“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)

I mentioned earlier that some of you won’t be able to go on vacation at all, or managed to spend just one week at the seaside, 5 days of wich were rainy. What then? I think that really much depends on our imagination. I know families who visited all the museums in town during vacation, enjoying those lessons in history and culture a lot.

I know one Dad who set off on a expedition with his little sonny: they made supper on the campfire and slept in the tent. In their own garden. A child doesn’t need to cover hundreds of kilometers to have the sense of a wonderful adventure.

I know a family in which the oldest sister prepares a quiz each week for her younger siblings. She comes up on her own with the rules and questions for the game, and her brothers and sisters simply can’t wait! And you? What are your ideas for vacation full of adventure?

I am going to an art museum. There’s a great exhibition of Dutch painting.

With warmest regards,

xj

– 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 😉

Everywhere – children.

In the US you can see them everywhere. At least in the places I also visit: churches, ZOOs, restaurants, national parks. Just like in Poland.

What you can see in Utah, or even just in Slat Lake City, is beyond imagination. I haven’t seen so big families for a long time, nor so many children walking with their parents, or going shopping or watching movies in the cinema.

In SLC and around there are lots of parks, and in the parks – lots of attractions for whole familes. And you can see business booming everywhere. The unemployment rate is the lowest in the US. Where children come to the world, you need houses, churches, schools, shops and in them – priests, teachers, producers, shop-assistants.

In the West of Europe there are no children, because of poverty, crisis, difficult ecomic situation. In Utah there are children, because people enjoy economic prosperity.

Or is it the other way round?

Fr Jay

Salt Lake City, 12.07.2012, 12:22 US Mountain Daylight Time

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” (Matthew 9:12)

Since yesterday morning I’ve been with our youngest sonny in hospital, as we’ve been fighting for three days now with his fever and diarrhea. And indeed, we do need a doctor now. So that our fighting with the disease could be effective. And there are so many like us here. The doctors are competent, but the lack of improvement becomes irritating.

I’d like to ask you, Lord, for those who chose the doctor’s profession, so that they may have some of your concern and compassion, some of your willingness to give a helping hand to the ones who are not doing fine. And I’m asking you for the sick – so that they never run out of hope and trust in the hardships of their illnesses.

We’re all so often Your patients in need.

Dosia

“Patience achieves everything.” (St Teresa of Avila)

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.