Natural Family Planning yields much fruit

In the second chapter of Philippians, St. Paul reminds us that Christ became “obedient to death, even death on a cross” (2:8). In communicating the beauty of the Church’s teachings on human sexuality and child spacing, little is mentioned of the Cross of Christ and yet this is precisely where we must begin during Natural Family Planning Awareness Week.

Far more than a simple practice within marriage, NFP is a manner of living which yields, in addition to physical fruit, deep spiritual fruit for a couple, not least of which, is this spirit of radical obedience exemplified by Christ. In marriage, couples are challenged to love freely, faithfully and fruitfully, just as Christ demonstrates through his sacrifice on the cross. In doing so, they are also able to experience the joy promised to Christian believers, a joy which overflows and enhances every human relationship.

Undoubtedly, the link between obedience and joy in the realm of sexuality is a difficult topic for our current culture in which happiness is defined almost solely as self-gratification. Even within the Church however, discipline and obedience are seldom spoken of in relation to marital chastity. We often extol the practice of pre-marital abstinence and yet this remains inadequate when the focus becomes extreme selfdenial until marriage, at which point there is an acceptable and sanctioned outlet for sexual desires. Here, we must reflect on the meaning of true happiness, which cannot be understood apart from heaven, our true home. Christ tells us that there is no marriage in heaven, and yet heaven is the goal of both married and religious life (Matthew 22:30). I contend that married persons are particularly given the opportunity to ensure that heaven is at the forefront of their minds through the periodic abstinence required in Natural Family Planning. When we cultivate this eternal perspective, we find our earthly lives more enriched, as a result.

Times of abstinence ensure that neither spouse is a victim of use and offer opportunities for a deepening of marital friendship consistent with St. John Paul II’s understanding of love expressed in his book “Love and Responsibility” as involving the whole person and encompassing“the bond of a common good and of a common aim” (p. 28). They also allow couples to live out (in a manner appropriate to their state of life) the

evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience. Dr. David Crawford of The Pontifical John Paul II Institute asserts in his dissertation, “Marriage and the Sequela Christi,” that it is, in fact, “marriage’s own nature to possess at its heart a literal [if analogous] poverty, chastity, and obedience” (p. 284). Thus, Natural Family Planning safeguards the complete availability to the will of God and enables the married couple to remain in a state of active readiness in order to obey his promptings similar to those in religious life who profess such vows. In so doing, couples open themselves to receiving God’s plentiful graces, which far surpass human expectation.

In my own marriage, this was in no way more prevalent than when my husband told me last summer, while praying the Novena to St. Anne, that he felt the Holy Spirit encouraging him to ask that we are blessed with a little girl. As we later discovered, to our surprise, I was already pregnant at the time of the novena. At 20 weeks, we were overjoyed to learn that the baby was indeed a girl. Our daughter is truly a reminder to us of the spiritual fruits of Natural Family Planning. When we adhere to God’s plan for human sexuality, we stand ever ready to proclaim like our Blessed Mother, “May it be done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38), and thus to experience an ever greater abundance in our lives.

It is my hope that these seldomdiscussed aspects of NFP are the subject of further discussion and prayer among the Catholic community during this Natural Family Planning Awareness Week. Indeed, there is a depth of beauty which far surpasses methodology, if we dare to undertake the challenge entrusted to us.

For more information about Natural Family Planning visit https://diometuchen. org/offices-and-ministries/ family-and-pastoral-life/family-life/ natural-family-planning/. D’Averso-Collins is the new director, diocesan Office of Family Life Ministry

NFP is a manner of living which yields, in addition to physical fruit, deep spiritual fruit for a couple...

By Cristina D’Averso-Collins