Further down I will say a word about St. Gregory Pockets, which have suddenly experienced new interest in many areas, so don't miss that!
In Catholic circles, this is NFP (Natural Family Planning) Week. I try to ignore it, but I do actually have a particular point to make today. I could have made this a podcast, I think, but I don't have energy for that in this time of heat + rain + having no kitchen (yes, it's draining me! but hopefully it will be over soon). So forgive me for going on and on (or just skip to the links!).
It's pretty clear that we currently avoid confronting failure in how we have organized basic, fundamental human institutions like family, church, and community. We think we are so enlightened, that we have everything under control, but the truth is quite different. Maybe not for those who can protect themselves with their prosperity, but for ordinary people, it's quite otherwise from what the organizers think or pretend about whether people are doing well or not. The perhaps unintended consequences are taking over — the consequences of everyone's bright ideas of how to alleviate the troubles brought on by normal life.
Those who are older — that is, those who control the public conversation for the conference of bishops (that body that bestows this week on us, and if you click on that link, you may be puzzled by the imagery, since its traditional aesthetic is at odds with what our bishops actually promote), in parishes, on the more staid social media — let's say, those aged late 30s to 60s or beyond — are in denial about the failure of what for decades now has been touted as the responsible way to look at marriage and family. In general, the Christian establishment seems quite serene and complacent in its characterization of responsible parenthood, by which they mean the freedom to resist children.
Catholics, known up until not that long ago for espousing the view that responsible parenthood means, simply and in a quite binary fashion, being married when having children, and raising said children in the Faith, Catholics who were known to have large families even in difficult circumstances, are now part of the settled opinion that baby resistance is and ought to be normal. But this is nothing more than worldliness.
No one bothers to tell couples not to cohabit, to remain pure until marriage, but boy, when the wedding day approaches, are they ever ready to insist on the exact methods of protection against what is universally understood to be an inevitable onslaught, a positive deluge, of children, should they not arm themselves with information and practice. To be sure, for Catholics, our perennial teaching against contraception is upheld — but in a hypocritical sort of way. Since the vast majority of Catholics have abandoned this teaching, it bears point out: we don't know what we are doing, though we are perky enough as we do it.
Everything is about planning, about keeping tight control over the lurking disaster that is the baby. The perceived danger of children is so real, so dire if vigilance is not maintained. No one admits what they can see all around them: in fact the real risk is having too few children, being unhappy, and losing one's marriage.
No one says, “You are actually getting older” — the average age of marriage in the US today is nearly 30 for women — “and you may not have any children; you may have just one, or perhaps two.” For many, sadly, that sounds like a promise, not a warning; a promise of prosperity, of comfort, of escape from bondage to… to a baby, the fruit of their love.
Even though working women are a fixture in and actually dominate our society, older people still feel the urge to push everyone to maintain their commitment to this feminist goal, and they keep up the debate about whether women should work, should become economic producers on a par with men; they show concern about what rate and level of government support, what policies should be enacted to solidify their view. They regard anyone, such as myself, who encourages women to shake free of these lies and to discover the value of not monetizing their lives, as an enemy of progress.
But younger people just assume that women should and will work — they aren't even in the conversation. They have learned from an early age (thanks to the efforts of their elders) effectively to silence the voice within that calls them, if they are girls, to home, to the place where they will be the heart and the queen; and if they are boys, to provide and protect. They assume and take for granted that in order to work, they will keep a strict grip on when — and even if — to allow a child to come into their lives.
Consequently, they have little joy. All around us are young people who manifestly have given up on joy. Their very bodies proclaim the dreariness of their inner lives — military drab ink displayed, flesh exposed, faces without affect.
Our young women — you, perhaps, or if you are older, your daughters — are under an oppressive cloud of anxiety, because the effort to comply, however ingrained at this point, is extreme and takes its toll. We don't know what we're doing — or if we know, we refuse to acknowledge that we are wrong to seek this control.
Young women are suffering and as a result, many are pretty heavily medicated (one way or another), increasingly so since lockdown time. This drugged state in which they seek relief, in turn, and so ironically, inhibits their ability to form deep relationships and for others to form deep relationships with them — which is what they actually crave, as does every person ever created. I'm not even dwelling on romance, though that is what the link there is about; my observation concerns friendship and normal relations with others. We are medicating our young people right out of the bonds that make life worth living. Of course, if young women are in this state, young men are not doing well either. This is also known, but kept hidden. (The linked article is from before lockdown; now things are much worse.)
Child resistance is now the driving effort behind our society, but it is really resistance to our very nature. The definition of a living creature on a purely biological level is that it takes nourishment and reproduces! Going into marriage this way, including using so-called Natural Family Planning, makes the anxiety of our self-rejection intolerable. When young women are being honest (that is, when they are speaking apart from the approved narrative that controlling child bearing is liberating and part of God's plan, even), they reveal that their marital life is fraught with fear — the fear of giving in to a generous and open impulse, a fear of messing up and getting pregnant without, without… without what, exactly? Without the world's approval.
We have disastrously imposed on young people an iron vise around their hearts. I am on record already as saying that NFP training absolutely does not belong in marriage preparation; its goal, which is restricting conception, certainly does not belong in the mentality of the married couple. The most I will say for it is that it can help a couple conceive, but they won't know they need that help for a while; thus there is no point in bringing it up when they are about to wed. Additionally, whatever difficulty they have in conceiving is hardly relieved by the emotional crippling imposed by a technical, even mechanistic, scripted approach to the marital act, borne of fear of the very thing the marital embrace is designed for: procreation!
I have already said many times that I think people's attitude would be very different if they were freed from scare-tactics about large families (as if having many blessings from God is somehow a menace! “Give me fewer blessings,” says no one at all). It's a lie. In our time, fertility is quite low, apart from intentions. If you really considered that you might not be able to have another child or any child at all — not that farfetched if you really look around you at the suffering couples you may know — you would approach the whole issue differently. I'm willing to bet on it.
The normal way, the way that gives peace and happiness, is to love one's spouse when one wants, and to let the babies come, if God is willing to send them. Do you really think He watches over the lilies of the field and not over you and your fertility?
St. Gregory Pockets Corner
Please do read this post (linked up in the menu bar under St. Gregory Pockets, so you can easily find it again). There are many embedded posts in it that explain what the St. Gregory Pocket is and is not.
If you are the admin of your group on Facebook, post and encourage members to post actual meetups at playgrounds, parks, pools, lakes, or what have you. Just meet each other in real life and then you can go on to set up your email list (apart from FB) and have your book clubs and so on. It's not about you being an organizer — it's just about meeting each other in what should be normal circumstances, out and about, and then gradually being friends according to how well you get along. Throw a wide net.
More importantly, you will know each other and be able to bring meals when someone is in need, watch over kids while your new friend goes to the doctor, encourage each other as you learn to “live differently,” including homeschooling, and basically jump-start your community.
It's in this way that you will establish friends for your children when they get a bit older — friends whose families have standards that are similar to yours, who are doing their best to build something of value here in this crazy world!
Giveaway Corner
Last week's giveaway is closed — our two winners have emails in their inboxes. I will post a code next week or the following for a discount on Festivals of Faith,so keep an eye out for that. Thanks for entering!
bits & pieces
- Stella Morabito: Beware of Bureaucrats Who Want to Be Your BFF Again, look around. People are not dancing with delight in this, our Progressive Paradise where everyone is equal, women are not slaves to their uteruses, and the state tells us what to do and what to be afraid of. On the contrary, people are lonely. The solution to loneliness is to recover our confidence in the value of suffering and love of neighbor.
- The Christian Humanism of Marshall McLuhan
“McLuhan wishes to draw our attention to the fact that our tools shape us: they shape our perception of what is natural. That technological mediation, altering the sensory grounds of input, is what is missing from the Greek philosophers’ notion of nature. It is not that he recommends we abandon their notion, but rather that we develop it more rigorously, because we have to contend with the way nature and culture are blended in the immediate web of our environmental perception…
“McLuhan’s philosophy of history is founded on this key idea: we shape our environment, and it shapes us. History obviously encompasses the interaction of both realities: the mind-independent and the mind-dependent.”
Is it good to see others as implacable enemies? When confronted with evil ideologies, we must oppose them with all our might. But the point here that we might not see ourselves as ideological and in search of that primal, tribal experience, is well taken. (Sax says, “It is popular today among intellectuals to devalue tribal experiences. Instead of group ecstasy, we moderns focus on individual fulfillment, self-actualization rather than self-transcendence.” Perhaps our elites are aloof from group ecstasy, but it pervades our time — another example of how blind we are to what is really going on. Think of what we mean today by a concert, or how people view going to a bar, with its oppressively loud beat-driven music and free rein to overindulge.)
- I can't remember if I already posted this: How to Build Beautiful Places
- What nuns can teach us about dressing beautifully
from the archives
- To be happy at home
- My third secret to destruction-proofing your family — if you are interested in reading more about what I mean when I say, “The normal way, the way that gives peace and happiness, is to love one's spouse when one wants, and to let the babies come, if God is willing to send them.”
- Housewifely
liturgical living
Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus
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My book, The Summa Domestica: Order and Wonder in Family Life is available now from Sophia Press! All the thoughts from this blog collected into three volumes, beautifully presented with illustrations from Deirdre, an index in each volume, and ribbons!
My “random thoughts no pictures” blog, Happy Despite Them — receive it by email if you like, or bookmark, so you don’t miss a thing!
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Aurora says
Thank you for this post, Auntie Leila. I needed to learn Creighton at 19 in order to have a NaPRO surgeon address severe endometriosis, and having that perspective has definitely put me in the camp of, “Let the blessings come.” With every miracle baby – and we’re now expecting our fourth within six years – within a year postpartum I find myself beginning to fear a secondary infertility. And yes, I am getting older! I prayed to marry young but Our Lord had other plans, and I am ever-mindful that I am running out of time… Because my children are still so young, I think other women do not want to hear from me on this, saying that I don’t know what kind of insanity I’m getting into having so many so close together, so I am extra grateful for you and Auntie Leila Miller for saying these things…
Katie says
I had issues as a teen (still do) making me think the odds of conception were very against me. I entered marriage ready to go through years of trying. I was already sad about it. Fast forward 10 years and we have 5 healthy babies, and one in eternity. After every baby I get scared of secondary infertility due to my cycle issues. I have to remember that God is merciful and I am really grateful that I got 5 so easily. It is overwhelming to have a bunch of littles, but the experience of THINKING I was never going to have that makes me not take it for granted.
Leila says
Thank you!
Your experience is a great teacher.
shannon says
I am so thankful that you continue to speak this message. I first heard you say this many years ago, and several precious children ago too:), and you were the only Catholic I “knew” boldly saying it….and seeming….HAPPY! I am so thankful. It touched me deeply all those years ago, and restored my inner peace when I was going crazy trying to chart, figure out monitoring and test strips (and boy, that nfp method that was pricy) and just stressing about getting pregnant in general after 3 babies in 2.5 years! Your words calmed me down and honestly, was so different, that I was fascinated. My whole life slowly changed. 3 more babies have joined our family sense I ‘found’ you and we are so thankful we did not give in to the fear and stress. The encouragement you give is truly impactful. Please know that! My family loves you Auntie Leila!
Leila says
I’m so glad!
We need more “calm”!!
Jen says
Thank you. This is a much needed message!
Leila says
God bless you!
Katie says
Thank you for the encouragement- expecting #5 in a couple of weeks, and I’ve felt various times over the past few months that this baby is “inconvenient” to others (and if I’m being honest… to us, too). And we even have fairly supportive families who are very excited for baby, and a large group of like-minded friends right here in our neighborhood, so I can only imagine the difficulty for those without support.
(Also, I have only gotten positive comments in public! But I think that is because I mention that it’s our first boy after 4 girls, so that makes it more exciting. 😆)
I am grateful for NFP because it helped our doctor solve our primary infertility, and made me realize and address the fact that my progesterone was too low to sustain a pregnancy before this baby came along. At the same time, there are many many times between babies that I just wish I didn’t know anything about it, so I think that your advice to only learn it if absolutely necessary, and not as part of marriage prep, is spot on. You can’t unlearn it, and it makes a difference even when you never use it to avoid babies.
E says
I love that you bring up this point about things you can’t unlearn about your fertility! I would love Auntie Leila to dive into this subject a little more. Even aside from all the monitors and fancy ways to chart, there are clear and simple things we know and see with our cycles. There is a certain obviousness for some (again, SOME) when it comes to fertile times.
As someone who never sought out NFP classes prior to marriage, I realized pretty quickly during engagement and thinking about these topics that even if I wanted to know NFP, I already knew enough to practice it mediocrely from hear-say. These topics are discussed so intensively amongst certain circles and even online today that it’s not impossible to have a working knowledge of it without having taken a single course.
Many of us do have obvious physical cues and a sense of how nfp/fertility works. How do we act in light of that? There do seem to be some more traditionally minded Catholics, (I’m thinking John Cuddeback as one example) who would argue against the hypocritical contraceptive mentality that’s overtaken the idea of what NFP is in marriage. But I think he would still hold a space for what we can know by nature or just periods of abstinence at times for some couples. I don’t want to speak totally for what he may or may not hold.
There seems to be some knowledge we can’t escape whether by accident or nature or custom at this point. What are those of us who aren’t child resistant, but also not ignorant of these workings left to do? Perhaps you are thinking just the same as what you say above about child resistance and just being with your spouse when you want.
But I can’t help but feel like there’s another sort of category of us who aren’t child resistant (or are we? I’m open to repenting of it) and have many children, all less than 2 years apart in age, but do use a few months of paying attention to the cycle or abstinence to avoid babies 10 months apart, and closer to 16-20 months apart.
I guess my point here being, is this too child resistance in your mind? Is it a space where there is just no place to deliberate on these things? I’m just having a hard time thinking if there’s some knowledge about it, it seems like there’s got to be a place for at least some deliberation. Apologies for the rambles and lack of clarity.
Nicole says
I’m in a similar boat as you as far as the knowledge, and the need (or want?) for sometimes a bit more space. (This is despite exclusive breastfeeding and sleeping with babies at night and nap time etc etc, no bottles, no forced schedule etc! There seems to be a category of us who definitely, definitely know about and try to use the natural and unrestricted breastfeeding recommendations such as Kippley recommends but still get a return to fertility by 6 months.) We always experience charting and abstinence as a hardship (which we have voluntarily chosen!) and basically not the status quo. I firmly believe the status quo that Leila describes about marriage is 100% correct. It just makes sense! So I am with you on not quite being sure whether the “grave/just” reasons for getting a couple extra months to recover from the last baby falls into this situation or not. I know personally I need to work on surrendering control a lot more, and that there is really never a guarantee that one will even conceive or not, but I try to follow my husband’s lead on this in the postpartum period, because he tends to see how I’m doing more clearly than I do.
I really appreciate this conversation though, because I find it so frustrating that all the other orthodox Catholic commentators just say, “Oh the Church just can’t have a list of grave reasons… it’s totally up to the individual couple…etc” and then don’t mention anything about the original plan for marriage as Leila does here. And I had a suspicion when I began dating my husband that there was way too much emphasis on NFP as the default situation, like they expect every young couple to immediately chart and avoid and have the 1-2 childless years to (get to know each other , finish a degree, get more money, or fill in the blank!). Tons of my very devout Catholic friends who got married young did this! I really wondered if there was another way and I never found anything solid on it until reading this blog and some articles by Peter Kwasniewski. That is how lost the original vision has become!
Someone else mentioned that a big issue is also the avoidance of pain and difficulty that comes with more children, and I also wish the Church leaders would be more frank in this too— that life is actually not meant to be easy and pain free. Good things can be both really difficult and really good at once. Especially if God sent it to you!!
So, lots to ponder here— thank you Auntie Leila!
E says
Nicole, I am so with you on all of this! I too am a bed-sharer and EBF, no bottles, etc., yet there’s simply no stopping that fertility from returning- 1 month postpartum! It comes back like clockwork every time.
On the one hand I try to be mindful that eventually this is going to stop, and it won’t be so easy to just have that next baby. I also have been trying to follow my husbands lead on the prudence vs. control question.
Leila says
Some people think that before NFP, ordinary people had no understanding of cycles and so on, which is just silly. They certainly did know. They also knew they could just abstain if necessary (because they weren’t wimps!). And as mentioned elsewhere, the liturgical year offers built-in opportunities for non-selfish abstinence that ends up being in harmony with all sorts of needs.
I think the couple might have acted on their knowledge to a certain extent, to, say, avoid the marital act when it seemed like a fertile period, but their main attitude was that babies are a part of life and they had a livelier conscience than we do — we are very legalistic! Things balanced out. They must have, because people had more children! Yet, of course, there still always were smaller families because there are no guarantees! People treasured their children!
Leila says
Babies ARE inconvenient!! No doubt about it haha…
But what would we do without them!
It’s true that undue knowledge can burden one. Fortunately, as one gets older, things change a bit and you get more distracted, so “secondary ignorance” can bring some relief LOL
Mrs. Badger says
“they reveal that their marital life is fraught with fear — the fear of giving in to a generous and open impulse, a fear of messing up and getting pregnant without, without… without what, exactly? Without the world’s approval.”
That really is on the money. My husband and I had a moment about a year into our marriage (and before our conversion) where we rethought our running policy of using so-called “protection,” looked at each other and said, “we need to have kids. We are lonely.” It wasn’t that we didn’t love each other, on the contrary, I would define our desire for kids as a “let’s keep this good thing going.” We wanted to share our love with family. It was the most natural thing in the world. So even apart from our later realization that the “protection” was a sin, we were spurred by that generous and open impulse you mentioned. And we were lucky enough to successfully conceive twins without trouble. I am constantly grateful for my husband’s attitude of “I love them so much. Let’s have some more.” 😆
Thank you for this post and for approaching this from the perspective of a healthy home and heart, rather than a mere scrupulous avoidance of sin.
Leila says
Oh beautiful!
And God sent you twins!!
Amazing!
Jessica says
Thank you for this message. I am recently engaged and closing in on 33. I would have liked to be married earlier but God’s plans have been different; however, they have been SO much better than I would have chosen. This blessing has helped us to embrace the reality that really entrusting our fertility to the Lord is what is needed, and that we want to receive whatever he gives.
I do, however, want to make a positive comment about NFP that I think needs to be said. I don’t doubt that you would agree with me in this, nor would many women who I know personally and through media that have benefitted from NFP. I’ve used Creighton as a single woman for years and it has helped me tremendously in understanding my body and how God has created it. It also has been a saving grace in helping my diagnosis of PCOS and low progesterone, which was the cause of many hormonal and mood issues. (I had just about given up and thought I was doomed to be “crazy” forever). NaPro Technology has helped me and so many others I know for this reason alone and has also helped many of my friends who desire to achieve pregnancy, get pregnant. Not to mention many of the people I know who have had similar Hormonal issues. Truly- not exaggerating- God has brought a steady stream of women in my life who have had similar hormonal issues and it has been a gift to me to share Napro information with them.
I also am a Theology teacher at an All Girls school and I witness the effects of feminism on my students daily. I find that discussing (very basic) NFP with them during the appropriate times and when it comes up in curriculum opens their eyes to be more accepting of their true feminine nature. It also really opens them up to discussion.
In short I just think that NFP could be used as a tool in different ways and not touted as a one size fits all solution for every couple. It is helpful in so many other ways besides achieving or avoiding pregnancy.
Anyway, thanks for the message! I appreciate this blog so much and am currently reading Summa Domestica to prepare for marriage!
Leila says
Congratulations on your engagement!
NAPRO is a wonderful resource for those who have difficulty.
Of course, I did say that NFP can be helpful for conceiving children.
I don’t think that the specifics of NFP are acceptable for anyone other than the parents to convey to teenagers. I am not sure what you mean by the basics. In our current climate, I do feel I have to say that extreme delicacy in this matter is a duty for those who interact with teens. I am sure you understand this, but you may understand better when you have teenagers of your own.
There is a reason that our forebears were reticent about this topic and everything surrounding it! Perhaps, given how very unhappy our youth are, we need to recover their approach.
Katie says
Dear Auntie Leila,
Thank you for continuing to speak to the Truth of the blessing of children! I am a Protestant mom of 7 who started my marriage with NFP and my husband and I were gradually led to the conviction that “responsibility” did not mean what we had grown up thinking! We are so thankful that God has blessed us with our 7 precious ones. However, we are also practicing NFP again with gratitude that it exists as a tool in this season: during my last pregnancy, I developed an aggressive breast cancer, which was diagnosed as stage IV when my baby was 2 months old. We are pursuing non-chemo treatment alternatives that have enabled me to continue nursing and spare my long-term fertility (we were told that the conventional chemo recommended for this cancer almost guarantees sterility), but we have been strongly advised by our medical and spiritual advisors to avoid conception in this season. So for now, we are praying for recovery and for God to bless our desire for further children.
Thank you so much for continuing to keep these conversations about practical Truth going!
Donna L. says
Dear Katie~ Thank you for sharing this very personal story–could you guide me to non-chemo treatment alternatives, please? Website or homeopathic doctor/nurse or what have you? I feel like everyone wants us to “cut, burn and poison” to take out the cancer…I firmly believe that there is another way!
May God bless you~
Donna
Katie says
Donna, the best supports I have found have come from these sources: The Metabolic Approach to Cancer by Dr. Nasha Winters; BelieveBig.org; The Weston A. Price Foundation (especially the Fall 2017 back issue of their journal, available online), and this homeopathic doctor, experienced in the Banerji Cancer Protocols: https://homeopathyforwomen.org/
I have also found Kelly Turner’s book Radical Remissions very encouraging, though it includes multiple spiritual traditions.
Praying this is helpful! Fell free to contact me at brian dot klinge at cune dot org to talk over this more – God has definitely been putting on my heart a desire to use my experiences to help and encourage others on this path!
God’s blessings!
Katie
Donna L Harris says
Thank you so much!!! I will look into it–May God bless you and your family~
Leila says
Prayers for your quick recovery! Bless you!
Alexis M. says
Beautiful, so so beautifully stated. I, like another commenter, discovered from NFP that I had low progesterone and an unhealthy cycle. Addressing my cycle (and diet and lifestyle and exercise) with a functional medicine practitioner changed my life in many positive ways. Charting was fun for me (I liked seeing on paper what my body was doing in secret), but it stressed my husband out when we were trying to conceive. Our first is 13, almost 14 months old, and I’m grateful for the still-confusing-postpartum cycle symptoms, in a way: it means charting is basically useless. Embracing the “love your spouse when you want” concept has been completely liberating and lovely for our marriage. Thank you for writing this, and for putting the feeling in words!
Leila says
Yes, I am often puzzled by the postpartum NFP advice. It’s all so nebulous! There is a better way…
Janet says
Why is that question always framed like this? Yes, I absolutely think he watches over lilies and sparrows more than me and my family. And even when I can work myself to accepting that he’s watching over me, it’s no comfort to know I’m simply being “watched” while I struggle to raise kids in this modern horror show of evil with a husband who denies the evil exists at all. It mostly makes me feel stupid.
Leila says
I’m sorry that you are unhappy. Perhaps it might help for you to email me privately.
God bless,
Leila
Anonymous says
Janet, he doesn’t just watch. He is with you. I’m sorry it’s so hard
Annie says
I am an NFP instructor (Creighton, having used been convicted to teach it because I am convinced every woman needs access to NaPro, as many women above me have also experienced!) and I think this perspective is so needed. I think it’s absolutely true that NFP has been marketed to the hilt in a way that is not helpful. “This is just as effective as contraception!!!” And then the expectation is, this works JUST LIKE contraception. Except, it doesn’t! Every little thing about living in accord with your body and with God’s plan requires trust. That intrinsic openness to life is the way.
Leila says
Knowledge of one’s body does inspire trust in God. However, it’s not normal to burden engaged couples with a lot of technical information, as we do today. NFP proponents have to guard against thinking that people wouldn’t figure things out for themselves in normal circumstances. Or else I wonder what people did before? And yet seem not to have had the pervasive emotional difficulties I describe in my post? In fact, were able to have families, which we seem to have lost the knack of doing?
I do wish that when a woman needs help, she would have a medical professional who understands her body and its wonders. It’s terrible what modern medicine has done to women.
Annie says
Well, I do think that in the past, there were still (many!!) disordered ways of thinking and doing when it came to the begetting and having of children.
I won’t belabor the point or go into every single thing because I’m sure there’s lots that would be better discussed in person rather than a forum like this, but for instance, when announcing a recent pregnancy to my grandparents (proud Catholic parents of 7 who were not of the generation to have learned any modern NFP method) responded by saying “That’s what happens when you make whoopee!” While of course their point is correct, I think one thing I have appreciated about being aware of my own fertility while “using NFP” (and in my case that has meant sometimes to avoid but for long times to achieve pregnancy!) is that God invites me and my husband to co-create with him, embracing His will to give us children and not just… having it happen to us because “that’s what happens when you make whoopee.” Maybe it is simply a generational difference in communication.
But, that being said, several generations ago we didn’t even have proof of the egg cell. I have been edified by my ability to participate in the mystery of giving new life by understanding some of it, and learning through that process that actually, God is in control! 🙂 maybe others’ mileage varies and I would never say that everyone MUST use NFP. But I do think that having knowledge of one’s body is not a bad thing, and perhaps feelings of baby resistance must be examined and their root causes dealt with.
Leila says
Several generations ago people were very well aware of how babies are made!
We have to grapple with the extreme unhappiness and inability to form bonds of this generation. I actually think that older people have always said rather coarse and rude things when young people announce a pregnancy, but today, demographically, older people are very much in control and are imposing their cheerlessness on everyone.
It’s important to know that there has always been a “rough and ready” understanding of how things like a woman’s cycle work. In fact, it’s the modern medical system that denigrates the “old wives tales” that turn out to be very true. Knowledge is a beautiful thing, but it doesn’t have to come in the form of charts and official technical jargon!
Cirelo says
I’m confused by whether you are criticizing your grandparents or appreciating them? That comment seems amusing to me. I think it’s healthy to have a sense of humor about life and lifegiving-ness. There is a lovely little passage in Anne of Green Gables (the House of Dreams) and at Anne and Gilbert’s wedding dinner “All the old jests and quips that must have done duty at weddings since Eden were served up, and seemed new and brilliant and mirth- provoking as if they had never been uttered before.” I think this passage highlights almost a return to innocence and delight that married people can share in the joy about marriage and all it entails, intimate and otherwise.
Denise says
Love this message. I’m one of those that wanted all the babies and suffered years of infertility. I have had more miscarriages than living children. I wish more people considered how much a struggle it can be to bring life into the world. I think their perspective would change, as you mentioned, and there would be much less emphasis on preventing and more focus on the joy of each and every child and how truly precious each child is.
Also, it seems our culture has lost the knowledge that something good can (and will) also be hard. Children and homeschooling and marriage mean lots of work and busy times, but they also mean learning to be selfless and literally not having time to wallow in suffering because someone needs dinner, or a hug, or wants to read a book to you. It’s hard, but beautiful, like most of the really great things in life. I don’t think “easy” satisfies us, as much as we want it to.
Mrs. Badger says
I love your point about not having time to wallow in suffering. As a person who tends toward the melancholic, I agree that family life has forced me to be intentional about caring for my emotional/mental health in active and sacramental ways, rather than said “wallowing,” which is unfortunately all to easy to do with time on one’s hands.
Leila says
Exactly! Aren’t we warned by Our Lord not to seek comfort? Not to be worldly?
You are so right!
Ellen says
Such wise words. Thank you. We are fortunate to live in an area where most families live with openess and generosity related to their family size. It is such a shock to hear from Catholics and Christians elsewhere the surprise about “another baby”! One expects that from the world but not within the church somehow.
We married at age 30 and 31 and know we have received a great gift in our 4 children born in and around various health issues. Napro has changed so much of my thinking about the way women’s healthcare is done. Trouble conceiving is not the first sign of an issue yet it is the first time most women know to seek help. If only we knew really what our bodies are saying to us with our cycles. Nfp as it is taught (to avoid and space pregnancy) is almost useless until it is too late to help with restoring health. Truly, a women’s cycle is tied to every part of her health.
It seems our bishops/ the bureaucracy of the church, have this mindset of trying to preach to a captive audience as if they believe that what they have to say is so unpopular that no one would just want to hear it unless forced. Such as baptism classes before the Sacrament, all the CCD now tied to first Communion and Confession and Conformation, and now nfp classes and the other requirements for marriage.
Auntie Leila, i loved the way you said in your podcast on marriage prep that the church is acting as if the power of the Sacraments are somehow bound by the secretaries counting forms and workers checking workbooks.
Ellen says
I should clarify, most Catholic families we know in our homeschooling circles. Of course we are not in some secret paradise where everyone is without sin.
Leila says
The emphasis on NFP in marriage prep is indeed a sign of lack of faith!
What if tomorrow the world woke up and said “Wow, we need to be having children!” — then where would our reaction to contraception be? We need to act according to the Word, not REACT according to the World!
Sarah Myers says
With all due respect, Auntie Leila, I would maintain that holding up “loving one’s spouse when one wants” as the ideal (where “loving” means engaging in sexual intimacy) is a romanticist ideal that overvalues spontaneity and the free expression of passion. That you would, obviously, limit this free expression to married couples is a valorous attempt to baptize a pagan ideal, but not a truly Catholic way of life. What we learn from the tradition is to find our humanity in rationality and the prudent use of all our natural powers. Sometimes prudence means looking honestly at the resources available and deciding that the couple will need to severely limit marital intimacy; sometimes it means realizing that the couple is being overly stingy or materialistic in wishing not to have another child.
I say this as someone who agrees with you that the way we often teach NFP as a way to enjoy almost as much sexual intimacy as everyone else while sticking to the conventional 2 or fewer children is seriously wrongheaded. What we perhaps need to consider is normalizing the idea that even married couples will need to live with long periods of sexual abstinence–that it’s not only single people or those sworn to celibacy who will need to practice a great deal of self control in this area.
Leila says
Life itself — especially life with a lot of children — offers many opportunities for exercising self control and yes, for abstaining. As those of us with large families well know.
But don’t take the joy out of married love. It’s not pagan! In fact, the pagans are the ones who can’t abide it!
The joy is in coming together without undue anxiety, and then, as it is stated in Casti Connubii, for that love to permeate their whole lives together in charity. (7. By matrimony, therefore, the souls of the contracting parties are joined and knit together more directly and more intimately than are their bodies, and that not by any passing affection of sense of spirit, but by a deliberate and firm act of the will; and from this union of souls by God’s decree, a sacred and inviolable bond arises.) “…than are their bodies” implies that their bodies ARE directly and intimately joined and knit together! This is not opposed to our rational nature.
Yes, there will be times of abstinence. But it’s not an “ideal” — it’s normal! — for the married couple, especially the young married couple, just married, to enjoy each other without feeling that they OUGHT to be resisting the consequence, or planning it, or otherwise controlling it.
If you think about it, you will see that this one truth, that the marital act is meant to express love and not be conditioned by fear of children — its primary end (CC 11: Thus amongst the blessings of marriage, the child holds the first place.) is indeed the one truth we are not allowed to say. As a consequence, we are in a uniquely terrible situation, where the majority of people do not want to get married, do not marry, and if they do marry, do not have children.
This is my point here.
anon says
This question is meant very sincerely, because I would love to persuade my husband, as you have persuaded me, that NFP is not necessary for our normal, healthy young family: What determines a time of abstinence if one isn’t tracking fertility in some way? Do you just fully suspend relations for a while?
Leila says
In a general way I would just say that life itself imposes times of abstinence (mom just had a baby, everyone is sick, everyone is desperate for sleep, one of you is traveling or deployed, and so on), and the couple’s spiritual life and the liturgical calendar also offer times referred to by St. Paul as being in agreement not to come together.
“Tracking fertility” IS NOT the normal thing to do! It just isn’t! I think this idea is a destructive one! Just going to say it! Sure, there are general signs that the woman (and her husband) can observe to know when ovulation has occurred, but the idea that we are delving into this at a technical level is not compatible with normal life, in my humble opinion!
It would be like sitting down to a meal and counting every calorie and charting one’s poops and so on. What a dreary way to live!
Leila says
A reminder that we don’t actually allow anonymous comments here
Leila says
Two more points that I will just drop here and anyone who is interested can do more research.
1. Tradition actually favors my point of view. I think of the Renaissance genre, hearkening back to classical themes, of poetry called Epithalamion — a form of exuberant celebration of marriage, addressed mainly to the bride, that would astonish us today, prudish as we are.
2. The Song of Songs is another book of Scripture that came to my mind after I read Jadedrifter’s comment below. Again, we moderns with our strictly rationalistic, clinical approach cannot fathom the inclusion of this work in the Sacred Canon, for it makes us blush. Yet there it is. I wonder how we think the Bridegroom Himself views the marriage bed…
Sarah Myers says
Centuries of church fathers insisted that the Song of Solomon was purely allegorical and referred either to Christ and the Church or to St. Mary. I know it is intuitive to us to think that even if the book is allegorical, that it still dignifies the actual conjugal act and erotic love by using it as a picture of God’s love for the Church, but this is a relatively recent development in Christian thought (only the last couple centuries). A long tradition, starting perhaps with Origen and Jerome, resisted any connection between the Song and “carnal knowledge” of man and woman. Perhaps not until John Paul II did the church really become very “sex-positive”; there have always been some voices holding up the essential goodness of married love, but the dominant tenor of Catholic feeling for a long time was much bleaker regarding even married sexual intimacy. And for good reason, I think! Modern people have a hard time understanding why the Church seemed to hate sex, but the plain fact is that most of the world has always loved it too much (here I would count examples like your epithalamion genre of poetry), and what the world needed to have said was not anything in praise of physical intimacy, but a word of caution that in the sexual act–while not essentially a sin–we come perilously close to the Fall, in part because of the power that eros has to overcome reason and disfigure our likeness to God through our rationality. Hence, why the Church has always preferred celibacy and did not really glorify family life until perhaps the Counter-Reformation, when a new Protestant emphasis on the family pushed the church to develop her own views on the subject; hence also why there were various attempts to impose regular fasts from marital intimacy.
Now of course in our day, people bid fair to forget even the natural goods of family life–children and conjugal love–and it becomes necessary to maintain that these things are, in fact, good. But that should not lead us to glorify or overly romanticize the marital act itself to the point that we regard the free exercise of the marital right to engage in the sexual act, whenever we want to, as overly central to the flourishing of a healthy marriage. Virtuous use of each other’s bodies must mean a use that is governed by temperance and prudence.
Now of course, prudence in the Christian tradition has never meant a narrow ordering of means toward some limited good, such as the acquisition of wealth, and more young couples should indeed be encouraged to break free of the mindset of the world that dictates two children only, and that only after getting financially well-established–just as Christian couples should also be encouraged to embrace a more radical charity and hospitality to the stranger. Nevertheless, it is still a part of prudence to make us temperate in regard to the goods that usually most tend to overwhelm temperance–food and sex–so that our indulgence in these goods is ordered towards our natural flourishing.
You and I probably do not actually disagree about this, that prudence and temperance should rule our marital intimacy; but I would maintain that it is much more the norm than the exception for married couples to find that even when they are open to living in a way that is generous and open to children, that they will still need to exercise care that conjugal intimacy does not unduly strain the family’s ability to provide for the material, educational, emotional needs of their children or unduly burden the flourishing of the mother. One can blame whatever factors in the modern world one wants for the contemporary situation being especially burdensome–geographically scattered extended families, the loss of community, etc–but couples are not required to live as though the world were what we would like it to be, but in the world that is. (That we all, and our bishops, should be much more actively promoting social changes that would allow larger families to flourish is a project I can get behind.) In the world that is, possibly even in the best version of the natural order, though, many couples will need to limit the number of children they bear. They could abstain for long periods, and perhaps this is, in some sense, the best way, or they could use NFP. I’m fine with calling it a morally licit concession to our weakness and inability to completely rule our sexual passions; it is a concession that most people do find difficult enough, and in which they either fail to persevere or in which they eventually find a reward of greater closeness and virtue.
But it shouldn’t have to be said that the truth that “marriage and the marital act is for children” is logically compatible with the addendum “but not necessarily for having as many children as natural fertility would permit.” Even when you allow for the insufficiently acknowledged trial of infertility, it is still fairly normal to be a woman whose body is capable of birthing a dozen or so children, but whose circumstances do not make it good for her or the family’s flourishing to have that many. This is also compatible with recognizing that there is enormous blessing in embracing bigger families than the world around us considers smart; whenever couples do this because they mutually agree on their level of commitment to a lower standard of financial stability in favor of having more babies, rather than because they (or one of them–usually the man, sorry!) cannot exert sufficient self-control otherwise.
MG says
Thank you! This completely sums up my own thoughts(vague sense, really) , and much more concisely than I could have done it myself!
With regard to your little aside about men, two things spring to mind: 1 Cor 7:9, and the third of the three ends of marriage.
Absolute mastery of all of our passions would be great! We should be always striving towards that. But in our (the modern Church as a whole) desire to be “sex-positive” . I think that we forget that this is part of the gift of the sacrament of matrimony.
Mary Eileen says
Dear Sarah,
There is a lot to be said about the need to reject today’s narcissistic approach to self-fulfillment through physical intimacy, and I agree that we aren’t meant to live our marriages this way….but I don’t think NFP solves that problem by a long shot, and rather think your thoughtful comments unwittingly maneuver the debate onto enemy turf.
For example, phrases like we mustn’t “unduly burden” the flourishing of the mother, or that “couples will need to limit” their number of children are classic abortion-speak, and they are a big concession to the contraceptive mentality this essay is trying to shatter. Not trying to haul out the big guns aggressively, but this is the prevailing terminology.
We should take great care not to accept this mode of thinking, the one that pessimistically agrees with the world that more children are a burden to most, or even many, mothers. It’s not openness to “more than the average number” of children (a number we basically decide). It’s just – openness – to an unknown.
I’m sure it sounds practically trite in this chain, but I think we agree that submitting to God’s will always bring deep inner peace and joy, in spite of the challenges it might require us to face.
Feeling conflicted or defensive toward an attitude of joy and generosity in marriage seems puritanical and/or gnostic (theological cousins I think). This conversation has repeatedly acknowledged how much prudence, temperance, and chastity is required simply in the ordinary course of married life. It’s a life that requires the husband to constantly put others before his wishes and preferences, whether he has the self-control and holiness to like it or not. Thus, it’s definitely a straw man to claim that critiquing the NFP mentality glorifies pagan or intemperate sexual attitudes. The direct point of the essay, I think, is – let us not dampen the love and happiness we DO have time and inclination for by being anxious about the future!
Mentioning coming close to the Fall made me think of Milton’s Paradise Lost, which was radical at the time for suggesting that Adam and Eve made love to each other in the garden – this poem is multi-faceted and I don’t hold a Calvinist poem up as a model of Catholic Church teaching (honestly I don’t remember it all, haha), but the scene in the garden is a vivid imagining of pure and chaste physical attraction between a man and a woman. God made them beautiful, he made them for each other, and he intended them to have this joy! It is in furtherance of His commandment to them to be fruitful.
As the poem relates, of course it is Adam’s inordinate love for Eve that led him to disobedience. That’s his failure, not the failure of God’s plan.
I wish to encourage others seeking to sift through this that a romantic marriage rooted in deep friendship as well as physical attraction, shared and expressed as freely as practical life allows, is an attainable reality, not an unattainable ideal! One might not live at the pinnacle of joy and mutual understanding every single minute or in every season, but the mountaintop is a real place. I have some experience of NFP, such that I can say that it can very easily fog up our view of it.
I wish you the best Sarah and though I disagree, I appreciate your very thorough comments.
Leila says
Well said! Exactly right!
Leila says
I am going to try to keep my answer here brief, but it’s not that brief, and then we will move along!
ONE — Naturally, the book of The Song of Songs is allegorical. No one disputes that. Your comments about it, however, contain a somewhat devious error, one that is creeping in more and more, as people try (with good will and for good reason) to combat the spirit of the age, which exalts “the unitive” over “the procreative,” pitting them against each other and creating a lot of issues.
Interesting that you mention St. Jerome, who committed this error in his attempt to respond to Jovinian, a heretic who opposed monastic life (celibacy in particular). St. Jerome in his turn deprecated marriage, as you are doing here in your comments (the attitude of traditional Catholics towards sex “was much bleaker” etc).
In fact, so erroneous was this approach that it spurred St. Augustine, in correcting it, to write a book on the subject, On Marriage!
Origen, while a great contributor to philosophy, theology, and exegesis, was not without his ambiguities.
A better guide to the Song of Songs is St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who expresses the allegorical view without dismissing the book’s obvious affirmation of the union between the lover and the beloved in the literal sense. This is my reason for bringing it up — the spiritual meaning is embedded in the literal meaning.
We know through our senses; God made us this way. He also sanctified marriage after blessing it as the first covenant in the Garden, before the Fall.
In any case, Scripture is replete with imagery of the union of the lover and the beloved. We don’t live in a time of wide-spread understanding of the simple good of this gift OR of familiarity with these Biblical themes.
So please permit me to recover it for those who are suffering from a fatal disassociation from their own human nature, as God made it.
TWO — Prudence is a virtue, the Queen of virtues, that simply means the ability to apply abstract truths and precepts (the 10 Commandments, common sense, moral law) to particular situations — to SEE things as they are and to act accordingly. To have a good conscience.
It does not mean worldly calculation. Temperance is self control. Most of the warnings about marital love are directed at men, as you point out; however, temperance in the sense of not erring in either direction of excess is a virtue that women need as well, lest we fall into scorning pleasure. It’s no mistake that most proponents of NFP and most of those admonishing young lovers to BE CAREFUL are women.
Prudence — practical wisdom — warns us to strive for the virtue of generosity and daring in good things and to avoid the evil of viewing life as conflict with others. Marriage in particular is a cooperation, not a war!
I don’t think that anyone reading this can deny we are in a state of war as regards marriage and babies.
Ironically, given your characterization of our time as glorifying the sexual act, it’s he whom you mention, Pope John Paul II, who introduced the equivocal notion of “responsible parenthood” and whose language made its way into the encyclical Humanae Vitae.
Without in any way detracting from the necessity of responsibility, let me just repeat what has already been said, that the idea of responsible parenthood — if we mean something other than BEING married and taking the duty to form one’s offspring, especially in faith, seriously — is an amorphous one, not easily otherwise defined.
Yet there is no limit to how much judgment it enables towards those whom others feel are NOT responsible. Our world is full of experts (very much including Catholics) who have limited their own family size and who make it clear what THEY feel are the criteria for responsibility.
There are all too many voices warning against economic difficulty, mental pressure, ill health, and so on — even against “curtailing the woman’s gifts”… whatever that means. What we fail to confront is the resulting –and inevitable — attitude, so destructive: that anyone who has a child under less than ideal circumstances is censured for being imprudent. I’m not saying what might happen. I am stating a fact about a situation under which the vast majority labor. Most people self-censure because they cannot bear the inevitable judgment. Hence, “child resistance.”
Our own Pope has commented on the inadvisability of “breeding like rabbits” — an old slur against Catholics that betrays more about the person uttering it than about its object.
I don’t know how old you are, dear Sarah, but I am old enough to know that there are many circumstances in life in which the married couple bring forth offspring in ways that seem, at the time, quite irresponsible. And yet, none of us regrets the child who came at that inopportune time! And many — MANY — DO regret that they didn’t trust more, do without, risk more, and have more generosity. Many babies who were conceived “too soon” after the last one, in poverty, in pain, in uncertainty, in old age — THESE are the MOST CONSOLING children, the ones who gladden the heart and affirm that God does love us and will take care of us.
This is the wisdom of the foolish, I suppose!
Pope Pius XII:
“Now, the value of the testimony offered by the parents of large families [he of course includes those whose families might not be large but who are open] lies not only in their unequivocal and forceful rejection of any intentional compromise with the law of God and human egoism, but also in their readiness to accept joyfully and gratefully these priceless gifts of God – their children – in whatever number it may please Him to send them.
“This disposition of soul frees married couples from unsupportable nightmares and remorse, and, according to outstanding doctors, creates more favorable psychological conditions for the healthy development of children born of the marriage. For, right at the beginning of these new lives, it eliminates all those torments and anguishes that become physical or psychological deficiencies in the mother or in the offspring.”
Lots to consider there!
God bless you!
Sally says
I want to challenge the narrative that NFP is necessary to identify and treat problems related to a women’s cycle. I think most doctors have no idea about women’s health because they have been taught to override a women’s cycle by prescribing OCPs. A doctor trained in NaPro or Marquette is really just a doctor who has been actually educated on the issues related to a women’s fertility. He has his own questions, blood tests, and diagnostic tests that he uses to evaluate and treat sub-fertility, PCOS, endometriosis, etc. I think if you wanted to avoid to learning a method for the reasons Auntie Leila gives above, you could still treat these underlying conditions by seeing a skilled practitioner.
Sally says
Oof, a woman’s cycle not women’s … I should have proofread more carefully!
Annie says
Those tests will generally be timed in relation to ovulation, aka requiring a chart, which is what distinguishes hormonal testing done via NaPro to a conventional approach!
Leila says
A chart — charting — is not the same as NFP, though NFP does include charting.
Caroline says
In my experience, it is necessary since the chart becomes the “window” into a woman’s health used by the doctor. The multiple NaPro doctors I have worked with have required at least 3 cycles of Creighton method charting (and ideally more) before they can begin the diagnosis/treatment process. And then that charting has to be ongoing in order to correctly time bloodwork and medication, which may need to be taken for years or even indefinitely. So as ideal as it might be to forgo the technical tracking of fertility and all that comes with it, that’s actually not possible with any ongoing treatment, even something as simple as supplementing for low progesterone, a very common issue! And while those of us with issues are not the norm, we are unfortunately growing in numbers, probably due to (in my opinion) environmental toxins that have seeped into every area of modern life.
Of course, this is not the crux of the issue in the post, which has given me lots to ponder (even as someone who has re-read “the 3rd secret” many times!).
Leila says
Charting and observation do not equal NFP. Sally wasn’t saying that a chart wouldn’t be necessary, she was saying that any doctor who hadn’t received a faulty education would be able to address women’s issues.
It’s true that NFP groups offer a lot of research and can help doctors in this area. But the NFP part of it is not what matters, it’s the willingness to research the intricacies of the woman’s body that does.
Rosemary says
I will say, as someone with a proclivity towards bearing twins (two sets out of six kids!), NFP has been a huge blessing for us in terms of spacing pregnancies. 🙂 We’re blessed to be surrounded by families who are open to life, and I think that helps discernment. Because it involves mutual self-sacrifice, it can be born as a cross, and it also tends to purify your motives.
Edward says
A lot of people in the comments here seem to want some affirmation that they are doing NFP for a good or grave reason… so here it is: you are all doing a great job! keep engaging your intellect and will!
But you aren’t the target audience of this post… unless, if you do an examination of motives and find you have caught from the culture a bit of the baby resistance Leila is talking about, then congratulations! You have some food for thought. Especially if you have practiced NFP and found that periodic abstinence has affected your relationship in a negative way.
Or if you and your spouse have engaged in immoral acts during periodic abstinence, a dimension Leila doesen’t directly address here. Or perhaps during periodic abstinence, your husband takes matters into his own hands. so to speak. Since NFP is supposed to create and build such lovely communication skills between spouses, would it be appropriate for you two to discuss sins against chastity committed during periodic abstinence, committed either together or alone? Not that practicing NFP causes those sins, just that… maybe it is time to look at the big picture, and how NFP can create conditions in marriage and the marriage bed that aren’t ideal, normal, or natural (despite the moniker).
On another note, Leila, how would you respond to a critique of your thought on this subject that you are guilty of a kind of providentialist heresy, leaving no room for the intellect and will?
Leila says
Great comment, thanks!
Is there an actual heresy called Providentialism? Or is it just a thing people who want Planning say?
Do I believe in God’s Providence? Yes. And have experienced it in situations that are objectively difficult.
I think there is a heresy called thinking God does not provide the means to carry out His commands. Our intellect and will need to be engaged in helping us trust Him.
By the way, for clarity’s sake, not directed at you specifically, I want to say that nowhere do I say, contrary to some comments I’ve seen, that the couple should have as many babies as possible — I say as a normal thing, they should love each other when they want and let the babies come — and those are different things.
Nicole says
Yes, I have always wondered where the term “Providentialism” came from, and why it’s pejorative? Shouldn’t we ALL be relying totally on God’s providence, while at the same time moving forward in our daily work, exercising our intellect and will?? I remember seeing the term thrown around in online “NFP Wars”-type blog posts years ago, and just being confused about why we needed to put people in more unnecessary boxes. It seems that finding the Golden Mean about this issue, even in conversation about it, is ever difficult. You’re right– we are way too legalistic! 😛
Leila says
I’m just not sure how the defenders of the Faith explain the heresy of Providentialism. “You RELY on GOD to PROVIDE — Anathema sit!”
On the contrary, I thought that when we assume we can obtain salvation by means of our own intellect and will, without relying on God’s grace, THAT is a heresy (Pelagianism).
jadeddrifter says
After reading through the comments here, I’m wondering if some people are missing the point.
Ecclesiastes 3 comes to my mind.
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing…”
I hope that readers will take the time to look up the and read the whole chapter.
It seems to me that Leila is saying (correct me if I’m wrong) is that the early years of marriage are a time to embrace and love and enjoy, but instead, our bishops are telling us it’s a time to be “responsible” (which is vague and has no real definition) and this idea places a huge spiritual burden on well-intentioned newly-weds and prevents them from enjoying what is their right to enjoy. Something many of them have spent years waiting to enjoy! Everywhere I look in the Bible, the Lord uses the bridegroom and bride analogy as something good and joyous. NFP is not the “same” as other forms of birth control because it IS so difficult and sad to live out.
From my point of view, our bishops presenting NFP to engaged couples betrays their lack of confidence in the ability of the faithful to live their vocation, and even their lack of confidence in the Lord’s grace and provision for married couples. Do they think that God is not up to the task of shepherding his people?
Sure, maybe mention NFP for future reference, not everyone has heard of it, after all, and sometimes life can be extremely difficult (my own health is pretty poor). But I agree that it shouldn’t be front and center in the minds of young couples.
Leila says
Thank you! You expressed it so well.
Anonymous says
I agree, people are missing the point– I think because the audience of the post (those preparing to get married, the newly married, those who are taking to those preparing to get married) and the audience of the blog are different. Or she’s talking to the bishops, with their NFP week, but not us, the actual readers of the blog, who mostly have numerous children and are just trying to get the current baby to 15ish months so she can nurse him, not be obese and in pain when she turns 40 next year, and take care of her current children (difficult to do when she is pregnant and just trying to not have to go to the ER from vomiting), and has never had delayed fertility no matter how much the baby is in bed with her. She’s already wondering if a goal of 15 months for the baby, or less than 200 pounds for herself, is “baby resistance,” or prudence. Or some other situation that has nothing to do with feminism, a career, timing so she can go on vacation, etc. So it’s painful to read the post and the comments in tandem, there’s a lot of talking past each other…. I very sincerely mean this to aid any readers in understanding the crux of the issue here and on Facebook (definitely worse on Facebook).
A few other random thoughts, numbered because they are somewhat unrelated to each other:
I think most people in the church think that young people aren’t open to hearing “you should just be married and let the babies come.” I think there are more people open than they think, and it should be said either way, but sometimes people are not open to that BUT are open to ditching the contraceptives– and that often leads to a conversion. No, I have no hard stats on how often, but I do know numerous couples who switched to NFP from contraceptives for various reasons. I also know many, many couples who started using NFP and then within a year ditched it because NFP POINTS TO THE PROCREATIVE PURPOSE OF THE ACT. I only know two who were so legalistic about NFP that they were just fine waiting 5ish years for kids.
We watched a great movie about an immigrant family coming to farm in Minnesota from Sweden. The wife had many children, then started having recurrent miscarriages. She went to a dr who told her she had issues with her uterus and should not have more children. They slept in separate beds for a while, then she said, “I want to still be your wife,” and they stopped abstaining (the movie was very appropriate, they just made this clear) and she went back to recurrent miscarriages and took a toll on her health so much that she died in her early 40’s. My husband says she was wrong, but I am not so sure. I think it is a great toll one a marriage, on a woman, to never come together for a long period at a time. Periodic abstinence IS sad, but it sadder still is just abstinence, for years at a time.
I am interested in the below discussion of liturgical abstinence, and think there’s probably a lot to that.
I also think there’s a small subset of women whose fertility returns early, but then they have low progesterone, and in the past would have just miscarried. But they (I) don’t live in 1500 or 1850 and I am just not willing to let a conceived baby die (should I be??). Supplementing with progesterone kills breastmilk if pregnancy hasn’t already, nausea is increased, etc, etc– it’s bad for both babies and the mother and indirectly bad for the other kids to have the mom down and out…
Leila says
All these details are fogging up the main issue.
People have always had struggles and always will. Someone could leave just as long a comment about the struggles of infertility.
Marriage is for babies. My audience is anyone who has ears to listen. All the things you bring up are discussed ad nauseam everywhere — what is never discussed is that we are burdening young people with all our issues.
The individual difficulties, which are real, cannot be addressed in a post — they have to be undertaken by trusted people in real life, and one aspect of trust is that the person also believes that marriage is for babies and whose advice would be based on that, not on the premise that it’s fine to avoid babies.
Leila says
I am now reminding you that we do not actually allow anonymous comments here.
Cirelo says
Love it! You are reminding me too of something I really liked in one of Leila’s podcasts about marriage prep (correct me if I’m wrong!) where we have to be careful not to project all of our worries from our own state in life and perspective on the dewy eyed young couples. I appreciated the reminder because I have been going through growing pains in my 15 year marriage and had been a little bit of a downer on a newly wed couple that had come to me looking for advice and hope! I appreciated that they actually corrected me, by wondering aloud why several older couples had warned them about the future when they were looking for encouragement. I realized what I was talking about was my own stuff, they will have their own stuff I don’t need to rub the bloom off the rose! I think I see the same sort of apprehension everyone has over having children, they are all burdened by all the details before they even start. It’s overwhelming to a natural and joyful process. I remember telling one expecting couple that you don’t really need much to have a baby except a mother and maybe a sweatshirt to wrap it in. 🙂
Elizabeth says
Thank you for this beautiful post. There is so much one could say…
Maybe instead of so much focus on NFP in marriage prep, the focus could be on helping women have healthy pregnancies and beautiful, vibrant motherhood. There could be information on childbirth preparation, doulas, the midwifery model of care (especially the tradition of Catholic midwifery), how to avoid C-section (a blessing when necessary, but better to avoid for the health of the mother, especially if she is going to have many children), nutrition, the herbal supports our great-grandmothers knew, etc. And how to have a good postpartum period. What a blessing that would be for women, husbands, and children.
Mrs. T says
Here I am, pushing 40, expecting #9 any day now. I used to be scared, tried to control the issue. I wasted too much time worrying about what the world thought. I don’t care anymore. I can’t wait to hold my baby.
Leila says
Love!!
Heather says
Aunty Leila, I always learn so much from you. I believe you are blessed with the gift of wisdom. I was wondering what you would think about a case like mine: I had five C-sections in seven years. Each time the doctors did an assessment to see if I would be able to sustain another pregnancy. After the fifth one, I was told that my uterine lining is so thin that another pregnancy could be dangerous for me and the baby. My husband and I are now using NFP to avoid further pregnancies. I wish it were not so. I wish we could have more, but I’m scared, as is my husband. Should I be trusting God more? Where does prudence fit in? I do not want to offend God, but it also seems right to me to strive to be here for my family. Sometimes, I feel I would be willing to take the risk, but my husband and mother do not agree it is a risk worth taking. Do you have any thoughts? Thank you!
Leila says
Dear Heather, this question is too personal for this space! Feel free to email me!
In general, one reason for me writing this post is my dismay at seeing very online people take it upon themselves to proclaim to people on the subject of whether their particular reasons for abstaining or having children are in accordance with Church teaching or not.
The couple has to be formed in the purposes and realities of marriage (which they are, for the most part, not) and in their own moral agency (which is theirs alone — man is an acting person with a conscience — no legalisms can substitute for knowing the moral law and the causes — ends — of things). Then they, and only they, can decide what to do in this sphere.
My aim here is simply to say what is never said: it is better, in the normal way (everyone ignores that part), for the husband and wife to love each other and let the babies come, in part because babies don’t come as often as we suppose – but we have been propagandized otherwise! And if the babies do come abundantly, to give thanks to God for his blessings! That is the normal, Catholic way.
In an individual case, I can encourage and commiserate and offer my thoughts and experiences (privately), but that is all. I don’t have all the answers!
Margaret says
Auntie Leila, you are quite the dynamo in your responses today! I thoroughly enjoyed your post and am also enjoying the directness – and tact -with which you respond to so many comments (so numerous to demonstrate that this topic is dear to a woman’s heart).
You very clearly and forthrightly assert the priniciple and truth that our Lord instituted marriage and the marital embrace to produce life. A man whose quiver is full is blessed and the fruit of the womb is truly a reward. Before we acknowledge exceptions and hardships we do well to articulate and praise the wonders of God’s order and creation. In fact, only by doing so can we truly show compassion to those who suffer from a sorrowful marriage, an impious spouse, barrenness, the loss of miscarried or stillborn children, etc. Only when we understand God’s purpose for marriage can we estimate the pain and sorrow attendant upon its corruptions.
It occurs to me that when we say that it is good for a married couple to welcome God’s gift of life we liberate the husband and the wife: no need to agonize over ideal timing – the Lord knows what is best for us. Not, usually, what is easiest for us, but what is truly best for our sanctification and our eternal souls. Generally that involves the mortification of our sinful flesh and, in repentance and faith, the reorientation of our eyes first to Christ Jesus in faith and then to our neighbours (yes, our children) in love.
So is there a place for NFP? For a couple to abstain for seasons/times due to medical situation? I can only answer in a general way, but surely such a decision would be made by a pious Christian couple in great sorrow. With heavy hearts, acknowledging the brokenness of our mortal flesh, we cry aloud to our Father to have pity on us, to remove our suffering, and to cover our weakness. It is no surprise that a woman’s body may suffer the consequences of our fall into sin: our mortal bodies are imperfect vessels and we groan along with creation until the revealing of the sons of God. In short, with grief and sorrow a couple may be brought to such a decision. But – I make bold to assert – that a couple open to rejoicing in God’s gift of life would only make such a decision with great sorrow. That’s a far cry from the apathy or indifference with which many today poison the womb to avoid the creation of a child.
Keep speaking so boldly, Auntie Leila! Many benefit from your wisdom, not least this LCMS Lutheran 🙂
Leila says
Thank you!
Molly says
I wonder about something that I have rarely seem addressed – what has the Church taught/prescribed in the past about abstaining from sexual relations during marriage? I have Orthodox friends who keep the Great Fast during Lent, which includes abstaining from sexual intercourse with one’s spouse (as well as meat, dairy, eggs etc.) It is my understanding that the Catholic Church had similar requirements in the past. I have also read that past teaching required couples to abstain from sexual relations 3 days prior to receiving Communion (presumably from the time when Communion was less frequently received…but was this teaching ever revoked, if it indeed existed?). We know the requirements for abstaining from meat have lightened – is the same true for other abstinences? My point is – I do wonder if Holy Mother Church, in the past, provided times of abstinence, that in turn diminished opportunities for conception. If so, it seems like following the liturgical calendar and Church norms might have led to spacing that NFP aims to achieve, without placing the onus on the couple to decide. Did the Church changing its norms (or failing to teach its norms…sigh) lead to the vacuum that people of good intentions have filled with NFP? We know that loss of tradition and norms has negatively affected the Church in so many ways – is this another example?
Leila says
Wonderful point. The seasons of the liturgy help us so much to live in accord with our nature. Additionally, having children, as those of us with big families always point out, is a condition that imposes its own … periods of abstinence!
We want to be worldly and to live in a relationship with the faith that is legalistic and lacks any submission to its rhythms.
If we were more open, we would quickly come to see that God has a plan and that babies are by no means guaranteed or even likely, in many cases!
Katie says
I love all the things you say here. More women need to say this. My mom said all these same things growing up, and I am grateful to have had her “collective memory” on the subject. I also wish more people would be open about how NFP basically stinks. It’s a bummer way to live. Hence why NFP should not be sold as a “life style” but a (hopefully temporary) remedy to a big problem – a solution which may at times need to happen, (although less than we are led to believe,) but it HAS to be used for the good of the family, not just for the sake of control. It’s a deprivation in marriage and is not sustainable long term.
Leila says
Agreed. It might need to be used to conceive. A wise priest told me that in his long experience of advising couples, he did not think it is for avoiding. (NFP is not the same as simply abstaining.)
Elizabeth says
All I can say, is thank you Auntie Leila for everything you’ve said on this in the past and now. I’ve been married just over a year and am blessed to be holding my 2 month old daughter. I am in agreement about everything you said about the normal situations (similar to what you’ve said about nursing). I wish I didn’t have the doubts and anxieties from others or the amount of technical knowledge of NFP that I do. I just want to love my husband and have all the babies that God desires for us. I think reading your blog for so many years has helped to neutralize the world’s opinions. And now that I’m in this postpartum time, I have renewed confidence to trust in God.
Leila says
Beautiful! Thank you!
Theresa says
Thank you for this post and for your previous posts about this topic. I was tracking my cycle through my engagement, with the intention of using NFP to avoid pregnancy. I’m not even sure why I felt the need to avoid a pregnancy. It just seemed the thing to do, and that having a year of “getting to know each other” was important. I had a lot of angst about NFP leading up to the wedding. Would we have to abstain during the honeymoon? I even felt tempted to suggest contraception to my then-fiance. I lurked on internet communities to see what other newly married couples had done, and saw “helpful” suggestions to play board games in the hotel room. Multiple older married people also commented that there would be lots of other special occasions where it would be disappointing to abstain, so young couples might as well get used to it. None of these comments were very satisfying to me, and the tone made me feel silly or unchaste to be distraught about having to spend our first week as husband and wife practicing restraint. “You’ve waited so long, haven’t you? What’s another 5-10 days?”
Then, I read your post on “the third secret to marriage” as well as Kendra Tierney’s post, “Why I don’t do NFP” and felt so at peace. I stopped tracking, and my husband and I put our fertility in God’s hands. We welcomed our first child three days before our first anniversary, and he has been such a joy. I pray to be blessed with more children soon. Thank you for inspiring me to reject the culture of baby resistance, which is so pervasive in our culture and often permeates into Catholic communities.
Jadeddrifter says
It’s positively shocking that the advice to avoid pregnancy is being given across the board like that. I’m so happy for you that you didn’t get caught in that rut
Mrs. Badger says
That is a lovely story. Thank you for sharing.
I had a similar-ish experience of sort of just assuming we should avoid pregnancy for the first year. I remember mentioning to my Mom that we had a “pregnancy scare” at one point (yes, that’s how I put it!) and my Mom, God bless her, just said, “hm, why is it a scare?” She didn’t press any further but she made her point: there’s no reason to be scared of conceiving a child within the security of marriage! God will provide! It helped me reframe my thinking about pregnancy and I started to be excited when I’d notice unusual symptoms, instead of nervous.
Emily says
This is such a great story! When I was engaged I told my fiancée I mostly couldn’t bear the thought of NFP because if I got pregnant, I would never want it to feel like I did something wrong if we had been planning to avoid pregnancy.
I couldn’t bear the thought that I would feel guilty for having a baby because it wasn’t “according to a plan.” It felt absolutely contrary to everything we believe in as Catholics. No amount of “well you are still open to life while practicing NFP” could be enough to make me change my mind. I know I would have felt guilty or bad in some way if we tried to avoid and got pregnant.
Luckily in our marriage prep our priest merely asked: “are you planning to do NFP? No? Alright let’s move on then…” I have friends in our diocese who are forced to take a class at their parish (that they also have to pay for…).
Leila says
Thank you, Theresa!
Your experience when engaged is EXACTLY what I am deploring and EXACTLY what NFP promoters refuse to acknowledge! They are living in la-la-land and are actually guilty of hardness of heart. Engaged couples should be encouraged to love each other, looking forward to the marriage bed with all the excitement due to them, and reminded that getting married MEANS you are ready for children! That’s literally what it means: Matrimony — the making of a mother!
Renee says
I keep returning to this post to somehow put to words how much I appreciate and agree with all that you’re saying here, Auntie Leila. With each new pregnancy I get to announce, I feel more and more annoyed that I’m the one being made to feel like a weirdo, when all I’m trying to do is have a happy, healthy marriage. Posts like yours have given me so much encouragement and helped free me of some of my own baby resistance. So thank you.
Leila says
Aw, you’re welcome! xoxo
Mrs. T says
This post also reminds me of a talk I heard with Fr. Ripperger. In all his years as a priest, he only counseled 2 couples to abstain for a period of time in their marriage, due to the health of the mother. Perhaps people should be seeking the counsel of a good priest in this area, too.
Leila says
A good priest is essential.
Seek one out who doesn’t default to advice to avoid.
Seek a generous priest who himself shows signs of austerity and willingness to suffer.
Jeanne says
Thank you for this brave post, auntie Leila. I think it’s interesting to notice how much the general view of babies in marriage has changed in Western civilization over the past century. For example, in L.M. Montgomery’s novel Anne’s House of Dreams, (published 1917) Anne eagerly anticipates motherhood and dreams of a baby immediately once she is married. When her first baby sadly passes away, she soon gives birth to her second and is depicted as delighting in her baby and in motherhood. She goes in to have several more as a matter of course. The novel shows this as the most normal, natural thing in the world, for ordinary people to get married and rejoice in having babies right off. And all this when when the writer was a not particularly devout Presbyterian. The contrast with the anxiety surrounding babies in marriage today, even among devout Christians, is sad. It is communicated to young women that having a baby is nothing short of a catastrophe, even in marriage. The anxiety about this among my millenial peers is absolutely overwhelming. I personally know quite a few married women who have delayed childbearing for this reason, only to find themselves infertile in their 30s. I am so grateful for traditional Catholic teaching, because I too, was for a long one of those too paralyzed by fear to become a mother, using NFP like shield against what I thought would be complete disaster.
Leila says
Yes, exactly. Everyone is paralyzed by their fear!
Ironic, isn’t it, that feminists claim Anne as their own. She certainly was spirited! And that quality got her through all her adventures, including the great self-sacrificing one of marriage and babies.
Emily says
I am always grateful for your boldness and directness on this blog. Your post has really staying with me this week.
Leila says
Thank you.
Mrs. S says
I rarely comment on anything, but I since I love Leila and her wisdom so much, I just had to share. Perhaps there are people like me who could use my comment as food for thought. My husband and I just celebrated 11 years of marriage and have 5 children so far. From the beginning, we wanted a big family and were truly so happy to have a honeymoon baby. We were over the moon! Lol! Anyway, after she was born we practiced NFP because that is what we were taught before we got married. We just didn’t question it. It was what was presented and in our minds it was obvious we would practice NFP because we would never use contraception. Ever. We had two more children and it wasn’t until after my third baby was born that a trusted, older friend made the comment that she could never say no to her husband. I was literally shocked. Literally. I could not comprehend it, and I love my husband so very deeply. He is just incredible, but that would go against NFP. ANYWAY, during all this time I was learning so much from this blog and I started to really and truly absorb Auntie Leila’s message. I read this blog like it was my job. Lol! Seriously though, it has been a tremendous help! Then, I heard a podcast episode from parents of 10 children challenging their listeners to really question what “grave reasons” are for having children. With these messages, my husband and I really had a change of heart. We realized that to truly love one another and to give ourselves to one another is a tremendous gift. Side note…our life is absolutely, totally insane and difficult. I’m not complaining here or trying to say we have the hardest life ever, but I literally don’t know anyone in real life whose life is as challenging as ours. Then, a few months ago, I read a book by Kimberly Hahn where she is talking about being generous and open with your spouse. She was specifically talking about stress being a challenge to intimacy. Financial problems, job loss, work, problems with a child, etc… I am not going to quote her in full, but she wrote, “though you may feel like pulling away from your spouse, it may be more helpful to increase your frequency of intercourse.” OKAY, so she obviously says, if you need counseling, get it and making love is NOT a substitute for resolving problems, but neither do you want additional problems by not making love enough. Reading that blew my mind. So, with the longest comment in history, I just wanted to share. God is in control. Remember that you love your spouse. Trust in God. Just like Auntie Leila said, there are just natural times of abstinence, but for those who were raised with the NFP mindset, I just want to challenge you to think deeply, pray and be joyful in your marriage.
Leila says
Love this — thank you!
Katherine says
To add something I haven’t seen brought up in this conversation yet: I often wonder if any young couple entering marriage would be pursuing NFP if they were not already wired by the culture to pursue birth control. Knowing that conventional birth control is not permitted by their faith, they think they have to find a Catholic or (in my circles) Orthodox “alternative.” It doesn’t occur to them that they don’t need it at all! I think what Auntie Leila is pointing to is that gap in thinking, that inability to think with a pre-Pill worldview.
On a separate note, I often see a startling paradox among my friends who are young wives. Though many are open to having babies and eager to have them, they still are very interested in NFP–I think simply because of its prevalence right now in traditional Christian communities. If another friend in the circle is getting married, a Tempdrop (monitoring device) is given as a bridal shower gift, charting apps are recommended, the books with the hot pink covers are passed around. They are hyper-conscious of their cycles and thus suffer a lot of anxiety over not getting pregnant when they think they ought to be, by everything their chart says. It seems more of a burden than it’s worth, and I can’t help but think that having such detailed knowledge also stands ready and waiting as a big temptation to resist children, when the next setback or obstacle in family life arrives.
Leila says
The breast pump and the Tempdrop — may the good Lord deliver us from the monetizing of our natural bodily processes!! It’s a wonder anyone survived before this!!
M says
Thank you for putting this all so clearly and joyfully! The flesh is always seeking a moral high ground, when the truth is simply that God’s gifts are gifts. If we start there, so many other things fall into place.
Our church body has had a major renaissance of this wisdom and we are are increasingly blessed with beautiful families. I’m also pushing 40 and catching my breath after #8. These past several years, we’ve (as you put it) “seen the things.” And the shocking truth I have found is, children will not ruin your life!
I recently met a family with an “Abraham and Sarah baby” (at 48 and 50.) It reminded me of my frustration with every doctor and midwife I’ve spoken with who have NO idea what “unmanaged” female fertility looks like! Is there a doctor or nurse or researcher out there who can write the book on natural fertility? Realistic expectations of fertility that are neither dire (if you don’t contracept, you will have a baby every ten months for the rest of your life) or not applicable (if you’re trying to get pregnant for the first time at 40, you should consider IVF.)
A guide to health for the frequently pregnant and breastfeeding?
Perhaps tying in essential care for the postpartum mother? (I love, utilize, and share your thoughts on this particular subject.)
Alesha says
Thank you for this post!
Your line from years ago to “love when you want and accept the babies that come” has been such a blessing to our marriage. We have 7 kids in 9.5 years and the last two have been conceived as we lived out that advice (with 18 months and 22 months between). Previously, we practiced NFP but there was always a looming fear in the postpartum phase (and generally, way too much abstinence as we tried to chart the impossible) but mostly, I am thankful not to be the “keeper of the chart”. It is wonderful to be together when we want which is already less than we wish simply due to busy life! Yes I have pride to work though each time I learn I’m pregnant and some fear as well but does anyone ever say they wish they hadn’t had so many kids?
My husband and I say that we would rather have more kids with a great marriage like this than abstain and be miserable with fewer!
Finally, we are not Catholic but I can’t help but notice that Paul says abstaining only for prayer and fasting and we certainly weren’t doing that when we abstained, so this way seems more biblical to us! There’s a reason he says not to deprive one another- couples need reminders!
Thank you!