when we endure patiently in everyday life.

Something wonderful has been happening in the last 19 years: FertilityCare/NaProTECHNOLOGY has become available to Spanish speaking nations.

The largest Latin American delegation ever took part in Pope Paul VI Programs this year: 7 professionals and 3 priests – from Mexico, Venezuela and Brazil. A strong branch of a beautiful tree of life.

Dream began in ’94 with a Mexican doctor who knew how to persevere in fruitful prayers, which caused a crazy, fearless and inspiring Mexican woman, Eloisa, to join Education Program in Omaha in 2009 and become a representative for couples for this part of the world. Since then, almost 15 FertilityCare Professionals, and also priests, from Mexico, Costa Rica, Spain and Colombia, have completed PPVI I programs and have been working silently as the apostles of Humanae Vitae at many fronts of their places of origin, as well in the US.

Inquiries grew and took Dr. Hilgers, Dr. Keefe, Dr. Aldana and Dr. Diaz to Costa Rica, Colombia and Argentina. Some FCP programs are already being taught in those places.

By 2013, Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Gibraltar, USA and Spain will be home to at least 11 FCP programs taught in Spanish!

This confirms that great things happen when we endure patiently in everyday life. A great opening of the Year of Faith for the global FertilityCare community!

Beatriz

Beatriz Gonzalez, Mexico, wife and mother. Social entrepreneur and development consultant. Committed promotor of FertilityCare in Spanish ever since she and her husband became clients in 2006. FertilityCare Practitioner Intern at Pope Paul VI Institute. She leads a CrMs FertilityCare Program/Vida Florida Latinamerica based in Mexico City, which reaches to date clients of México, Colombia, Argentina, Costa Rica and Chile. Translates the Family Support Foundation blog into Spanish.

There is the pain of the rejected, for whom there was no room to become someone they would have been, had they been given the chance to come to this world. The Father of Love and Life, taking them in His arms, must have surely explained it to them that the reason for rejection was not their fault. That they weren’t off-putting, too complicated and too difficult, dangerous and ugly, and thus related with the trash they ended up in before they managed to take the firtst breath.

There is the pain of those who did not accept them, because something was missing – knowledge, courage, love, support from the others. Because there was someone who suggested a quick solution for a modest fee, but gave no guarantee for the consequences. And will never listen to that ear-splitting inner cry of the years to come. The cry which echoes that first cry which has never resonated in the hospital room. And will not miss the warmth of a cheek. And will not ask himself the question who it would have become, if.

Many people say both kinds of pain have been just made up. It really is sometimes denied to such an extent that it is not believed to exist.

But “pro-life” does not result from the detachment from reality. “Pro-life” arises from the pain of the former and the latter.

Małgosia

“Surely a child means for the parents additional toil, new accumulation of demands and costs. Hence the temptation not to give it a chance to come to being. The temptation which is very strong in some social and cultural environments. So isn’t the child a gift? Does it come only to take things away, not to give? . . .

A child in itself is a gift for the family. It is a gift for the parents and for the siblings. The gift of life becomes, at the same time, a gift for its donors.” (Blessed John Paul II, Letter to Families 11)

image one

During one of Dr Hilgers’s lectures, a gynecologist told him about one of his cases:

A woman came to ask for prescribing contraceptives. The doctor explained the harmfulness of the side-effects of such “therapy”. The patient wouldn’t change her mind, so the doctor gave her all the details. In the end the woman thanked for the information but said that any of the aforementioned side-effects would be better than a baby.

image two

During the Program I stayed with a young married couple with two small children. They gave a place for me in their home and in their hearts. I didn’t perhaps observe, but actually took part in their everyday life: kids waking up in tears at night, illness of one of them, and then their mum’s illness, bustling about between school, doctor and work. Evening conversations with the effort to make the right decision. Monthly budget. Ordinary life. But with so much care for each other, so much gift of oneself!

From the two images, I choose the second one. This is the world I believe in, this is the world I want to build. I hope to meet you on that path.

P.S.
I’ll never forget the view of my host, moving about the kitchen with rosary beads in his hand. And I would like to thank the Lady of the House for her concern for me.

Michał

– we can see and hear during the Olympic Games. It’s wonderful, but…

…Makes me wonder if that new olympic “tradition” does not introduce – through the back door – the civilization of the death of the fathers? I love my Mum very much, but I also love my late Dad. I would like them both to be proud of me. Not only my Mum. Each child needs both, Mum and Dad. Either of them has their task to do. This new fashion of eliminating fathers can’t result in anything good.

What can we do, then? We can teach children respect for both parents. Mums – can teach respect for Fathers, and Fathers – how to respect Mums. One Mum told me the other day that her several-year-old son answered to her: you do the tidying up yourself, because you have nothing else to do. I don’t think he came up with this idea on his own.

My dear Men. I’m asking you to do something to make your Wives feel, see and hear today  your respect for them.

I am asking you, Dear Wives, do the same for your Husbands.

With no occasion. Just to refresh your memory. May your Marital/Family Olympic Games have their own disciplines and competitions. And I wish you only gold medals.

Fr Jay

This notion changes in time. First, your vacation used to be so long that it seemed to have no end. Then it got shorter and became the time necessary to earn money for the rest of your vacation, or for your university fees, or to aid the family budget.

Today we have vacation, but we spend our time on making vacation for our children. We go to the seaside, because they need the climate change, or to the mountains, because it’ll make them healthier. Sometimes the place of stay is determined by the family budget – our own garden or weekend trips out of town will do.

Vacation shows the truth about parenthood. It’s entirely directed to children. When they grow up they’ll spend most of their vacation without us, until they become parents themselves and will use their vacation to make vacation for their kids.

But there is also another way of spending vacation, when all of us become equal and stand before the same God, who made us all into His children – it’s the time of summer retreat for parents and their children. It’s been happening for so many years in Wiselka*, in Poland. Both parents and children are looking forward to that time. Is it going to be the time of taking a rest? Surely no, but each child, no matter how old, will be able to come back to their Father – who gave us time to love.

Time is… love. As the time of vacation of our children.

Fr Jay

*Wiselka is a Retreat Center of the Institute of the Holy Family

So many parents keep on asking themselves: “Where did I go wrong?”

It’s good to examine one’s conscience.

But it happens all too often that we examine the wife’s or husband’s conscience instead of our own. “I did my best, and the problems are his fault, because he was such a poor role model for the kids…”

Or: “I did my best, and she…”

And maybe again we need God’s point of viiew?

Maybe we should stand in the shoes of the One who did His best, who gave to His children all He had…

Maybe we need this experience to feel the pain of God, who is suffering because His beloved child is rejecting His love? And maybe then we could endure this pain of unreciprocal, rejected love, preserving hope and love?

And hope does not disappoint.

I’m very close to you in my prayers,

Fr Jay

Parenthood in relation to the children who have left Home and became independent is a completely different kind of parenthood. This is the time of pride, of becoming parents-in-law (?), grandparents, advisors…

Sometimes it is the time of confronting life which is entirely different from our expectations: abandoning faith, choices we’re not able to accept, rejection, resentment which we do not deserve…

And yet, whenever I talk to parents like those, I always admire their infinite love, patience and hope that their children will find the right path, that they’ll stop rebelling and return to faith.

Thanks to them I come to a better understanding of the love of God, who never turns away from his child – especially the one who got lost.

My special prayer is with you, dear Parents who suffer when you witness the choices of your children. Your children are also the children of God, who loves them even more than you do.

Still on the way,

homo transitus 😉

I drive past a hoarding advertising a bikini swimsuit. Michelangelo woudln’t have sculpted the body better, all in the right place. Especially the flat tummy, as flat as an iroing board – speaks to the world of the ideal of a body bearing no marks of motherhood. And yet it offers so limited space that it may not house life

I should express my gratitude to the shop which put up the advert. Because I start thinking with gratefulness about all my pregnancy stretch marks, and all the additional centimeters in my waist, which will never shrink to the shape of a teenager. Because all those marks remind me of the greatest secret of my life: that you can give shelter to someone who wasn’t there a while ago.

And I think how much of a lie is hidden in this visual ideal of a woman, whom you might count in pieces and sell together with the bikinis. And I can only imagine how much more free and rich in our hearts we, women, would be, if such pictures weren’t distributed to us – for no charge and everywhere.

Małgosia

or a perfect parent:

Rembrandt, The Return of the Prodigal Son (fragment)

Two shades of irrevocable love:

Love which accepts unconditionally, tender, selfless, giving comfort- associated more with the love of a mother.

Love which requires, gives the impulse to reach out, firm, encouraging and equipping the other with confidence – associated more with the love of a father.

They need to go together, as one palm needs the other.