What happened, shouldn’t have happened indeed. So there were bitter words on the part of the customer, expressing his disappointment and dissatisfaction. There were also my sincere words of apology expressing how really sorry I was, and admitting my fault.

I remembered this situation after I’d read the comment made by Fr. Mariusz, ending with his wishes for us: “may there be only beautiful words between you.” Beautiful words are truthful words. I think the words of apology belong to that category. Let’s be able to admit our fault and say “sorry”, even though it is sometimes very difficult.

In the end, the customer called me again after some time to apologize for his words, if they’d hurt me. It’s also important to know how to accept apology.

I would like to thank Fr. Mariusz for his beautiful words.

Michał

*the reply do “remain in Me” (in Polish)

A couple of years ago, during the reatreat for families on the Wolin Island, Poland, Fr. Jay used this metaphor of a river to talk about married life. He said, over a time, sludge deposits in the riverbed. And you have to be able to deal with this muddy staff.

Sledge is whatever hurts us in marriage – misunderstandings, unkind words, hurtful behavior, unfulfilled expectations, etc.

Fr. Jay encouraged us to keep “desludging” our relationship, so that the water might run deep and stay clear. We took to heart this piece of advice. Many of our conversations since then could be tagged “desludging.” I appreciate especially the times when we fight together for a “Better Me” as a wife, husband, mum, dad, friend, … When we talk quite openly about the things that have hurt us or were difficult to accept, and then we can think on the ways of how to express ourselves in a way which doesn’t cover us in sludge, but “lifts us up.”

It’s not pleasant to listen about your mistakes, but such conversations are really beneficial. First of all, I begin feeling grateful that I’m not alone in my struggle for a “Better Me.” That it is not only God, who’s trying to protect and develop as much good as possible in me, with His unswearving patience – but there’s also my Husband,  “who cares so much for me.”.

“Desludging” is the method we have tested over the years – a way of being able today to shape our “better tomorrow.”

Basia

You go to a restaurant. The line is long. You get a device that will “call” you once there’s a free table for you. Or you order a meal in a diner (a less elegant place) and at the till you get the same device, which will tell you when you can pick up your order.

So we’re sitting here, a dozen or so of us, happy that this hectic week is slowly coming to an end. We’re chatting about life in general. Every now and then someone’s device starts vibrating and flashing, so he or she disappears to be back in a while and be able to enjoy their meal.

Even though it’s not the first time I’ve been to the US, I can’t resist wondering at how many people here come to restaurants and diners. In Poland it is still some sort of luxury or extravagance, here – it’s the life style. You come here often to have a meal together. Whole families with children, or married couples.

I would like it to be this way in our country, too. I wish eating out didn’t strain the household budget this much. I wish the wives could be happy while someone else took care of them and the meal, and they could just enjoy being together with their loved ones. I wish the families were able to care for the time only for themselves. Fortunately, we love celebrating in our families. That’s good, because… we have another occasion to meet and be together. Just so. Just for ourselves. Because there’s no greater joy than being with those you love.

Fr. Jay

What an amazing time! People from several dozen states and a dozen or so countries. They came here for a week to learn the language of the body, of fertility. /to learn how to assist married couples in the process of becoming parents. To help them understand the beautiful and difficult gift of fertility, which in their own marriage may take different shapes (from: “it’s enough that he hugs me and I’m pregnant again” to: “Why has God punished us so mercilessly – we’ve been trying to have a child for so many years and all that to no avail”).

The lectures are given by the people who have been assisting the others their whole lives. They’ve been there for the ones deceived by in vitro, or by the comfort of contraception – the ones waiting for years for the miracle of birth.

The only problem is that the whole training is in American English.

When I pass by the course participants, I meet people from Polynesia, France, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Ecuador, Mexico, Canada… not to mention the guy from Bronx of the southern, Mexican part of Arizona

We’re talking to one another at the lunch table, not worrying too much about the pronunciation, accent or vocabulary. We’re talking to one another because we’ve got something to talk about. Those people in here are not incidental. They might have not known one another before, but they speak the same language, they live by the same values.

Is English “the Latin of today” –  lingua franca – or is it love and caring, respect for the other person’s dignity?

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels…”

But things are tough when you don’t speak English…

Maybe today you could speak to your wife in English – and put all your heart and love love and caring you have for her in it? And if you’re reading this blog in English, because you know neither Polish, nor German, then… maybe try to show it to her. I know you can do it.

Fr. Jay

Today we’re traveling in our mind and heart to Nazareth. It’s there where the course of history was changed forever: Jesus was conceived!

I look at Mary with so much admiration. She accepted this unusual and unexpected event in such a calm manner, with her humble and trustful heart, open to God’s plans. She must have been conscious of what her FIAT meant – she might have been stoned to death, among the possible consequences. She must have also wondered how Joseph would react to this situation.

And Joseph – didn’t he suffer, when he found out his beloved wife got pregnant – became a mother to a child that he did not father for sure? I admire Joseph for his ability to defend Mary from accusation in his own heart. He defended her, even though he didn’t understand. And yet he didn’t judge, didn’t condemn, didn’t reproach or resent Mary.

Wasn’t the appearance of Jesus a test of their marital love, in the first moment of coping with the news? A test they passed in such an impressive manner?

Even though it is always a happy event which deserves to be celebrated in most beautiful ways, also for many of us – fathers and mothers – an unexpected conception of a child may sometimes become a test of marital love.

It seems God meant marital life to contain great joy and suffering, hope and anxiety – if He let the holiest married couple, Mary and Joseph, experience them. Let’s entrust our parenthood to them today. Let’s ask them for their assistance in our tests of love. Because they do understand us so well!

Basia

That’s it. How to take care of our love? Among other ways, by taking care of the time for us. But how is it possible to find that time, if you leave for work at dawn and come back home at dusk? Of course, you are left with the proverbial „5 minutes” in the evening. Unfortunately, after a day that leaves you exhausted and seeking for a fast way to unwind, those 5 minutes are easily – almost automatically – wasted.

And yet I’ve found a way. I started to protect the time for my beloved wife in my heart. It is enough if you direct your thoughts – in the middle of the hustle and bustle – to that person. Even though she’s at some physical distance, she’s also close to your heart. What would all this mean, all our work, efforts, confronting challenges, if we weren’t given the chance to be received by the arms waiting there for us? And those returns home are totally different, if you let yourself “feel” your mutual love, and become conscious of it for a couple of seconds during the day. Such “mental text message” will be received by your wife. Especially if you add your smile, kind word and gesture when you come home. Then it turns out that those 5 minutes that you’re left with at the end of another hard day are far more difficult to waste.

Out of those text messages and unwasted 5 minutes a day, I get, in turn, the strength to save maybe one whole evening a week, or maybe one day a month… that we may have just for us, to nurture our love.

Michał

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him (Isaiah 53:2)

My husband, children and friends do not always show “beauty or majesty”. And sometimes I don’t find it easy at all to look at them and to be with them, especially when they are annoyed or “difficult” in any other way. But this is then, and probably mostly then, when I can put to test my love for them.

Am I able to find within the mercy and courage that Veronica had? To offer the gestures of kindness, that favourable look that goes beyond my daunting impression about the other person’s behaviour?

Am I ready to welcome the other in his/her suffering? Or do I stay entrapped in my own fear, resentment, sense of helplessness or discouragement?

The test may come out better or worse, but I’m sure love should not be missing from the ways of the cross.

Basia

Seek good, not evil, that you may live. (Am 5:14)

Seek, protect, support and strengthen GOOD – in my spouse and in me.

DoesN’T  that sound like the prescription rooted in His Word to help “my love NOT to burn out”?

Basia

a wife told her husband.

Does it really work that way? Can love burn out?

The education making me ready to start work lasts from 12 to 19 years (if you add postgraduate studies).

Getting a certificate in a foreign language – requires 600-650 h.

Driving lessons – about 60 h.

How much did it take you to get ready for marriage? Marriage preparation course?

Is that enough?

What else can you do in that field? How to translate your knowledge into competence?

A feeling may burn out, but love never does!!!

You just need to know where to look for love. How to take care of it! How to nurture it.

Fr Jay

I like what Michał wrote. Just the day before I was talking to a friend who said that you have to realize that a married couple is two separate people. 1 and 1.

It’s obvious at the first glance that I and my husband are different and no one would take me for him – and the other way round. At the second glance, I see that „he” has entirely different habits, ideas for leisure, and his ways to react to events. When he puts away clothes, he does it in a manner so varying from mine. Let’s be honest: it’s sometimes annoying.

That’s when I need the third glance. And then I realize that „he” is someone other than „me”. And it’s not about the list of differences that could be listed endlessly. He is different in the absolute sense, „the other”, as God is – „the Other”. I have no rights over „the other”, and if I think otherwise, I’m a usurper. On his face God wrote a message for me: „Thou shall not kill”. And the face, even while speechless, expresses this message in its defenselessness.* How much respect and concern is necessary not to hurt this defenselessness – in my dictatorial inclinations.

Love in marriage is not a cavity that devours the other and digests him/her into the perfect copy of its own „perfect” self. Because the distance between „I” and „you” can only be challenged by dialogue, by opening myself to the otherness of „you”. It’s a journey into the unknown.

Małgosia

*You can read more in Emmanuel Lévinas’s Time and the Other.