Embracing Natural Family Planning goes contrary to our culture. It insists upon respect for the integrity of the marital act, according to God's plan, in a society which believes that one may manipulate the marriage act, as if God did not exist, in order to eliminate its essentially life-giving nature. NFP couples are concerned for the integrity of man and woman who stand always before God. Grounded in an integral vision of the person who is called both to a natural and earthly life, but also to a supernatural and eternal life, Paul VI affirmed that the teaching of the Church "is founded upon the inseparable connection, willed by God and unable to be broken by man on his own initiative, between the two meanings of the conjugal act the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning."
Married love is a gift from God to man and woman, who are stewards of the gift, called to bring it unstained into the fullness of life in Heaven. Pope Paul VI instructs us so simply and profoundly in the matter when he teaches "Marriage is not, then, the effect of chance or the product of evolution of unconscious natural forces; it is the wise institution of the Creator to realize in mankind His design of love. By means of the reciprocal personal gift of self, proper and exclusive to them, husband and wife tend towards the communion of their beings in view of mutual personal perfection, to collaborate with God in the generation and education of new lives."
It is critical that the theological foundation of Natural Family Planning, found in the Church's teaching about man and woman, be more and more understood. Too often, NFP couples have the sense of being alone in living according to this truth. Too often, too, even those who are supportive speak as if you are in possession of some highly specialized knowledge when in fact, these truths are open to all.
So much remains to be done to evangelize the whole Church about NFP and its place in the proclamation of the whole Gospel of Life. I am constantly amazed at the number of Catholics who fail to recognize that contraception is at the first entry into the culture of death and, more practically, that many of the contraceptive chemicals and devices are, in fact, abortifacient.
Here it must be stated that Catholic institutions, especially Catholic healthcare institutions, can be of great assistance to the Church in her work of assisting couples to grow stronger in conjugal chastity and to be responsible parents. Catholic institutions, worthy of the name, always seek ways to be more fully part of the Church's mission. With regard to Natural Family Planning, Catholic clinics and hospitals will assist the Church by making certain that the medical care provided to spouses is coherent with Church teaching and by providing the forum for the teaching of Natural Family Planning and for providing qualified assistance to couples who
encounter special difficulties in conceiving a child. Because of the thorough-going secularization of our society, it is key that no countersigns to the Church's teaching be given by Catholic institutions.
In his apostolic letter "Novo millennio ineunte," at the end of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, Pope John Paul invited us to "put out into the deep" for a catch, as he invited the Apostle Peter to do at Lake Gennesaret. Peter and his companions had been fishing all night without any result, but, at the command of our Lord, they put out the nets once again for a catch which was so great that their nets nearly broke. Our Lord also commands us to "put out into the deep," to put aside our fears and discouragement and to trust in Him. "Putting out into the deep" means taking up the apostolate entrusted to us with new enthusiasm and energy in the confidence that our Lord, in His time, will bring forth the good fruits of our labors.
In fact, in light of the many challenges presented by our culture to teaching the Gospel, our Holy Father urges us to engage in a new evangelization - teaching and living the Gospel as if for the first time, as if it had never before been preached in our land. He urges us to have the enthusiasm and energy of the first disciples who were ready to accept a martyr's death in order to remain faithful to Christ and the Gospel. He urges us to consider the lives of the saints throughout the Christian centuries and in our own time, and to remember that the call to holiness of life is given to all. As he states, the ideal of perfection must not be misunderstood as if it involved some kind of extraordinary existence, possible only for a few "uncommon heroes" of holiness. The ways of holiness are many, according to the vocation of each individual. "I thank the Lord that in these years he has enabled me to beatify and canonize a large number of Christians, and among them many lay people who attained holiness in the most ordinary circumstances of life.
I believe that now is the time to repropose the high standard of Natural Family Planning to everyone as the way to holiness of life in marriage and the family. Holding up the high standard of ordinary Christian living in the matter of conjugal chastityÑalways open to the exchange of love and the potential to co-create new life with GodÑwill lead spouses to discover anew the great dignity of their vocation to the married life and the sanctity of the marriage act as an expression of the vocation.
The virtue of married chastity which entails the full respect for the life-giving and love-giving nature of the conjugal union is the Christian way of life for all couples, not just for a few who are striving for heroic sanctity. In this regard, the Church must take care that the preparation of couples for marriage and the pastoral care of those who are married include full instructions regarding Natural Family Planning. On the day of their marriage in Christ, a couple receives the vocation and the grace to respond to the vocation of faithful, lasting, and life-giving love with each other. The "big" Church, in her care for the "little" Church, must prepare couples to embrace their vocation as fully as possible and to respond faithfully to their vocation throughout the years of marriage, which God gives them.
To carry out the apostolate of Natural Family Planning in our culture which often is indifferent and even hostile to the Gospel, requires unity and competence on the part of those who instruct others in Natural Family Planning.
Again in Novo millennio ineunte, our Holy Father counsels us against any naive expectation that the new evangelization
can be carried out by finding some magic formula or new program. Instead, the formula and program is Christ and the Gospel, revealing the fullness of God's truth and love to us. Following Christ in this way begins with prayer, our daily conversation with Him, which has its origin and its highest expression in the Sunday Eucharist. Closely united to the Holy Eucharist is regular access to the Sacrament of Penance with which we seek the conversion of our life and the grace to begin anew in the way of the cross which leads to life. Frankly, there is no way that we can carry out the new evangelization except in Christ, with whom we have communion through prayer and public worship. This emphasis on prayer reminds us that it is God's grace which inspires and makes possible the new evangelization. It is fatal to our mission to forget that "without Christ we can do nothing."
The second way of the new evangelization is "to nourish ourselves with the word in order to be 'servants of the Word' in the work of evangelization." Reading the word of God, the study of the Scriptures as they are understood by the Church, will keep us on track with Christ in a globalized society, in which there is an easy blending of cultures and religions that might compromise the truth of Christ and the Gospel.
In the teaching of Natural Family Planning, the Catholic Church gives prophetic witness. It points to the radical demands of life in Christ for those called to the married life. The other Christian denominations have abandoned this perennial teaching on contraception, according to what had been the understanding of the Word of God and the Christian Tradition, up to a few decades ago. We must continue to nurture our apostolate at the font of the Holy Scriptures and the Church's Tradition in order to be faithful to Christ and to give prophetic witness, with Him, to the truth about married love.
I close with words of our Holy Father in Novo millennio ineunte which confirm us in our service of the Gospel of Life "At a time in history like the present, special attention must also be given to the pastoral care of the family, particularly when this fundamental institution is experiencing a radical and widespread crisis. In the Christian view of marriage, the relationship between a man and a woman -- a natural and total bond, unique and indestructible -- is part of God's original plan, obscured throughout history by our 'hardness of heart,' but which Christ came to return to its pristine splendor, disclosing what had been God's will 'from the beginning.' Raised to the dignity of a sacrament, marriage expresses the 'great mystery' of Christ's nuptial love for His Church." Through faithful living in accord with the wisdom embodied in Natural Family Planning, may more and more couples give faithful and generous expression to the truth of their married love, "the 'great mystery' of Christ's nuptial love for his Church."
Published by
The Billings Ovulation Method Association - USA
P.O. Box 16206
St. Paul, Minnesota 55116
email: boma-usa@msn.com
http://www.boma-usa.org