And maybe on Monday, from my heart I’ll show the Lord round my workplace and colleagues?

Fr. Jay

Round anniversary of our friends’ wedding… Occasion not so extraordinary… But…

When four years and a half ago we were expecting our middle child to be born, She was waiting, too. We exchanged the news “from our bellies.” Their son was born first. Earlier than ours. And not in a way that all had expected.

He was baptized very quickly in hopsital, before his first (then it turned out – one of several that followed) operation. Afterwards – there were four years of struggle, of everyday laborious rehabilitation… Strength and kindness flowed from that Family. Small successes. Small joys.

So the Anniversary Mass is not quite ordinary. Because it takes place in the Intensive Care Unit, in hospital. The four-year old child is unconscious, and his parents, engulfed with pain, are asking the Lord to keep him alive, if He wants him to be healed. On the other hand, they are close to accepting the doctors’ diagnoses – so they ask for no more suffering for their child.

And there is this extraordinary priest with these extraordinary words. Not preaching about the pain. Not talking about leaving and losing. About Love. About the support that the spouses may give to each other. And that in the first place, the Husband is there for his Wife, and the Wife – for her Husband. And only then for their children, and for the rest of the family.

He also talks about the Marriage Vows – that they never become outdated, they have no expiry date. And that one for the other is a support on their way to salvation. And that it is Love that wins. And Love brings peace.

And that it’s good to be grateful for all the good things – and cherish the memory of those things, multiply them and share them. In good times and in bad.

That was the sermon, in those circumstances. Addressed so much to me. Also to me. To you, too… ?

Agnieszka

PS. A couple of hours after the Mass I recieve a text message that the doctors have declared the child’s brain dead and the small Angel is already in Heaven.

or on the potential of love:

“Love is never something ready made, something merely ‘given’ to man and woman; it is at the same time a ‘task’ which they are set. Love should be seen as something which in a sense never ‘is’ but is always only ‘becoming,’ and what it becomes depends upon the contribution of both persons and the depth of their commitment”. (K. Wojtyła*)

* Love and Responsibility, William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1981, p.139

…to find time for organizing Program 1: “You and I are We” (couple reatreat) in Łomianki, Poland, together with the marriage preparation course “Gaudium et spes”. We welcomed a dozen or so couples.

The schedule was arranged in such a way so that I could move from the married couples to fiances and back. For the former group of participants – the program was a chance of coming back to each other, finding each other after months of years of being lost; for the latter –  it was the opportunity to face the questions that one doesn’t notice at this stage of relationship.

When I do Program 1 I always recalll those who have already taken part in it. I would like them to find some time to moor in our Harbour despite their manifold activities and tasks.

Together with you I make the first steps in this new week: on Monday – I remember the lesson of gentleness, on Tuesday – I’ll remember how to show respect, Wednesday will be my day of creativity, freedom and joy in treating my life as a gift for the others, Thursday will refresh my rituals, Friday is the invitation to dialogue abounding in tenderness, so that on Saturday my gift could express the purest word of my love.

It doesn’t take much for a married couple to nourish the love necessary “not only to survive the joys and sorrows of daily life, but also to grow, so that husband and wife become in a way one heart and one soul, and together attain their human fulfillment” (HV 9).

It doesn’t take much, does it?

I’m keeping you in my memory.

Fr. Jay

“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-6)

I used to be think that the ideal of proximity consists in becoming “the same” – the kind of unity in which “the fewer differences, the better.”

I’ve come to understand, however, that I owe a lot to those who differ from me in their style of acting, thinking and feeling. Thanks to them I can widen my own (and often narrow) perspective, I can grow in open-mindedness and make my own world richer. And I can reach out all the time beyond my own self – in order to try to understand the other person and to respect them more in their otherness.

Becasue any difference shouldn’t turn us into battling sides, entrenched up to ears in our views. It’ll be so much more interesting if I treat the difference as the call for building unity – in the richness of variety.

Basia

Yesterday abounded in special celebrations. To start with the official opening ceremony and speeches in the beautiful Congress Auditorium of Palacio del Congreso, and to finish with the symphony concert, rewarded with a standing ovation, and closing with an excellent encore.

Before noon there are plenary sessions, and in the afternoon – panel sessions which take place simultaneously in 5 rooms. That shows how many issues are discussed – by experts from all over the world – but also confronts us with the decision which panel to choose, as you cannot be everywhere at the same time.

The breaks consist in meeting other people. The ones we’ve known since the previous congress editions (How are you? How’s the situation of the family in your country?) and the ones we may get to know and exchange visiting cards (the pile is growing and reminding me I should think at last to have my own cards made). That is followed either by general invitation to come and visit a place, or the actual “orders” for participation in various undertakings.

And we’ve got the strict timing discipline, except for a minor delay at the beginning, which is self-evident, as we’re in Spain. 😉

That discipline allows the speaker to talk for 10 minutes, and then there’s the sound of the alert that your time is up. That discipline kept me awake yesterday/today, because I was rehearsing my speech, trying to make it shorter by 2 minutes. For the time being – I chose to speak a bit faster. We’ll see the outcome. Anyway, I’m asking for your support. A Pole, a priest, about infertility, in English, in front of the audience of 3 000 participants. I don’t know it will be enough if you just raise your thoughts to Heaven – I may need more thean this. 🙂

Hasta mañana.

Fr. Jay

Note from Editors: You can view Fr. Jay’s presentation on-line (live) during the plenary scheduled for 11:00-12:00 (about 11:20) on the official WCF website.

Today’s program: HERE

One of our regular Readers told me that Fr. Jay’s posts are the least “pious,” so today this is going to be a bit more pious for a change 😉

Yesterday we all celebrated the Feast of the Ascension. I’ve always associated this feast with the words of Lord Jesus saying it is good for us that He is going away, because we will be given “another Comforter” (John 14:16). So we’re entering the special time of vigil, of awaiting.

Who am I waiting for? Under which name – from so many of names of His – will He come to me? What is my waiting like?

And I’m praying for you, my Dear Ones from the Harbour, so that you can get His power anew – the power which will manifest itself in your marriages and families, in your struggle with your weaknesses and fears.

So let’s raise our heads, we’re clothed in the arnour to fight for our marriages and families. Let’s open our hearts to His power. All we need is to let Him act within us, as He did in His Apostles and saints. Si isti, cur non ego? If they could do it, why not me?

Fr. Jay