Greetings beloved couples! Last week, we established the meaning and implications of Responsible Parenthood; that you are not free to act as you choose in the service of transmitting life; that rather, you are bound to ensure that what you do corresponds to the will of God the Creator as made clear by the constant teaching of the Church. This week, we focus on what has been largely acclaimed as THE KEY to living responsible parenthood namely; Natural Family Planning (NFP).
The Church teaches that the sexual activity, in which husband and wife are intimately and chastely united with one another, through which human life is transmitted is \”noble and worthy” and that every marital act must of necessity remain open to life. This doctrine often expounded by the magisterium of the Church, is based on the inseparable connection between the unitive and the procreative significance established by God, which man on his own initiative may not break and which are both inherent to the marriage act. The reason is that the fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life—and this as a result of laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman. And if each of these essential qualities, the unitive and the procreative, is preserved, the use of marriage fully retains its sense of true mutual love and its ordination to the supreme responsibility of parenthood to which men and women are called.
Therefore, faithfulness to God\’s Design in the matter of married sexual intimacy challenges husbands and wives to note that a conjugal act imposed on one\’s spouse without regard to his or her condition or personal and reasonable wishes in the matter, is no true act of love, and consequently offends the moral order in its particular application to their intimate relationship. If they further reflect, they will also recognize that an act of mutual love which is intentionally deprived of the capacity to transmit life as designed by God the Creator, frustrates His design and contradicts His will. Hence, to use this divine gift of sex while depriving it, even if only partially, of its meaning and purpose, is equally hurtful to the nature of man and of woman and is in direct opposition to the plan of God and His holy will for marriage. Contraception therefore is opposed to the design and will of God!
But to experience the gift of married love while respecting the laws of conception is to acknowledge that one is not the master of the sources of life but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator. Just as man does not have unlimited dominion over his body in general, so also, and with more particular reason, he has no such dominion over his specifically sexual faculties, for these are concerned by their very nature with the generation of life, of which God is the source.
To be clear, the Church is not saying that every marital act should lead to pregnancy but that it must remain open to life. That is, nothing should be done to block its capacity to give life. Hence living natural family planning is the only possible healthy and holistic option to couples. Happy New Week dear friends and God bless you.