The Hopeful Herald Volume 1 Issue 2

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw6xca3-FFW1dE9mdWpZNUhxcTg/edit?usp=sharing

Interested in the Creighton Model FertilityCare System?

Calling One and All!

This is a GREAT chance to learn more about improving your health and your relationships!

The Hopeful Herald V.1 I.1

Marriage Prep Slide 9-11

 

Slide Nine: Fruitful

 

 

 

Christ:  “I have come to bring life, and life to the full”

God’s love is always creating. God didn’t stop after he created the first man and the first woman. He invited them to participate with Him in creating MORE.

And Christ on the Cross, pouring out His love for all humanity to the Father says, “behold your Son.” Christ calls the Church to expand!

Love is naturally fruitful. When someone is in love do they not want the world to know, to experience this love with them?  Love naturally wants to grow, to expands.

Sometimes we tend to think of fruitfulness simply on the physical level. But again, the physical is meant to show us the spiritual. All marriages are called to fruitfulness whether they are called by God to have children or not.

The church teaches Responsible Parenthood. This includes discerning when to avoid having a child AND when to be generous! God created us as rational beings and he wants us to work WITH Him and His plan to love rightly. The Church does not call us to be baby-making machines. We should welcome life into our marriages with an appreciation of God’s design and a love and respect for the needs of both that child and the family as a whole!

Why Church is against Contraception:

This brings us to the most sensitive part of this presentation. I just want to say that I am only here to PROPOSE church teaching to you, Not to Impose! The Church’s teaching on contraception is a fruit of her teaching on the body and on love.

Because the body reveals the spiritual, Pope John Paul II talks about the Language of the Body. The Body speaks. We know this. If someone is lying to you but they are smiling and they shake your hand, is that not lying with your body? If we are to love like Christ loves, we must always present our body in TRUTH.  The physical union of man and women included. Intercourse is meant to be the ultimate gift of yourself in your marriage. It is through intercourse that the marriage vows, I will love you freely, totally, faithfully, fruitfully, take on FLESH, become a physical reality!

So Intercourse should reveal our Free, Total, Faithful, Fruitful love to our spouses. I give my body to you without reservation; I hold nothing back for myself. I will give my whole being to only you and I want the intimacy we share to grow and spread to all areas of our life. I want you to be a parent to my child.

What contraception says is I must put something between us or I must manipulate my fertility, my bodily reality, before I can give my body to you. I would propose that the little details matter in life.

I just want to invite you to think about this, ponder it in your heart. Think about how you show your love to your future spouse and what you want your body to tell them.

Natural Family planning used to postpone a having a child involves only using the times during the month that we are naturally infertile for intercourse. It is like sending a person an invite to your wedding even when you know they can’t come. Contraception is like telling someone that they are NOT allowed to be at your wedding.

We ARE our bodies. We ARE our souls. We are a body/soul unity. So what we do, what we say with our bodies matter.

 

Slide Ten: Beauty of Femininity

Special shout out to woman about health benefits with NFP

a)      Works with your body not against it

a.       Your fertility is a beautiful part of who you are as woman that you should EMBRACE. Our fertility and bodies are beautiful and valuable and I hope all those in your life will recognise how you, EVERY aspect of you, is beautiful.

b)      NFP is not just for avoiding children naturally. It is really an appreciation of the woman’s beautiful gift of LIFE-giving. Plus, it allows children to be conscious. Every month it easily leads to the question, “Are we suppose to have a child now?”

c)       Many will have fertility problems and it is a beautiful, healthy, natural way to start dealing with and recognizing these underlining issues.

d)      And allows the woman to know her body and see problems before she normally would.

Little note for men, NFP really can allow the man to be a part of his wife’s mystery of fertility. It really allows the man to step up and be involved in the conscious creation of a family right from the beginning.  And there is something empowering for both men and women to know how her hormones may be affecting her on any given day!

 

 

Closing Reflection: Slide Eleven

To close: In any situation if we want to love as Christ loves, we have to ask ourselves doesn’t this action mirror Christ’s FREE, TOTAL, FAITHFUL, FRUITFUL love or does it not.

“The Body, in fact, and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine.” (TOB 19:4)