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

If Captain J* had a built-in tachometer, it would show the value surpassing what an average employee of an international transportation company could be proud of. But it’s not about the records. It’s about what’s left in the places he’s travelled to.

Today, after he lectured and stayed with the families in Wrocław (Poland), we could all cover with fine print a volume the size of a telephone directory. I’d like to recall just one comparison that has stayed with me for years now and comes to me each time I turn the computer on. When the programs show they’re ready to work one by one, I remember that Fr Jay compared that moment to the process of realizing – each morning – who I am. So, in the first place: God’s child. A woman. A wfie. A  mother. A daughetr. A teacher. A  friend. I can define my identity in relation to the One who has called me by name, and then – in relation to Improtant People.

Some roles are fairly easy to assume, the other ones – require more effort. When you remember that you can only do well the things you love doing, it would be great if you could develop some passion in those most important areas of life. You don’t love doing the things you come out mediocre in or which leave you with the sense of incompetence. In anticipation of potential failure, the instinct prompts to escape.

That’s why we’re very grateful to our friends who encouraged us to take part in workshop on bringing up the children just when me and my husband started experiencing a heavy deafeat in that field. When we acquire new skills, we feel more confident as parents. We find more joy in the role of parents when we don’t feel like children lost in the fog in that subject.

In short, let’s take advantage of available updates to our life roles. So that we may give a creative and passionate performance.

Małgosia

*Captain J = Fr Jarosław Szymczak

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

When he went out after this, he noticed a tax collector, Levi by name, sitting at the tax office, and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ (Luke 5:27)

Tax – a charge imposed by the state for transportation of goods across its borders (dictionary definition).

My home – my castle, my state. In my state, it is ME who collects taxes by imposing my will, my mood, my laziness or my selfish attitudes upon the others. And it is ME whom He calls to follow Him. And not only that. IT IS ME He wants to stay with, because He knows how much I need Him.

Dosia