Other Experiences of an English Language Teacher

  As it’s well known, two great writers of the Spanish sixteenth century were Saint Teresa of Jesus and Saint John of the Cross, also well known after their Spanish names, santa Teresa de Jesús and san Juan de la Cruz.  And it’s so great to read what they wrote, just tremendous. Also because they may help us great in our spiritual life.  And what do they have to do with pain and suffering? I mean, because everyone of us may suffer from time to time, or even often, and often it is little pains the ones we will suffer. Everyone may tell us about this human issue: wars, scantiness, unemployment, diseases, solitude and loneliness, and a long etcetera.  Well, those two people may comfort us big throughout their literary and spiritual writings. And you can find them easily in any bookstore at least in the West, and let alone on the Internet. Worth to pay a visit.  Yet you can understand them better from a Christian perspective. Jesus Christ, true God and true man, sav...

  Perhaps you already knew that during the Third Reich, which finished in May 1945, some six million Jews were murdered. Why did Auschwitz concentration camp exist at all? And that was not all evil in the twentieth century, as you well know. Also in our century now some form of slavery exists.  Where was God during Auschwitz? Evil problem is not so simple to explain and convey the origin of, anyway. Our Mother the Church explains that it is not that simple to define why evil. We have to contemplate all the Christian faith to reach some explanation.  God is love and he has created us so as to have other people who could reach happiness too. Moreover we exist to get to know God and to love him and to give him glory. I mean he wished somebody else could enjoy existence happiness.  And he has made us free. Since we are free we can choose well: to love him, now in this life and then after for ever and ever. He wishes we be free. Thus also we can exert bad use of our freed...

  He was a great man, a great saint, Blessed John Paul I, the antecessor to also great Saint John Paul II.  The first one told the next anecdote when he already was Pope. Precisely on September 6, 1979. He told that when he was the bishop of Venice he used to assist some houses for the elderly. Once he encountered an old lady in one of these houses. And he asked her how she was, how she felt, how the heating worked, how the meals were … Everything’s okay, she was saying, but eventually he asked if she was content and happy. Then she nearly burst to cry. What’s the matter? He asked the old lady. Well, she said, my daughter-in-law, my son … they just don’t come to visit me, and also I’d like to see my grandchildren!  Well, you know, the family. It’s so great a thing, and how much we miss them when perhaps they’re far away, or you just don’t have a family.  The family is one of the greatest things God has created, and we cannot pass without it.  Even more, at the b...

  We can be happy. God has a wonderful plan or design for us his children, his sons and daughters.  First he has created us, say, perhaps through evolution, ok. He has called us to life. Even more, he has done so to be his children, as I said before. And he wishes we be happy, in this life, and then after that, in eternal life for ever and ever.  When you recognize and realize he loves you, this is, you are loved by him with tenderness, then you can behold life with confidence. When you also realize you are his son or his daughter, then life changes to better, and you can entertain yourself by talking to and with him.  Prayer is so important for us modern people. I have been to Gibraltar for a lot of times, a lot, and last time I was glad there was a chapel on Main Road with the Host, the Eucharist on the monstrance, for anyone who wants to stop and talk with him. Amazing.  In other words, God has wished we can participate in his supernatural life, beyond anythi...

  I think that the verb trust is transitive, I mean, you may trust someone , right?  And also I think with Jutta Burggraf that who trusts God, eventually can trust people, persons I mean. And that person gives another one like a second chance.  For example a teacher. He or she can have a transcendent view of life, and can trust God. After that he or she will be able to trust their students, although these ones can provoke some distress to that teacher quite often.  And when reprimanding a disruptive kid aside, not in public, that teacher will likely give the kid a second chance: the teacher by no means will toss or disqualify the kid. It’s so because that professional trusts God and subsequently trusts men and women.  He loves God and he loves his students. He believes in men and women. He is not nihilist at all.  I have seen this in education, and you may have some similar experience of things. The true teacher does not throw out anybody – nobody is to be...

  As you have already seen, in this blog I write also about our father God, who has dad and mom’s love to us. To each one of us.  And for me – and many people alike – his existence is almost evident, for we firmly believe in him and talk to him – and with him – at any moment.  It’s so also when you think that he exists, because somebody must have made all this, this wonderful world, and each person. And the universe, which is unfolding itself on NASA’s last discoveries.  Also because we may have seen John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) and there ensues the idea of one God, after each person’s thirst for plenitude and happiness, and family.  When you admit his existence, even more, when you treat him personally, well, then, everything makes sense, and you may feel satisfied. As well life’s pains and sorrows have sense.  Otherwise if we suppress God, as Paul Sartre did, then all ends up without meaning.  Well, faith is a gift. A gift by him, but one every...

  Today I wanted to write on some perspectives on happiness from what I’ve read and thought of lately, and pushed in some way by the pursuing of happiness everyone commits to.  Happiness is something one cannot try to accomplish on its own, but something you encounter when you live with plenitude and in accordance to your nature.  If someone seeks to be happy, that person may not reach it – it’s more something that ensues when you fulfill what you are for, when you live in accordance to what you are.  You know, great Aristotle used to say that you are happy when you acquire virtues, like hard-working, love to others, sincerity and honesty, fortitude, joy, solidarity, generosity, endurance capability, abnegation, professionalism, etcetera. Virtues let you carry out a life that is worth living it. They let you carry out what’s good and that with facility and liberty. You can choose what is upright just because you wish to do it.  Alejandro Llano was a Spanish phil...

  Contemporary man has a great thirst for God. Well, man at any age has had.  We have been designed to love him, and we cannot stand without him. Every person seeks him, in an aware way or without knowing it.  And Jesus Christ is alive, a living person, true God and true man. Actually the second Person of the most holy Trinity.  And the best thing we can do is letting him steer our boat, our rowboat. In life’s seas and oceans and rough seas.  We can talk to him, and with him, to have a tremendous conversation with him, all made up of everyday things, the ones we try to carry out. He is interested in all our things, family, profession, worries, joys, pains …  Where can we find him? The first important thing is for us to try to find him – he does not hide from us. And he is everywhere. And he lives in our souls in grace. And in churches Tabernacles. And in the four gospels of the Bible.  He does not conceal his face. Probably we will not see him physical...

  So we have said that God, our loving father, has a project or vocation for each one of us, and now we have to discover what that is, also with his help.  And we are beings who can love others, God and other people. And we need to be loved, by other people, but also we are loved by him, with tenderness.  We cannot live without loving others. Even ultimately only God can fill our heart – we have some infinite thirst that only God can quench and fill with plenitude. Saint Augustine said, and this sentence is famous, that Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee . And Saint Augustine did know much about love and about seeking love from others.  All that can lead us to ask ourselves, What am I on this earth for? Everyone wonders about that point, and the answer is ultimately, and primarily, on finding out what my vocation or project by God is.  As well we can say that all of us seek happiness, and if this life...

  With these posts I try to shed some light on everyday issues (if possible). Because this our dear world needs some optimistic view, this afflicted world of ours. Let’s see, with my reads help.  To be optimistic we need a firm base to build that optimism upon. And – good news – we can count on God. On him and on man – I believe we can count on man too, for this latter one can give very good solutions to our afflicted world. It’s what you get when reading Jutta Burggraf (1952-2010). She is so great a writer – well, she was, I mean.  And God has a plan or project for every one of us, indeed he has. And now we’ve got to discover it.  Each person has a vocation, now to be discovered. Do you know yours? God calls and summons each one of us. That can also give a message of hope for people, for our world.  Each human person is free, as you know, and thus he or she has to write their own biography: we have the mission of fulfilling our personal project or vocation. Don...

  What is a man, a woman? You are, I am what we do, what we think of, what we read, what we love. I am free so ultimately I am what I do.  And what I do in a repeated way constitutes a habit. And I can do good things, or otherwise evil things. I can build up virtues or otherwise vices. I can be an honest, hard-working, loving, attentive, generous, committed, friendly man, or otherwise all the contrary. Well, also I do good and bad things, as any person does.  You can find about this in old Aristotle, or in more modern Jutta Burggraf. A happy man or a happy woman are the ones that have virtues, that act in accordance with human dignity, and we are (let’s not forget it) sons and daughters of God.  And we can let God lead our boat, the one each person is. I can let God direct my life: I can count on him. Once someone told Saint John Paul II he was an atheist, and the Pope responded, You feel so bad when you don’t have God!  We can feel and be happy, that’s today’s ...

  Everybody knows that in modern urban life in our Western countries a lot of people go along life in a hectic and stressed out way – it seems we don’t have time for anything.  Where are we going to?  It also seems we don’t have time to muse, meditate, reflect, consider, contemplate life and beauty. To enroll in a spiritual retreat for a long weekend? No way, man, impossible. But, Are you sure you can’t attend one?  It seems we don’t have time to cultivate our interior, and how are we going along life? What are our life goals? We must break this up. No way, we can’t keep going like that.  Besides many people kind of they don’t like to face themselves. It’s like they don’t like their lives, the way they are living. Do you have a chance to stop to face yourself? Where are you going?  Also it looks like quite many people can’t stand silence. Music and music, and a crazy chattering. But let’s listen to silence. Let’s listen to ourselves. Let’s take off the head...

  So we have the premise that God exists. And that’s something rational, I mean, God is something you can reach through reason. At the same time it is not something evident – otherwise there would be no atheists nor agnostics. Thus God is not something evident, but nearly so for people who try to live with him by talking to and with him. God is not something, but someone.  Have you ever thought about what is there after this (short) life? I know you have, because everyone wonders about that.  Have you noticed human thirst for plenitude? For love? For unconditional love? Mountains of movies and novels tell about that love – who has not promised eternal love to the loved person? The world has plenty of Romeos and Juliets.  There must be something else after this life.  Man is free, we’ve stated. And responsible, at the same time and inseparably. And now think of all good that a person does in his or her lifetime. Or evil they may do. And when you are called to die...

  We teachers have amply heard that motivation is important for our students, and it’s so indeed. But let me tell you something today, in case it may help you in class if you are a teacher.  We have insisted a lot on motivation, but also we can consider two more points that may help out.  Let’s be careful because we may have stuffed and crammed our children with toys and videogames and trifles, so they now cannot enjoy … their lessons too.  You know, when some kids – or adults alike! – get so engaged with what their dear teacher is presenting in class, well, then, they may work so nicely and with a great effort.  Moreover love is something that also pushes us forward to make an effort, to study, to learn, to strive to learn.  Do our kids know love at all? Love to their parents, to God, to their classmates, to their teacher. One kid with love to mom and dad may overcome his laziness and begin to study and do his homework in his room. Who has not met somethin...