Journey to the Truth (Natural Family Planning) [Open]

Catholic Exchange ^ | April 23, 2008 | Anna Pier Day (pen name)

[Salvation]

Journey to the Truth

May 23rd, 2008 by Anna Pier Day

I argued with the priest — the strong-willed one — who sat opposite me in the confessional. For every argument I presented, though, his response was the same: a calm, understanding, but firm, “There are no exceptions to the Church’s teaching against contraception.”

Truth be told, if the Church had been less wise and had made exceptions, our family situation might have qualified as one. A few months earlier, after the birth of our youngest son, I had suffered from an acute depression with accompanying suicidal thoughts and a brief psychotic episode that had landed me in two different mental hospitals. I had been torn away from my life as the stay-home mother of a toddler and a still-nursing infant for the two weeks of hospitalization my treatment required, and the whole experience had been devastating — not only for me, but also for my family and everyone who cared about us. As a result, my husband and I were very afraid of the possible ramifications of another bout of post-partum hormone fluctuations. And, having recently returned to the Church after a 20-year absence, I was finding her teaching against contraception very difficult to accept.

But there was something about the way this priest calmly stood his ground (even when I told him for the twenty-third time why my family should be exempt from this particular teaching) that made me believe he was giving me the Truth. So, after a few more weeks, my husband and I discussed natural family planning, and we (somewhat fearfully) agreed to try it.

Our priest helped us again by putting me in touch with a nearby couple who taught the Creighton method of NFP. Soon after I began NFP classes, my husband and I did away with the contraceptives we had been using. As soon as we did, an amazing thing happened. It was as if God lifted the scales from my eyes, and instantly, I understood. I suddenly saw the pain a “contraceptive mindset” must cause our Loving Father, who cares for us and would never let anything happen to us that was not for our good. I saw what a great privilege He gives us by letting us share with Him in creating His greatest miracle — a new baby’s life. And I saw contraception for what it is — something we do to thwart God’s loving plan for our families.

Since then, our family has experienced God’s love more fully. He has blessed us with our first daughter, who was conceived when our Creighton chart said conception was possible. Our daughter brings great joy and love to our family, and the happiness she brings us far outweighs the pain of the (relatively minor) symptoms I experienced during pregnancy and shortly after her birth. I shudder now to think that we might have missed out on the privilege of raising her — and a lifetime of joy with her — just because of the weakness of our faith that God would take care of us. And I pray every day for a world full of priests who will stand firm on Church teaching, just like the one who first told us the Truth.

God Our Father, please send us holy priests…all for the Sacred and Eucharistic Heart of Jesus…all for the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary…in union with Saint Joseph. Amen.

 

Anna Pier Day (who used a pen name for this article) lives with her husband and three children in North Central Florida. She has been a teacher and now enjoys being a full-time mother and an author. Her first picture book for children is tentatively scheduled for release in May 2009.

[rollo tomasi]

Then why is it forbidden for a male, married even, to ejaculate outside the vagina? All those little sperm have a sacred (As decreed by Holy Men of the cloth) right to implant an egg. Not natural perhaps? Why then are (Married) females allowed to climax outside of the frame of intercourse?

Questions then babble from traditions of men, which lead to even more questions.

I am not saying a man has a right to force oral sex (To climax) from his wife but why is wrong if it is mutual? Again, if it’s not natural then apply it to the female as well. Hence the sperm has some “special” little favors going for it, (I.E worthy of respect) deemed too “sacred” to “abuse”.

[cyborg]

I’m not into debating as much as my husband petronski is. However, even I know having a conversation about the RCC with an ex-catholic is sometimes not the best thing to do. I honstly can’t answer your questions. Maybe some of the RCC experts can answer.

[PresbyRev]

I would question the idea of sinful (perverse) chimpanzees. I simply raised the issue of natural example, because that is one of the bases for the Aristotelian tradition’s argument for what is ‘natural’ vs. ‘unnatural’ sex.

I provided Biblical references for my viewpoint in a previous post. As a former Anglican priest, I am sure you are well aware of the tradition’s rationale for marriage as a holy commonwealth.

Here is one source for my own Reformed, Protestant perspective on this issue.

Worldly Saints by Leland Ryken.

“The Puritan doctrine of sex was a watershed in the cultural history of the West, The Puritans devalued celibacy, glorified companionate marriage, affirmed married sex as both necessary and pure, established the ideal of wedded romantic love, and exalted the role of the wife.

This complex of ideas and values received its most eloquent and beautiful expression in Milton’s picture of the married life of Adam and Eve in his epic Paradise Lost. In portraying the perfect marriage in book four, Milton went out of his way to show that Adam and Eve enjoyed sexual union before the fall. As Adam and Eve retire to their bower for the evening, we read,

‘Straight side by side were laid, nor turned I ween
Adam from his fair spouse, nor Eve the rites
Mysterious of connubial love refused:
Whatever hypocrites austerely talk
Of purity and place and innocence,
Defaming as impure what God declares
Pure, and commands to some, leaves free to all.
Our maker bids increase, who bids abstain
But our Destroyer, foe to God and man?’

Having dissociated himself from the [Roman] Catholic tradition, Milton proceeds to give his famous apostrophe (address) to wedded love:

‘Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source
Of human offspring, sole propriety
In paradise of all things common else.
By thee adulterous lust was driven from men
Among the bestial herds to range, by thee
Founded in reason, loyal, just and pure,
Relations dear, and all the charities
Of father, son, and brother first were known
Far be it, that I should write thee sin or blame,
Or think thee unbefitting holiest place,
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets,
Whose bed is undefiled and chaste pronounced.’

All the usual Puritan themes are here: the Biblical basis for affirming sex (as evidenced by several key Biblical illusions in the passage), the differentiation between animal lust and human sexual love, the domestic context into which sexual fulfilment is put, and the romantic overtones of the passage. This, and not the modern stereotype, is what the Puritans really said about sex.” (Worldy Saints)

“[Husband and Wife] may joyfully give due benevolence one to the other; as two musical instruments rightly fitted do make a most pleasant and sweet harmony in a well tuned consort.” (an anonymous Puritans source, Worldly Saints, p. 44)

Richard Baxter is also a good primary source for a Protestant and Reformed companionate view of marriage and married sexuality.

[Mad Dawg]

I’m not sure the information you’re getting about RC teaching on what’s okay is, uh, okay. Can you cite some sources?

[Mad Dawg]

Yeah, well, I mean MILton, fer cryin' out loud! (He WAS great, wasn't he?)

Hee for God only, shee for God in him:

God is thy Law, thou mine: to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise.

Well nobody bats 1000.

I didn't say Chimps were sinful. "Perversion" would need a will' to become sinful. And I don't think Aristotle means by "nature" the same thing that empiricists" would mean by it. For an empiricist the very concept of "perversion" would be hard to maintain. Either it happens or it doesn't. I think for Aristotle human nature means what humans should be like not what they are,like as observed.

But back to Milton. To put it jocularly, did they have ABC in Eden? More seriously, while affirming what Milton says (and despising the caricature of Puritans as much as those of Catholics), I still wouldn't bet that he'd approve of Artificial Birth Control, would you?

[narses]

Again, none of the good folk supporting the Roman prohibition on contraception on this thread will directly address the issue, the infertile aside - can sex without the possibility of pregnancy be moral - should post-menopausal women or pregnant women have sex with their husbands?

Sure we can. In fact we have. The answer is yes. The Catholic Church teaches BOTH uses of the marital act, procreation and mutual pleasure. That you keep pretending otherwise reflects on you and your men of straw.

[Mad Dawg]

Again, none of the good folk supporting the Roman prohibition on contraception on this thread will directly address the issue, the infertile aside - can sex without the possibility of pregnancy be moral - should post-menopausal women or pregnant women have sex with their husbands? The issue, as Rome has framed it and as it exists in classical Roman theology, is that sex without the possibility of procreation, is sin.

I'm not sure that's exactly right. Sexual intercourse when the possibility of conception has been deliberately precluded by artificial means is a no-no.

[narses]

He has it wrong. His posit that sin exists in those cases is a strawman argument. It is false-to-fact.

[narses]

Of course. Here and the hereafter.

[dsc]

“The Roman theory of marriage as sacrament and prohibition on contraception is rooted in Aristotelian philosophy and certain of the fathers such as Clement - it’s rooted in the notion of what is ‘natural’ vs. what is ‘unnatural.’”

Is that the sort of nonsensical drivel that is taught in protestant seminaries?

[dsc]

“Hence the sperm has some “special” little favors going for it, (I.E worthy of respect) deemed too “sacred” to “abuse”.”

Monty Python is not a good theological source.

The distinction is between those sex acts that are open to life and those that are not. It has nothing to do with these ridiculous claims that Catholics believe every sperm to be “sacred.”

Sex with someone you love, and which very well may result in conception, is on a completely different plane from sterile bedroom gymnastics, and I believe those who are open to God’s will can sense it.

[PresbyRev]

No, it’s the nonsensical drivel taught by Rome.

[Mad Dawg]

He has it wrong.

I'm not sure he's a he. His or her as the case may be God is a she though

so isn’t there enough wiggle room for God to get around barriers humans might throw in her way?

[LurkingSince'98]

may I ask of what persuasion are you?

[PresbyRev]

Father of three, husband of one.

There are a lot of wonderful metaphors for God in our scriptural tradition aren’t there!

God is like a father, a rock, a warrior, a mother hen, a fortress, a nursing mother who will not forsake her child, etc.

[PresbyRev]

I prefer dark German beer.

[PresbyRev]

For more references to primary sources and interaction with both Christian tradition and the scriptures, you could try Mark D. Jordan’s, The Ethics of Sex or L. W. Countryman’s Dirt, Greed and Sex.

[Running On Empty]

Perhaps that is your problem. You should stick to Guinness.

BTW, I hope I have time over the next hours to respond to some of your posts. They do need a response and as the oldest in my long line of 43+ descendents, a convert to Catholicism since my young adulthood to my old age and a certificated teacher of Natural Family Planning for many years, I believe that I may have something of value to offer, from all perspectives.

Meanwhile, I hope this thread survives so I can do some posting on this subject.

[Mad Dawg]

These days I'm relieved about the "husband of one" part and congratulate you on that and on the father of three part.

Yeah, there are wonderful metaphors, of course. (I too went to Seminary.) However I would disagree that gender attributes for El Shaddai are interchangeable, if only because having SINCE seminary been so inculcated with RC drivel that I am no longer going to go a-haring off after a new linguistic and cultural fad when for a very long time the masculine gender has been attributed to God in preference to the feminine.

Please note I said "gender" and not "sex". And bear in mind that I'm old enough (and educated enough, he said modestly) to think of the last 30 years or so of alleged thought as a momentary fad.

[Running On Empty]

“No, it’s the nonsensical drivel taught by Rome”.

No—I don’t agree with that premise at all.

While there is a lot to consider in the spiritual and philosophical value and also the various points of the NFP in practice, I would like, for the moment, to begin with Scriptual and practical thoughts re: NFP. There is more, but I will get to other aspects according to the time I have today. But for now:

Our contemporary language commonly refers to the physical expression of love as “having sex”. Scriptural language refers to human physical love as “knowing” (i.e.: Luke 1:34). The expression of “having” in man/woman relationships often conveys a sort of temporary possession—a type of “having” which has in it the quality of taking. The Scriptural “knowing” conveys a fullness of possession, so complete as to “blur” a distinction of beings and to be truly one by immersion, so to speak, into the personhood of the other.

The espression of “having’ seems to imply a personalized desire, while the expression of “knowing” conveys the self-donated “knowing-ness” of love. “Having” can leave one alone and unfulfilled. “Knowing” calls forth total self-donation, which is the fountain that never runs dry and cements a mysteriously eternal unity of two in one flesh.

Artificial contraception disrupts this unity. Even more disconcerting, it is nature-changing. The human body is “wondrously and magnificantly made” (Ps 138-139), but if pharmeceutical contraception is used, the very nature of the body as God designed, created and gave, is changed. (St. Paul refers to it in the Greek “pharmakeia”—meaning occult medicine) To change and alter the body in this way is to alter that which God made according to His own divine plan (Gen.1:27). Such a technology and/or practice to change the sexual nature given and designed by God is presumptuos to say the least. The same principle holds true for any unnatural “barriers” or cutting of the life-giving source in man.

To allow the body to remain in repose, intact with all of its potential remaining as created, is one thing. To alter its natural functions, render it sterile by human design and intent for the purpose of muting or destroying its unitive-creative essence is another thing altogether.

Without contraception, husband and wife give to each other unconditionally, just as Christ gave to His Bride, the Church. The fertility which they share is the life-giving dimension of their covenant and it finds its expression in the love-giving dimension of that covenant. Whether the couple chooses to use the full creative power of their love, which may, if God chooses, bring into the world new life destined for heaven—of whether they choose to forego making love to each other for a brief period of days because a pregnancy must necessarily be postponed for a while and therfore they draw apart for a while (1Cor.7:15)—they are, in either case, living their covenant as God does with His people. In either situation they are sharing the Master’s way, as a shadow, human reality of the Divine: “this is my body which will be given up for you”.

Covenant is the principle of gift-and-response that haunts the Christian conscience down the corridors of time.

Through God our Father and Creator we have received life. This life has been made eternal for us through Jesus, the Lord, Who gave totally of Himself, because He loved us.

This is God’s covenant with us: life and love.

From Genesis to Revelation, God refers to His love for His people in terms of the nuptials. (to mention only a few: Isaiah, Hosea, Song of Solomon, Matthew 23 and 25, Ephesians 5:22-23, Revelation19). Jesus worked his first public miracle at a wedding feast. In marriage we are convenanted in Christ Jesus as signs to the world of His unconditional life-giving and love-giving. We fulfill this covenant in a holy manner when we leave our marriages open—unobstructed and unbroken unity—to both life and love.