“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.

“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

“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

It was our community’s day of reflection. And Adoration, too. The chapel wasn’t too big. But the light in it seemed not to be sufficient. So many families, and many more children. Buzz, noise. The pews squeaking with every movement. Some children were taking part in rosary prayer, some were walking around the chapel, some were filing a request for changing the place of their stay to their parents. One small boy quietly enjoyed sightseeing in the presbytery with the Holy Sacrament in the middle of it. Everyone was pursuing as much silence in their hearts, as they could afford. For sure, the yearning for silence was much greater than the actual experience. And among all that – He himself, God.

And it occured to me: isn’t our life just like that? Is it not what any family’s everyday reality is like? You could say: chaos in thousands of variations. And it is only up to us – to make this chaos a space available for Him to walk around. He doesn’t like being an unwanted guest. He wants so much to be invited. Wanted.

Stay with us, Lord.

Michał

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

„…show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” (John 14:8)

These words often come to my mind when I reflect on the relationship with our children. They are linked with the thought expressed by Blessed John Paul II: “parental love is called to become for the children the visible sign of the very love of God”. I can “hear” those words expressed by our four kids, as in this short and simple sentence my desire to show them the Father meets their profound need of expreiencing love.

I’d like to show the Father’s love to the children – so that they can see it, hear it, feel it – through my own behaviour, words, the way I address them. I’d like to know how to channel some portion of His tenderness, His unusual patience, His joy arising from the fact that they merely are there. I’d like to give them the sense of His availability, unswearving love always offering new chances, His respect for human freedom… But also to fight for their true good. So to say “no”, set limits, have difficult conversations about mistakes.

I don’t think children remember the brand of clothes they were wearing, or how expensive their toys were. But I’m sure they remember the love they’ve been given.

Basia

* Familiaris consortio 14

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