I AM, I can feel

May 31, 2012 9:45 am

“The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17)

“At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb.” (Luke 1:39-41)

Yes, every new human being, though as small as a poppy seed, deserves singing with joy over them. Even if the baby is a surprise for its parents, even if it finds its mum not ready – being accepted expresses his or her deepest and primary need. When that need isn’t satisfied, as the experience of many people shows, they are left with a painful crack for the rest of their lives.

You can say: sometimes it’s too difficult, greeting new life within oneself. Because it seems to be coming in the worst possible moment in a woman’s life, when she has no support – or even is suffering violence – from the near ones. And yet the little person is desperately begging for love. For not being rejected. Because he or she feels deeply the pain of rejection; it fills them with horror.

And so much depends on the fathers: to give a woman, who is just becoming the mother of their children, a sense of safety. When she feels loved and protected, she will announce to the whole world that a new human being has just started happening!

And even if deserted by everyone, she can always remember that God himself, “the Mighty Warrior”, takes her under His protection – the first one to feel the pain of her isolation, the first – to admire her motherhood. And He will take care of everything.

Małgosia i Dosia

Creighton Model FertilityCare System

April 21, 2012 9:55 am

We tend to associate Creighton Model with an aid in infertility treatment. But CREIGHTON MODEL FertilityCare™ System – is something more. It’s the expression  of care for the other person’s whole life. The care for their health together with the truth of his or her vocation. Health is necessary not only for a woman who wants to be a mum. Also a consecrated woman, a young girl, an elderly lady, a mum of five.

The care for a woman’s health, but also caring for getting to know thoroughly the truth of her sexuality. I lookat the lecturers with amazement. They are not only very competent specialists, but also people of great respect for others. Owing to that respect for another person – thetraining takes so long (13 months) and finishes with a very difficult exam.

You can give the others hope only if it’s grounded in truth and solid knowledge.

I look with no lesser amazement at the course participants. I’ve spent the whole week with them. I listened to their confessions and the stories of the hard times they are given by their colleagues. I prayed together with them and we had meals together. I’ve grown close to them, because we hare the same values. We were like a one big family.

Today they had their serious – though not final – exam. They stayed up late at the tables in all the lecture rooms. A German and a Polish woman were studying hard together, Pablo – from Cuba – with his wife, a group from Mexico and Latin America were revising their knowledge in Spanish, and the doctors were going through dr Hilger’s several-hundred-page long book. The seem to be learning for the exam, but in reality – they all see their patients in their mind: there is this woman who’s waiting for help, as she’s been dealing with the infertility problem for dozen years or so, there’s this girl, who’s in pain due to excessive bleeding, there is finally this wife who experiences extremely difiicult PMS (so does her husband – together with her).

In a while we’ll take part in the Eucharist. I would love to tell them that I admire them and that their effort will be awarded in Eternity.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for Me.” (Matthew 25:40)

Fr. Jay

My yesterday is today

April 20, 2012 9:49 am

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

Colour my world…

April 18, 2012 10:48 am

A couple of years ago in the US I  came across a social campaign whose goal was to protect teenagers from unwanted pregnancies. The idea was to equip a teenage girl with an “8-month pregnancy” – to make her conscious how hard it is to carry a pregnancy to term. With the emphasis on “hard”. It’s not a fruit of love, no new member of our family whom we would expect with longing and care. Only the burden to carry around. Heavy. Something you would like to shake off.

The proposed remedy was contraception. You swallow, wash down, and you become amazingly light.

So there are less and less children. And the sight of a woman carrying a baby under her heart – more and more seldom.

So if I’m the lucky one, I have to show it. So then came the fashion of showing your “bellyful” of a child. There are the photo sessions of the belly growing with each phase of pregnancy (it’s 2/3 of the whole business now, the rest remains still reserved for weddings) and belly castings. You can exhibit the cast then at home (it’s about USD 900 to have it painted and varnished to a shine) or take part in an artistic session of decorating it with patterns to hang it then in your baby’s bedroom.

Is it just a fashion or is it a cry for respect for motherhood, respect for life? Do the women, reduced by men to the role of gratifiers of their needs, wish to enjoy to the full the natural destiny of their bodies? Or is the baby still just the means to “get something” just for myself? For me, regardless of the answer, it’s a bit shocking. How do you think?

Fr. Jay

heroines

March 24, 2012 6:00 am

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