Prayerful Sex

This my second installation of NFP Throwback in honor of NFP Awareness Week. For the full introduction, please read here.

Without further ado, here's a column from Summer 1993. My current editorializing is in pink:

I recently asked a young man who is about to be married what advice he had received concerning marriage. He looked me straight in the eye and said, "The only advice my mother has given me is that no marriage can have too much of two things: sex and prayer." As I  recall, I turned very red and quickly inquired about china patterns. But the words have stuck with me. Now I wish I could sit with his mother and discover what other pearls of wisdom she has to offer. 

Because I know this young man, I know his mother was referring to unselfish marital sex. It is wholly appropriate to discuss lovemaking and prayer in the same context. That is how God intended it. Married love should embrace the Lord, creator of life. The unitive nature of making love and the procreative nature are inextricably intertwined. To deny either one is to deny God, who invested sex with that quality. In order to know God's will regarding the conception of children, the couple must pray together. It is that constant communication, with each other and with God that makes Natural Family Planning (NFP) so good for marriages.

In my last post, I shared the myriad of options the medical community makes available to couples who are planning their families. And we discovered what a euphemism "options" is. Rather than arbitrary, heavy-handed rules, the Church's stand on birth control is a protective measure, which shields couples from the evil inherent in all forms of artificial birth control and encourages them to consider God's will in every aspect of their lives.

NFP is not the rhythm method. It does not solely rely on a "safe time of the month." Instead, it is a scientific method in which married and engaged couples note, chart, and interpret the woman's fertility signs. The couple considers the time of the month, basal body temperature, cervical mucous, and physical attributes of the cervix itself. When used properly,it is every bit as effective as the pill.

It is not my intention to tell couples how to use NFP, but to tell them why NFP makes so much more sense than artificial birth control. Many couples decide on a form of contraception and then rarely discuss sex in terms of children. I wonder how many women, before they take their pills every morning, consider what God's plan is for their families. I wonder how many men ever think about the pill at all, even when their wives take it daily. Contraception becomes a routine part of day-today life-- a mechanization requiring little thought and no communication.

NFP enhances communciation between spouses. It is a shared responsibility. Most importantly, this cooperative effort embraces God. An NFP couple must not only discuss sex, but to use NFP properly, they must pray about it. It is a blessing to a marriage when God is included in the  sacred act He created. NFP requires prayerful consideration. It does seem that couples using NFP have more children than other couples. None of those children are "accidents." These couples have prayerfully considered life more often and are more open to divine intervention in the family planning. Above all, marriage partners who are open to God's plan know the peace of cooperation with the love of the Creator.

Marriage is hard work. I won't deny that NFP is work, too. I don't know of anything of value in interpersonal relationships that doesn't require some effort. NFP requires faithfulness. It requires some sacrifice, a dying to self. But that is what love is all about--giving for the good of another. That is not a bad thing. When they are choosing abstinence, couples experience a time of "courtship." They are challenged to find alternate expressions of love and they experiences the joys inherent to those expressions.

Finally, NFP is wonderful witness to children. When my children are adolescents and I want to impress upon them the merits of chastity, I will speak from a personal perspective, telling them about the sanctity of sex within a marriage, about sacrifice, and fidelity. I'll urge them to prayerfully consider God's will and His plan for their lives. Iwill be able to empathize with how difficult it is to deny the urgings of the flesh because I will be living a chaste life. [Note: Now that my children are of this age, I recognize the huge role a community of faith plays. When you are surrounded by supportive friends, this lifestyle is more readily embraced than when you are all alone in the culture. Whether married or single, living sexuality as God intended requires open communication and a shared of philosophy within the couple and, ideally, surrounding the couple. Cultivating that community is infinitely valuable.] I will tell them that I know what it feels like to be in love and to gratefully accept God's blessings upon a union. And when they are about to be married, I will tell them that a good marriage can never have too much of two things: sex and prayer.

NFP: 19 years later

It's NFP Awareness week. This year, there's a bold, fresh website on the scene to take on the challenge of introducing Natural Family Planning to a new, decidedly digital generation. There's a great new collection of articles there that I'm sure will enlighten most everyone. And there's more: iusenfp.com is another new site--this one run by two young women--designed to promote the value of natural family planning. 

I heartily applaud the efforts of these young people (and I feel a bit like my grandmother calling them "these young people."). As I read them, I remember being young and married and not at all a part of the contraceptive culture. While I think these sites do run a calculated risk of sounding a bit like "The Natural Approach to Contraception," I think the good outweighs the potential for misinterpretation. They're definitely getting good information out there, information that is not readily available on the maintstream information superhighway. Over the years, I've grown to appreciate the spiritual aspects above all the rest. Openness to life is the ultimate self-improvement --God-improvement-- program. Hopefully, that, too, will come from these young writers.

My early NFP days predate said superhighway. I learned about NFP mostly from another young teacher who was also a newlywed at the first school where I taught. I had heard of it during an Engaged Encounter just before the school year began (we were married the first week of school), and Betsy followed up with her own experience. She was open and frank, but not nearly as frank as what's floating out there now. From there, I did some reading on my own and we took a Couple-to-Couple League class. 

We had decided on that Engaged Encounter not to contracept. And, frankly, we were pretty much open to whatever God had in mind. We welcomed our first baby just after our first anniversary. And I would do it exactly that way in heartbeat, if I had it to do again. It wasn't really until after that baby, and after cancer, that we started to understand the theology behind NFP. Our early marriage story is pretty different from most, but it's dear to us. 

Anyway, that's a rather longer introduction than I planned. All that to say, I figured that since I'm old enough to call the 1flesh.org folk "these young people," I should probably go back and dig up my own words before I share what I thought about NFP back in the beginning. I have three artcles from exactly 19 years ago today to share over the next three days. These were originally published in the Arlington Catholic Herald on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the very prophetic Humanae Vitae. I'm going to try to refrain from editorializing too much. The articles are just as I wrote them, with my comments today in pink.

Here we go:

There are table tents set up all around the waiting room of the OB/GYN office where I teach childbirth classes. "Ask about your birth control options," they scream from every corner of the room. Ask indeed. I wonder what I would be told.

Would I be told that the pill is an abortifacient? I don't think so. Rare is the doctor who sit down with a patient and discusses the fine print. Most couples know that the pill often prevents pregnancy by suppressing ovulation and altering the cervical mucus. But how many people understand the ultimate "back up"? When a baby is conceived, he is aborted without his mother's knowledge because hormones have rendered the uterus inhospitable to life. Some option! Before a woman could even consider her choices, the hormone in the pill she takes so routinely can abort her baby. All hormonal contraceptives work in a similar manner.

Norplant, new and trendy though it appears, is merely a steady stream of hormones for five years. A woman will never have to give birth control a second thought. But will she think about what those hormones are doing to the natural chemsitry of her body?  [Note: Norplant was discontinued in the United States about ten years after it was introduced. Hmmm]. 

Depo-Provera, a recently introduced injectable hormone contraception, provides up to three months protection against pregnancy, while remaining in the body and preventing the resumption of a normal cycle for up to eighteen month. Of course, once it has been injected the woman is stuck with it. Once they give her the shot, she can't take it out--for better or worse, no matter what the "side effects." ["Side effects" is a joke term. All efects of a drug are just that, effects. They may not be what you signed up for, but they are effects. Incidentally, Depo-Provera is Melinda Gates' drug of choice. You can read more on that here.]

Let's consider the side effects. "Side effects" are what the pharmaceutical companies call the unpleasant effects of drugs. They all listed in a rather lengthy insert included with every prescription of hormonal contraceptives. A woman may not experience every effect of the drug. But the list--which includes risk of blood clots, heart attack and strokes, gallbladder disease, liver tumors, headache, nervousness, depression and hair loss--is pretty scary reading material. Most couples never even glance at the insert. 

Then there are the other "options" which society and the medical community present to us. Another abortifacient, the IUD, works to prevent an embryo [a real live baby] from implanting in his mother's uterus. Instant abortion. Barrier methods, especially the condom which the popular press holds in such high esteem, prevent the very physical intimacy that lovemaking seeks and deny the unitive as well as the procreative nature of intercourse. And as far as spontaneity and romance go, I don't think it's spontaneous or romantic to go to bed with barriers between us.

When the couples in my classes ask me about birth control and I mention NFP, I amost always get the "you-must-be-an-extremist-hope-to-have-ten-kids" look [I was 27, with two children, when I wrote this. I am well aware that this line is amusing now. In a very, very good way.] I've often heard that the Catholic Church is unrealistic, rigid, and chauvinistic in its approach to contraception. I disagree.

When my husband and I really looked at the "options," when we took the time to educate ourselves about what was being professed by the secular society versus what the Church taught, we found that the Church was not only reasonable, but very supportive of marital sex. Far from being evil, in a Christian marriage, sex is a high and noble thing--a gift from God. The Church approves of lovemaking, even if for serious reasons the couple isn't trying to achieve pregnancy. The Church's stand on birth control seeks not to make life difficult by to help married couples make a good thing even better. Sex is holy; it is God's idea. And openness to children is an integral part of God's plan. 

Artificial birth control isn't good for women. And it isn't good for marriages. It deprives couples the third party in their union. God. When sex denies life, it denies Life. That is, it excludes the Creator of Life. once He is exclueded, one third of the mrriage covenant participants has been asked to leave--the wisest one. In my nex tpost, we'll consider Natural Family Planning, a way to plan families that embraces God.

[Am I a bad witness for NFP because I have nine children? I don't think so. I don't think so at all. I think there is a danger to think that good or successful use of NFP guarantees that your family makeup will look just like that of pharmaceutical family planners. If so, then clearly you have excellent scientific charting skills and applaudable self-control. I've even seen blogs where couples have practiced for years and never knew these few lines existed in the Church's teaching: With regard to physical, economic, psychological and social conditions, responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time.  

We learned quickly that we couldn't out-give God. His generosity--of adequate wealth, but more importantly of grace and strength--was sufficient. Always. For us, NFP was there, an underpinning of an awareness of fertility and hormonal cycles. Every one of those nine children was welcomed enthusiastically. We knew there would be challenges. And we trusted He would equip and bless. He always has.]

Can we Divorce-proof Our Marriages?

I still remember it vividly. They seemed the perfect family: one girl, one boy, both darling. Mom and Dad were together at swim meets and ballgames. They lived in a lovely house. Their children went to great schools. And then, the day after the younger graduated high school, her mom up and left. Walked out. At least that’s the way it looked to those of us watching from a distance. Just like that: marriage over; family dissolved. Read the rest here, please?

Time to Connect

I think it was about three weeks before Easter that he mentioned it again. 

"You should come with me to Miami." I'm pretty sure I rolled my eyes. This crazy idea was a clear illustration of the disconnect. This man has no concept of what the three weeks before a major holiday hold for mothers. He doesn't understand that we were going to throw Bluebell Week in there a month early, that soccer season began the day we were to leave, that we were going to move most of the contents of two bedrooms right after Easter. He was suggesting that I just take a week off and leave everything. Go in an airplane. For four nights away from my toddler who still nursed herself to sleep.

But just as my eye rolling ceased I saw for a brief moment the look on his face.

I didn't say anything. Instead, I sulked and thought to myself that he was adding something pretty huge to an already crammed to-do list. I needed to finish spring cleaning before Easter. I needed to cook and bake and get ready to host his extended family for the holiday. And besides all that, who takes a vacation at the beginning of Holy Week? The whole idea grated on my liturgical sensibility.

The next day, I dashed off a whiny email about my predicament to a very dear friend--the kind of friend who would read my ungrateful rant and say not a word until much later, when I'd come to my senses. And even then, she would not remind, she would just smile broadly at my note telling her how wonderful this whole idea was. My initial complaint was blown away with a puff of  loving grace.

Shortly after my haughty email, I called my father. Would he, could he, could they, please watch six of my children for four nights so I could go to Miami? Of course they could, came the ready reply. And then he handed the phone to my stepmother. She listened to my litany of ifs, ands and buts. And she wholeheartedly encouraged me to go. She was happy to have them, happy to give us this chance to get away.

The three big boys would remain at home so that they could go to school and to work. I drew up a long list of chores that required manual labor so that they wouldn't kill each other would have a positive outlet for all that energy.

I knew that Mike would be at work all day while I was there. So, I set some intense writing goals. I prepared three embroidery projects. I downloaded two new books to my Kindle. And then, after a conversation about something entirely different with my friend Becca, on a complete and total whim, I ordered this book. I described it a little to you last week. Here's what I said:

I spent Holy Week reading Consoling the Heart of Jesus. There are a small handful of books in my life where I remember exactly where and when I read them because those times and places are turning points. This book is one of those. It is easily at the top of that list. This incredibly readable volume makes some of the most beautiful truths and devotions of the Catholic faith understandable (at last)  and accessible (even to busy mothers of large families).  Fr. Gaitley brings together fine threads of several spiritual traditions and weaves them into a beautiful and exceedingly useful tapestry of a do-it-yourself retreat. It is Ignatian spirituality made accessible. It is the Little Way of St. Therese for all of us. It is consecration to Mary and devotion to Divine Mercy explained in plain language and made clear to little souls. Mostly, it is a rich volume of Merciful Words that brings Merciful Love to its readers. You don't have to have a weekend to make the retreat. You can just read a little each day until you are finished. If it's your heart's desire to get to know and understand Jesus better, tell Him. He'll help you find the time. I heartily recommend that you hurry and get yourself a copy of this book--what a beautiful way to spend the Easter sason.

I started reading on the plane. By the time we landed, I knew that this Holy Week was set apart for me by God Himself, in His infinite mercy. This time would be a time of retreat. I would fill my days with God and spend my evenings with my husband. No interruptions. No distractions. Just the three of us.

I kept to my general prayer program.

I started my days there at the gym. The hotel bike is considerably newer than my 13-year-old one. The voices from divineoffice.org joining me in prayer were familiar, even far from home. Mike and I had leisurely breakfasts at an Argentinian market. We walked hand-in-hand back to the hotel and he went off to work in his office right next door. I returned to the room and to my retreat. At ten o'clock, I went back out for another walk, soaking up the gorgeous sunshine and drinking deep of the lovely town that is Coral Gables. I stopped at a sushi restaurant and ordered a salad to go to bring back to my room. Back to my retreat. When I got there, the bed had been made, the room straightened and it all smelled like a tropical breeze. It's amazing how clearly one can think in the absence of clutter and a to-do list.

At three o'clock, I walked again. One day, I looked see where the closest church was. I walked three miles to The Church of the Little Flower. I wish I had  pictures for you. There's a tour here; you can even see the street I walked. It's actually only two miles, but I got lost on the way there. Then I walked back to the hotel, stopping at a cafe for iced tea to bring back to the room. I sat in the courtyard and read some more. After a day or so of filling this way--of relishing much needed silence--words came back. I found myself drawn to keyboard, fingers flying and thoughts tumbling from my hands. The time I spent at my computer wan't much at all, but it was rich.

The embroidery went untouched. I didn't have my camera, so the very few pictures I have were taken with Mike's cell phone from our table outside at dinner one evening on South Beach. But the images in my head? All art created by Him.

Mike and I enjoyed wonderful evenings. We had all the time in the world to finish conversations, to think deep thoughts together. His workday was pretty intense and he was not on vacation at all, but he was so genuinely happy to have me there. We ate great food and we took in the sights and sounds of the unique culture that is south Florida. I saw through his eyes and my own the places and people he spends so much time with. It was all good.

I returned to my home and my children early Holy Thursday afternoon, in plenty of time to make a seder dinner and go to Mass together. Mike did not join us until Easter Sunday.

Despite all my reluctances, I know I spent those days right in the middle of God's will. I am so grateful that my husband saw much better than I did how much I needed to get away. I'm grateful to my father and stepmother for sacrificing their own quiet and rest for my rowdy, energetic crew. And I'm grateful to a merciful Jesus for the gift of graces he showered on me.

I am so glad I said Yes!

Joining the ladies at Suscipio this week for Moments of Grace.

Blessed are they...

Your children will see that– in spite of imperfections in their parents– joyful obedience to God is still the standard. That obedience is all the more fruitful when difficult temperaments and real life challenges are involved. Your children will learn that you can’t change someone else. But you can love them.  

I'm sharing an old post at Suscipio this morning, the notes from long ago conversations with wise women. Thoughts on love and marriage. Please join me there?