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To All,

I thought about sending this as a PM, but I don't send many PM's nor do I receive them. I can probably count them all on both hands. I have, since joining this forum, stood by a self made rule that "If I have something to say, I will say it on the open forum".

My wife and I do not, nor have we ever used " 'A'BF". We have and do use NFP, and on occasion we do use another method which would definitely be considered birth control, not artificial, but birth control nonetheless.

I have told confessors about this and I have been told everything from "follow your conscience" by more liberal priests, to "You will go to hell" by a priest whom I have the utmost respect for.

This subject is something that has always weighed heavily on my mind. I know what the Church teaches, and there have been times I have chosen to dissent. I do not take this lightly, I am simply being honest, and their is truth to the comment made about "cafeteria Catholicism".

My wife and I have two children, both by c-section and we experienced one miscarriage. I will not go any farther, for I do not wish to make excuses.

Growing up I lived in a heavily Catholic neighborhood. I come from a family of eight siblings and my mother, of blessed memory, suffered two miscarriages. Familes of seven, ten, and twelve and more were not uncommon. When I talk to childhood friends one thing that always is mentioned is "How did they do it?".

I do not see around me today, families of this size. I lament it, but I also understand it. Please reference back to Alice's posts. I thank you Alice for going out on the limb here, which prompted me to write this post.

Always in prayer for the mercy of Our Lord,
Bill

Dear Bill,

Thank you for your thoughts and kind words.

There are so few Christian couples in the world today that are committed to their faith and to raising their children up to moral and ethical integrity in today's neo-pagan world of confusing priorities, that we should not feel on the defensive to each other about how we are having those children. That is between us and our spiritual fathers.

When Catholics and Orthodox are judgemental or intolerant of each other's disciplines, approaches and practices, without atleast TRYING to understand, the only one that triumphs is the evil one. Since he already reigns strongly in so many ways, we, God's people, do not need to give him any futher support.

I was going to close this thread because I thought that the topic had been exhausted, but since a poster who has been participating and who I respect thought I shouldn't, I will keep it open for the time being. However, I will play it by ear!

In Christ,
Alice

Alice,

I am your biggest fan!

rc_guest,

The struggles you mention are not uncommon. Often as married couples we try to find our way with so many difficult messages from the world bombarding us. The ideal to which Alice alludes is what we strive for, bearing in mind that marriage while timebound and earthly also possesses its own eschatalogical reality. The times of abstinence are as much the times to recall our heavenly vocation as are times of union, which represent a foretaste of the joy of the ultimate unveiling at the parousia when Christ the Bridegroom will come for His Bride, the Church, consumating the end of the age in a fruitful and eternal union. The Church's (Catholic and traditional Orthodox) teaching alone in the world upholds the sacredness of marital sexuality, not because it is bad, but because it is such a great and awesome good! If we fall or fail from time to time to uphold this goodness, God's mercy is always there for us, but we risk doing damage to our relationship (and thus to ourselves) if we do not repent. The revelation of the marriage bed is a sacred exchange of persons, where each spouse offers himself or herself to the other in a perichoresis that is a visible icon of Trinitarian life. No part of oneself is withheld - not even one's most intimate gifts of the heart and the co-creative power of fertility. The unveiling reveals the whole self to the beloved, but the withholding of fertility risks the shadow of a lie to enter the luminous language of full exchange. This is precisely the evil of contraception. The body says, "I give myself wholly and entirely to you" but by contracepting we add the caveat "except for my fertility, which I withhold". That there may exist a myriad of compelling reasons to engage in this "lie" does not change its very nature, which we must own to be harmful to union. Caritas and Veritas are mutally dependent realities, ultimately finding their origin in the Godhead. When we feel tempted, we must always recall the sacredness of the call to be crowned in martyrdom as "witnesses" to the ideals of Christian marriage, even and most especially in grave difficulties. That is the reason why all marriage is sealed with a covenant oath/vow, blessed by the minister of the Gospel, and consumated by the shedding of virginal "blood" - because on our own, we have not the power to live it out. Rather, we must be strengthened by Christ the Eternal Bridgroom.

Ultimately, marital union is a "sign" which finds its source in the eschatalogical union of the Eucharist, the wedding supper of the Lamb. May we be strengthened in our priestly innocence through this great Mystery and beg God for the grace to live it out in our married lives!

Yours in Christ,

Gordo, the sinner

Dear All,

Is a couple not ALSO withholding fertility if they practice natural family planning?

Is the *intent* not the same?

Is not the intent of both faiths, whether through natural family planning, abstinence w/fasts, and/or dispensation of other family planning, the practice of *chastity* within marriage...something that is holy and good and which is much needed in today's marital relationships.

There is so much that is NOT chaste going on in marriages, no less in the single life today that it never ceases to amaze me how only one matter is singled out and argued and debated.

What about pornography viewing in marriages, masturbation, adultery--whether in one's heart or in practice, unnatural sexual practices, in-vitro fertlizations, etc. (Infact, my former ob/gyn, an otherwise devout Roman Catholic, was a pioneer of the procedure many years ago)...If we are to obsess with the bedroom of married people, then we should also obsess with these matters which MANY Catholic and Orthodox couples think nothing of!

There are so many other matters of dispute that I know that Orthodox and Catholics may not see eye to eye on....

However, as I said in a previous post, the only one who is now triumphing in these posts is the evil one, the master of dissent.

I thank everyone for their viewpoints.

I think that NOW is the time to close this thread.

God bless you,
Alice