July 16, 2010
Commentary
NFP Awareness Week — Trust God has a plan for your marriage
By EMILY SNIPES (Family Life and Respect Life Coordinator | Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Evansville)
As a practitioner with the Holy Family Center for Life I have the opportunity to interact with many engaged and married couples as they seek more information on Natural Family Planning. Often times they come to us looking for the “how to” or want to know what the “rules” will be of using NFP. They aren’t as interested in the “why” part.
Unfortunately understanding the reason behind God’s design for human life is the most im-portant part. The biggest challenge is meeting a couple where they are and taking into consideration that they may not have a full view of Church teaching in this area.
So many times this area is overlooked in marriage preparation or even as an educational piece earlier for youth and young adults. It is literally brand new information once they reach marriage. If we would introduce the topic early on and then build upon it, I believe we’d see more openness and consideration to using NFP once they reach that stage of their life.
I once heard a priest state that too often the Church offers a vague explanation into areas such as this by saying it is a “decision of conscience.” He went on to state, “How can one follow a conscience that isn’t fully formed?”
Our role as practitioners goes beyond the basics of explaining the Creighton Method we promote and practice. We are also called to educate, advocate and instill confidence in those choosing NFP. But I also believe that Catholics — lay and ordained alike — must actively engage our younger generation and compete with our culture’s ever-growing push to contraception that is advertised as convenience methods and label fertility as a burden.
I know for my husband and me the idea of using NFP seemed great and worked fine, until our faith was tested. All of a sudden I found myself wanting to go back to the safety net of modern medicine where you could forget about responsibility. Our fear was that we did not know what God had planned for our lives, but we continued to walk towards him. It is difficult to trust in something when you realize that the end result might not be what you had hoped for.
Often when I encounter couples struggling with various concerns and issues, I remind them of Peter. I explain that God asked him to walk out on the water and said that if he trusted God, he would not sink.
It must have taken a lot of faith for Peter to take that first step and each step thereafter when he couldn’t clearly see what was in front of him. But if you want to walk on water and follow God, you have to get out of the boat.
For more information, visit www.ourcatholicmarriage.org.
To schedule an introductory session please contact a Holy Family Center for Life, Inc. office:
- In Evansville: Holy Trinity Church, (812) 421-2030
- In Jasper: Memorial Hospital and Health Care Center, (812) 481-8420
- In Fort Branch: Holy Cross Church, Terri Ziliak (812) 753-3746 or Lori Spindler (812) 753-3360
- In Santa Claus: Lisa Cook, (812) 544-2903