Week 9

Theology of the Body
Week 9
Purity of Heart: Tackling Tough Issues...PART II

“This is my command: Love one another as I love you.” John 15:12

“It should cause no surprise that the church, and less than her Divine Founder, is destined to be a ‘sign of contradiction.’” (Luke 2:34) Humane Vitae

IVF
1. In-Vitro Fertilization is also against God’s plan because it removes the unitive reason in sex
2. While we must be sympathetic towards couple who cannot have children, we must also understand the consequences of IVF
3. It takes many embryos to make IVF successful. This means that many fertilized embryos must die in order for one or two to survive. In other words, these are souls that are never able to reach their full potential and the result is that of abortion
4. With selecting specific embryos also opens up a Pandora’s Box…in comes gender selection, trait selection, and before you know it we will select “perfect” children with no abnormalities or imperfections
5. Many times in the selection process women will get abortions if their baby doesn’t register as exactly what they want, or if more than one embryo develops into a fetus

Going Deeper: The Church Stands Alone
1. Every church in Christendom condemned contraception until 1930, when Anglicanism gave permission for the use of contraception in a few cases. Soon, all Protestant denominations had adopted this position and today, the Catholic Church stands alone
2. We must ask ourselves why the church has stubbornly stood her ground despite enormous controversy.
3. What is so important that this is worth standing against the rest of Christianity?
4. The answer: SEX
What’s the Big Deal?
1. Contraception is a contradiction to God’s original plan – for us to image and fully participate in His plan of salvation
2. There are two purposes for sex, just as there are two purposes for eating – if you separate out one of these two purposes, it becomes disordered (aka: twisted)
3. Analogy of Wedding invitations…
4. Sexual union is where the wedding vows are made flesh. Remember that sexual union is an icon of the Trinity.
5. So, what is the love that the couple is imaging: 1) FREE 2) TOTAL
3) FAITHFUL 4) FRUITFUL
6. Contraception is a direct contradiction to each of these wedding vows. HOW?

FREELY:
*Contraception was not invented to prevent pregnancy, there was already a 100% foolproof method: abstinence. It was invented so that men an women could indulge in sexual pleasures without the “consequences”
*We have confused freedom with license. Because of this “sexual freedom” we have been sold into “sexual slavery”
*If you are controlled by your passions and cannot say no, your yes is emptied of it’s meaning. Our yes doesn’t mean anything if we can’t say no!

TOTALLY:
Contraception is an “all, but…”
“I give all of myself to you but not my fertility. I give all of myself to you except that which sets me apart.”

FAITHFULLY:
*Marital vows call a couple to remain faithful no matter how challenging it may be.
*By choosing contraception, a couple is inadvertently saying that the way God created marital love to be is too challenging.

FRUITFULLY:
*Sexual union images God, it proclaims a life-giving communion of persons. A sterilized act still makes a proclamation, but it is a lie!
*This is not to say a couple is supposed to have a child every time they have sex…

1. Contraception breeds the mentality of indulgence and self-gratification. It points inward. It’s consequences are also harder on women.
2. Pope Paul VI and Humane Vitae: Pope Paul VI made four rather general "prophecies" about what would happen if the Church's teaching on contraception were ignored:

~ Infidelity and moral decline: that there has been a widespread decline in morality, especially sexual morality, in the last 25 years, is very difficult to deny. The increase in the number of divorces, abortion, our-of-wedlock pregnancies, and venereal diseases should convince any skeptic that sexual morality is not the strong suit of our age.

~ Lost Respect for Women: It will come to "the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment and no longer as his respected and beloved companion." Treating their bodies as mechanical instruments to be manipulated for their own purposes, they risk treating each other as objects of pleasure.

~ Abuse of Power: “It will be a dangerous weapon…”The forced abortion program in China shows the stark extreme toward which governments will take population programs. Moreover, few people are willing to recognize the growing evidence that many parts of the world face not overpopulation, but underpopulation

~ Unlimited Dominion: contraception would lead man to think that he had unlimited dominion over his own body. Sterilization is now the most widely used form of contraception in the U.S.; individuals are so convinced of their rights to control their own bodies that they do not hesitate to alter even their own physical make-up.

Where in the Bible does it say contraception is wrong?
1. Genesis 38:9-10 Onan was killed for coitus interuptus (withdrawal), not for failing to carry out his brother’s lineage --> Deuteronomy 25:7-10 describes the actual penalty
2. Genesis 1:27 “image and likeness, male and female”
3. Genesis 1:28 “be fruitful and multiply”
4. John 15:12 “Love one another as I love you.” Is Christ’s love for His bride fruitless? Would he sterilize His love?
5. Fruitfulness is a blessing: Genesis 1:28, Exodus 23:25-26, Deuteronomy 7:13-14
6. Children are a blessing: Psalm 127:3-5, 1Chronicles 25:5, 26:4-5
7. Non-generative sexual acts warrant death: Leviticus 20:13, 20:15-16

Looking Deeper
1. So, is a couple supposed to have 12 kids?
2. Suppose a couple never wanted to violate their wedding vows and had a just reason to space their children, what could they do?
3. “Human dignity and the meaning of sexual intercourse dictate that the only acceptable birth control is self-control.” Christopher West
4. What are the just reasons?
5. What to do…Natural Family Planning!
6. God created the body in such a way that there are specific conditions that MUST be present for a woman to get pregnant.
7. The other times during her cycle are infertile times, and she cannot possibly conceive.
8. NFP involves the training of a couple to record cervical mucus, cervical signs, and waking temperature to decipher a woman’s fertility. No regular cycle is necessary and the couple can decipher daily if the woman is fertile or not –and is 99% effective
9. This is not the rhythm method!
10. But, before we go further let’s answer the big question…

What’s the difference between contraception and NFP?
11. What’s the difference between suicide and natural death? Abortion and miscarriage?
12. Each have the same result but entirely opposite means of achievement – NFP abstains from fertile intercourse, contraception sterilizes it
13. The big difference: the FRAMEWORK OF MIND!
14. Whether a life results or not, it remains OPEN to life!

Why use NFP?
1. NFP, like chastity is not a NO to sex, it is a YES to the amazing plan God has for sex.
2. We cannot become like Adam and Eve, trying to take life into our own hands
3. We must become like Mary, who openly received, and like Christ who sacrificially gave
4. Benefits of NFP:
*Open communication
*Less likely to use one another for sex
*A correct ordering of our passion and desires with our will
*Periodic abstinence allows for couples to be creative and show other ways of affection
*Abstinence also creates a honeymoon period for when the couple engages in the marital act again

Excerpts from an interview taken from Kristine Mauss by a Sociologist at Western Washington University:

My husband and I are young, faithful Catholic Christians who strive to follow the Catholic Church’s teachings in all areas of our lives. In learning about and researching why the Church teaches that contraception is wrong, we have come to see the absolutely beautiful and freeing truths behind what She teaches – especially regarding this issue. When every other organization in the world has conformed to the “wisdom of the world,” the Church has stuck by what Christ and his Apostles said from the beginning...We believe that Natural Family Planning (NFP) also has many benefits to the woman’s body, to marriages, and to the family – which is the foundation of society. While the divorce rate in the general population is around 50%, couples who use NFP and go to church have less than a 2% divorce rate. If this isn’t telling enough for the case of NFP in making marriages strong, I don’t know what is!

First of all, let me tell you what NFP is not. It is not “Catholic Birth Control.” There are two purposes for sex (unity and procreation), just as there are two purposes for eating (pleasure and nutrition) and if you separate out or remove one of the purposes it becomes “disordered,” otherwise known as going against Natural Law. Because Contraception removes the procreative purpose from sex, it therefore makes sex “disordered.” NFP simply teaches a man and a woman to develop a mindset of ordering their lives according to God’s Providence – discerning whether or not they are able financially, emotionally, or physically able to get pregnant each month. God created the body in such a way that there are specific conditions that MUST be present for a woman to get pregnant. The other times during her cycle are infertile times, and she cannot possibly conceive. NFP involves the training of a couple to record cervical mucus, cervical signs, and waking temperature to decipher a woman’s fertility. No regular cycle is necessary and the couple can decipher daily if the woman is fertile or not –and it is 99% effective. On a side note, this is not the rhythm method! (Which hasn’t been used for 40 years, by the way.) NFP also upholds each of the marriage vows: to love the other FREELY, TOTALLY, FAITHFULLY, and FRUITFULLY.

Natural Family Planning has been the greatest instrument of our success as a married couple. Every single month we have to talk about if we are “ready” to have a child. I don’t mean “Ready” as if we have to save up for a boat or don’t want a child because I don’t want to change my shopping habits, however I mean “Ready” as if we are emotionally at a place and really can afford to bring a child into this world. It forces us to evaluate our finances, our sanity, our events in life, and our faithfulness to God. We pray about our family specifically at these times and God gives us the incredible grace to remain open to whatever He has in store for us. If we discern that we are not ready to get pregnant one month, we simply abstain during the times I am fertile. If we discern that we are to be open to a pregnancy I still chart my cycle (which takes less than 30 seconds a day) and we do not abstain during our fertile time. The funny thing is, it takes a lot to line up to get pregnant and simply because one has sex while they are fertile, does not mean a pregnancy will result.

Above all, NFP orders a couple to value human life and to know that God is the author of human life. Because a mindset is developed that puts God at the center of a marriage, there is a less of a chance that someone would view an “unplanned” pregnancy as unwanted or disposable. If a couple is using contraception, it is easy to fall back on abortion as a back-up contraception if the first “line of defense” fails.

In using NFP, it is less likely that a couple will “use” one another as sexual objects. If a couple needs to abstain during a particular month it teaches them how to love one another in different ways, to put the family first above their own sexual desires, and to build anticipation (like waiting for a second honeymoon!) until the times comes when the woman’s fertile time has passed.

Other benefits of NFP are: it is environmentally sound as it doesn’t emit chemicals into the sewer system, it is virtually cost-free, easy to use, it is morally acceptable, immediately reversible, highly effective, promotes better marriages, and above all, it is safe and healthy – with no side effects.