Ok, you read it, right? Questions? Comments? No doubt.
*Please note now* Don't get all offended by what I will say in this post. I am not trying to upset you, I am simply trying to get you to think about things. Because our country is heading down a very slippery slope. What's next? Limiting the number of children we are allowed to have? We have two girls and already I'm getting tired of the question "Are you done now, or will you try for the boy?" First of all, none of your business. Second of all, do you people realize that there is such a thing as a family with 4 (gasp) maybe even 5 (complete shock) children?? And yes, there are even families larger than that. My own family has 7 children. My husband's family has 10 children. The Duggars have...I'm not even sure. 19? 20? 25?
Anyway, let's get back to that article. You will note that the Church does not say that you must have 10 children. I particularly like this quote "Notice that large families should result from prudent reflection, not “chance.” Notice too that couples must have “serious reasons” to avoid pregnancy and must respect the moral law."
Here is one of my biggest pet peeves (it goes along with the one from above where people ask if you are done). It's the people (these are usually the Catholics or the Sarcastic Susies) who ask "So...when's the next one coming?" Now don't get me wrong, I have a funny bone. If you are a jokester and I know you really well, these comments don't bother me a bit. It's the people that you feel have some sort of agenda for how you should live your life and it's not necessarily powered by love or morals. It's powered by their opinion.
Back to the article. Another quote I loved. "The Church has always recognized that the only method of “birth control” that respects the language of divine love is “self-control.”"
I would say that the use of contraception really boils down to selfishness and unwillingness to trust God. That might make you angry, but think about it. You want to be able to have sex whenever you want without the natural consequence, which is a child. Argue all you want, but sex is primarily and naturally for procreation. God only gave us one way to make babies: a man and a woman coming together in the sexual act. The side benefit of course is that it's pleasurable. The problem with contraception is that it is saying our pleasure is more important. Neither sex nor marriage is all about pleasure. Pleasure is certainly present in both, but it is not the reason for it. Making decisions based on whether or not they make us happy in the moment is extremely unwise. However, when one makes a good decision, joy is likely to be found even if that decision also causes some amount of pain. Most of the things in life worth having are worth sacrificing for. So why not sex?
Also, marriage isn't just about a wedding day with a big white dress and a paper that you sign. Marriage is a covenant in which you agree to love, respect, and serve another person and help them to get to heaven. Has no one actually paid attention to the wedding vows?? They say "I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life." If you think you are committing to a life that is easy and breezy and that you get to do whatever you want, think again. The beauty of marriage is that you are able to find joy in ALL things when you work together and trust fully in the Lord. There's not an epidural for every pain and suffering in life (though I am quite thankful there is one for labor and delivery). Sometimes things are hard and you have to deal with it. Having children and being married are both HUGE joys, but you would be lying if you said that there isn't a huge element of sacrifice. You have to give up other things. You have to give up getting to do what you want all the time for the sake of your spouse and your children. And when you embrace God's way and his plan for you and your family, you suddenly find that the things you give up are more than worth it for the things you gain.
Let me use our family as an example. Chris works in Catholic radio. Not a lot of money there. Are we blessed by Immaculate Heart Radio every day though? Yes. I work 3 part time jobs which either help us to make monthly payments or save a little every once in awhile toward that house that we someday hope to get. We live in a two bedroom duplex and our two daughters share a room. Everything in our house that we received new was a gift except our bedframe which was our one large purchase made when we first got married. So we have a bunch of hand-me-down stuff. So what? We accept our life and our things and love them as they are. Would we like to update some of it? Sure. But we realize that it's not necessary. It's a want, not a need. After we had Kayla and I stopped working, we began to realize that we couldn't hope to afford a house or even possibly pay our current monthly bills if we didn't practice NFP for awhile. (To be fair to NFP here, it was not that NFP doesn't work, it was that we have never actually taken a course or read a real book on the subject. We have read short articles and talked to friends.) We did a fairly poor job after about 6 months and became pregnant with Elise. Were we scared a little? Yes. But just like everything else in our life, we had to put our own desires aside and trust in God's plan. And we were excited because we understand what a gift life is. Was it tough to trust God that things would work out? Of course. It's always hard to trust God when things are tough. But that's when it's most important to do so.
So here is my annoyance. I know SO MANY amazing Catholics and Christians who trust God with EVERYTHING except their fertility. My question is how you can justify playing God in that area of your life when you trust Him in all the others? It makes no sense to me. Again, if you read the article, the Church doesn't teach that you have to leave everything up to "chance". God expects you to use prudence and pray and seek His guidance. But ultimately you still have trust that if things don't happen exactly the way you thought or planned, He has The Plan. After all, Scripture clearly says "in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him". I believe it was prudent of us to wait after having Kayla to get pregnant again. But God chose to test our faith and see if we would trust Him in all circumstances. He gave us Elise at a time when money was a huge concern for us. We still have very little saved for a house at this point, BUT we have NEVER not been able to make a monthly payment. God has always provided. People, we need to quit limiting God. What He wills one day may not be what He wills the next. And we have to be ready to trust in Him no matter what comes at us. We have to be willing to do our part. Be open to life. You won't regret it. We never have.
And yes, we again think it prudent to be practicing NFP (we still need to take a good class on this), but we are also open to the fact that God may have different plans than we do. We can pray and try to stay in His will every day, but sometimes He doesn't tell us His plan and just throws a curveball at us to see how we will react. How WILL we react? How will YOU react? Will you trust Him with EVERYTHING????
One other thought concerning contraception. Did you know that "all Christian churches taught that artificial contraception is immoral until the 1930's when the Episcopal Church was the first to approve it. Since that time every other Christian denomination has changed its teaching except for the catholic church. Why was it immoral before and now is considered moral by those churches? The answer is that those churches have succumbed to social pressure. They are affected by the world rather than affecting the world." ? I found this on the Catholic Answers website in response to a question about contraception.
Now, I did not fully cover this subject so if you have questions or concerns or think I am nuts, fine. There are many other articles on the subject. This is a very controversial and sometimes offensive subject for many. My challenge is for you to truly take it to prayer and study up.
Also, I wrote this to give a clearer idea of what Catholics actually believe and why. In our current time, with this crazy healthcare mandate from the Obama administration, the issue is really not whether or not you think contraception is ok or not. Regardless of where you stand on that issue, as an American you should be able to clearly see that it is not fair and not right for the government to ask us to violate our consciences and not live out our faith. Our country was founded for religious freedom and if we can't even stand together on that, there will be no end to the rights they try to take from us. Men are fallen, and tend to seek power unless they align their will with God's. I have a hard time believing that God's will is for our government to force any religion to violate their beliefs.
And because I love my children so much, I can't have a post that doesn't have pictures of them....
