More from Romero

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Rae Leave a comment

As the magi from the East followed their star and found Jesus, who filled their hearts with boundless joy, let us too, even in hours of uncertainty, of shadows, of darkness like those the magi had, not fail to follow that star, the star of our faith.

Peace is not the product of terror or fear.

Peace is not the silence of cemetaries.

Peace is no the silent result of violent repression.

Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all.

Peace is dynaminism.

Peace is generosity.

It is right and it is duty.

In it each one has a place in this beautiful family, which the Epiphany brightens for us with God’s light.

Epiphany, 1978

Holy Days , ,

Another take on family planning

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Rae 1 Comment

I was shocked to read John Zmirak’s explanation for why we should not question the use of NFP among the financially prosperous.

Let’s look at the duty of almsgiving to the poor–something Our Lord talked about more than almost anything else during His earthly ministry. How much and when are we obligated to give? In The Bad Catholic’s Guide to Good Living, I addressed this as follows, starting with a quote from Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum:

“True, no one is commanded to distribute to others that which is required for his own needs and those of his household; nor even to give away what is reasonably required to keep up becomingly his condition in life, ‘for no one ought to live other than becomingly.’ But, when what necessity demands has been supplied, and one’s standing fairly taken thought for, it becomes a duty to give to the indigent out of what remains over.”

In other words, prosperous people, social classes, or countries are not obliged to abolish inequality. Wealthy Catholics need not give away so much that they become middle- or working-class, and prosperous nations need not transfer their “surplus” GNP to the developing world.
(see http://takimag.com/article/highballs_and_high_society/#ixzz1cfuSmqY3)

If Leo XIII was right that one is not obligated to abandon educational goals, drop down a social class, or otherwise neglect his “condition in life” for the very grave duty of alms-giving, why should that obligation be imposed for something Our Lord never mentioned: more frequent child-bearing? Surely, once we have rejected the immoral means of contraception, decisions about how “generous” to be in child-bearing must fall under the same prudential rubrics we use in deciding how much to give to charity or the Church.

NFP is hard to practice, I am told–as hard as training for a marathon. If it’s anything like that challenging, we need not worry that too many people will do it for frivolous reasons. We should worry about loading down the Church’s real teaching with enough false scruples that people find it absurd and reject it.

The Spiritual Franciscans fell into heresy by insisting that the laity obey the evangelical counsel of poverty. Might the anti-NFP people be doing the same thing, by trying to impose (on pain of mortal sin) the burden of “providentialism”? A few religious orders, like the Theatines, adopted “providentialism” when it came to their finances–not even soliciting donations, or keeping financial reserves. They just waited for money to show up. Admirable. If they had taught that every religious order (or for that matter, the father of every family) was obligated under pain of mortal sin to do the same, this teaching would have been damnable.

Does that not bite? I suspect that we should in fact consider what more we must sacrifice if we are to be Saints, but we must question why we are so quick to condemn NFP when we never even think to question those who hold onto their material wealth.

Perhaps it is time for a discussion of “just” reasons for having more than that which is necessary to survive in a world where others are dying from lack of clean water?

Catholic Fights , , , ,

All Saints Day

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Rae 1 Comment

One thing I love about today is an extra chance to pray the Litany of the Saints.

Most gracious God, through the intercession of all the Saints, save us from our sin and enable us to bring heaven to earth as we follow them in holiness.

Saints

True Story of the Anglican Ordinariate

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Rae Leave a comment

Well, maybe not the true story, but pretty funny.

For Smirks , ,

Tomb of Mary

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Rae 1 Comment
Monastery of Mount St. Sepulchre

Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America Copy of the Jerusalem Tomb of Mary

All history and theology and whatever else aside, I find the veneration of the Blessed Mother’s tomb to be one of the delightful ironies of Catholicism given the emphasis some circles place on the absence of her bodily remains.

Perhaps understanding of such things is tied to a truly Catholic understanding of death, and I am far from that.

Catholic Quirks , ,

Fertility Awareness: It’s Not Just for Married Women

Posted on July 23, 2011 by Rae 3 Comments

Every woman who has a fertility cycle should understand it–in all of its gory, glorious details–regardless of her need for family planning. This is a truth that I stumbled upon out of necessity, and it changed my life dramatically.

Our Lady of Fertility

I was not brought up with a healthy understanding of and confidence about my fertility cycle. At menarche, I said nothing to my mother and did my best to quietly cope with excessive toilet paper. I thought that women were looked down upon during their periods, so I always sought to conceal mine and never talked about it. I knew absolutely nothing about ovulation.

Then I went to one of those horrible feminist colleges.

I knew that I would not be able to successfully support the Church’s anti-contraception stance without knowing everything that I possibly could about how natural family planning (NFP) was supposed to work. And so I read.

The college’s otherwise good library had a grand total of one book related to fertility awareness, but interlibrary loan is a wonderful thing. Soon I had read almost 20 books ranging from those which talked about the challenges of practicing periodic abstinence with a lifestyle of one-night-stands, to those which preached co-sleeping as a part of NFP as if it were Catholic Church dogma.

Then Toni Weschler came to campus. She spoke passionately about the health benefits of fertility charting and displayed a long line of years worth of her charts, explaining the depth of personal health information contained in them. As Toni writes on her site:

It is unfortunate that the Fertility Awareness Method is even referred to as a method, because in reality, it should be seen as a fundamental life skill that all women should learn, just as they are now taught basic feminine hygiene. This is because the practical knowledge women glean from charting their cycles will aid them from puberty to menopause, and all life phases in between.

So, after months of reading, I finally started charting my fertility. I was determined to chart for the rest of my reproductive years and was amused to consider whether I might someday be a nun “using NFP.”

My first completed chart made me smile because I had read so many books and articles about how real women do not actually have perfect 28 day cycles. But my first chart was indeed “perfect” with clear indications of ovulation and gynecological health.

And then reality set in. Charting my fertility soon revealed significant health issues, issues which I did not know how to resolve. I gave up charting after a matter of months because I found it distressing to see such concrete evidence that something was wrong, yet not be able to fix the problem.

While I lost valuable health data by not charting, I did not lose the fertility awareness that I had gained. I no longer needed to take my temperature or carefully track my observations in order to know my fertility status. Once you really pay enough attention to your fertility cycle, you can simply be aware of your body’s signs, even without trying.

I would strongly recommend against a sexually active woman trying to seriously avoid pregnancy based simply on whether she happens to feel fertile. Yet, when I did return to charting again, I found that the more data I collected about my body, the more it simply documented clear evidence for what I now knew without any conscious effort.

Because of my experience, I believe that every woman should practice fertility awareness. The easiest way to do this is to learn a fertility system (NFP or FAM) and chart your fertility signs for at least a few months.

You may find that, having learned about your body, you no longer need to chart unless something goes wrong and you wish to resume charting in order to provide the clear information to a healthcare provider.

Alternately, you may find that the information is helpful for something as simple as being able to precisely predict future menstruation, or as complex as tracking the status of a previously diagnosed gynecological problem.

If you do happen to notice problems with your chart, then be proactive rather than giving up like I did! Find a healthcare practitioner who will at least agree to run the tests indicated by your chart, even if they do not actually take your fertility awareness seriously. Then talk to other women who share your particular health issue and find out how they have managed to treat it based on their fertility awareness.

Should you eventually choose to use periodic abstinence to avoid pregnancy, the longer your charting history, the better. Many couples struggle unnecessarily with NFP because they did not chart long enough prior to marriage to collect enough data (certain fertility “rules” require 12 cycles of information to implement, and you may sometimes find that your fertility cycle is actually longer than a calendar month). Additionally, women who become pregnant without having previously learned to carefully understand their fertility often find it significantly harder to track their fertility during the tricky postpartum period.

Some single young women who intend to use NFP after they are married hesitate to learn fertility awareness before they can do so with their future husbands. While I strongly believe that engaged couples should take an NFP class together (with the man doing the actual charting),  it is not good for a woman to live in ignorance of her body until she finds a man to have sex with!

Furthermore, there is significant variation in the methods of NFP currently available, and they are not equally suited to every woman’s body, much less every marriage’s needs. By practicing fertility awareness, a woman can not only learn which fertility signs are easiest for her to chart, she can also easily see which method of NFP (each method has its own rules) will work best with her body to most precisely determine her time of fertility, thereby minimizing the abstinence required to avoid pregnancy. This means that she can then choose the best method of instruction for her and her future husband when they are ready to take an NFP class together.

Our Lady, Helper of Mothers

Finally, by practicing fertility awareness, a woman may know long before marriage whether she is at risk for infertility and seek appropriate treatment without the added stress of having already waited for a year for pregnancy. And, even more importantly to me, fertility awareness enables a woman to note signs that she is at risk for miscarriage and take simple steps to avoid preventable heartbreak.

It is horribly sad that some Catholic women must endure the loss of a child during their first months of marriage simply because the couple chose not to learn NFP because they had no reason to avoid pregnancy. Even if you plan to never avoid pregnancy, you should plan to avoid preventable miscarriage! And fertility awareness is an amazing tool for noting common causes of miscarriage that can be easily fixed prior to seeking pregnancy.

Ultimately I believe that personal health is the primary reason a woman should learn fertility awareness, even if she does not need to keep charting once she has learned it. But for those women who do intend to use NFP for family planning, practicing fertility awareness long before they are married may prove to be an invaluable tool and save them from unnecessary heartache.

Coming soon: A post on easy ways to learn fertility awareness. You don’t actually need to take a class if you’re not (yet?) using it for family planning.

The Body , ,

Using NFP While on the Pill: Reality

Posted on July 23, 2011 by Rae 1 Comment

Searching for my post on taking NFP classes while on the pill? Check here.

The post below was written in response to NFP proponents who were suggesting that one should use NFP even if on the pill. It isn’t especially helpful for the average person.

 . . .

In the summer of 2007 I asked my fiancé which type of NFP class he wanted to take. He had already read Weschler’s Taking Charge of Your Fertility, so I was not concerned that he was ignorant about fertility awareness, but I figured that before we got married he should understand how my body worked. I was not about to just hand him my charts and tell him to figure it out for himself, and I thought it crucial that I not be the fertility “authority” in our relationship; so we needed to take some sort of NFP class together.

We did not have a specific wedding date in mind, and had not even contacted a parish to start the 6-month required wait. But time was running out. My body was failing me. I was in constant pain, and the transition between menstrual cycles had turned into a week where I could barely function. I no longer went to mass daily, and it had gotten to the point where going to Sunday mass at the “wrong” time of the month meant not only vomiting from incredible pain, but risking being stuck at church because I might be incapable of driving home.

There was no doubt in my mind that the right thing for me to do was to finish college, and there were too many days when it was impossible for me to get to class. The only solution was to start hormonal contraceptives.

But hormonal contraceptives such as the pill work by shutting down a woman’s fertility cycle. They suppress ovulation and the “regular bleeding” that women find so comforting is only a symptom of hormonal withdrawal, not actual menstruation.

I knew that once I was on the pill there would be no way that Josh could learn about my fertility cycle. Once I started the pill my fertility cycle would be nonexistent. The only thing left to know about my “cycle” would be whether or not I was taking hormones continuously. And that was not the incredible reality of my body that I wanted Josh to be able to understand.

So we needed to find an NFP class, and we needed to take it ASAP.

And we did.

We talked with our amazingly knowledgeable NFP instructor about the possibility of endometriosis and I decided to have surgery to determine the cause of my pain, and remove the problem if possible. I was pessimistic about the surgery solving my problems. My doctor warned me that even microscopic endometriosis can cause pain and you can’t just remove every possible place where there is any chance of invisible endometriosis. Even the expert sources to which our NFP instructor referred me just made me feel worse. As they say “As good as laparoscopic electrosurgical excision of endometriosis is, it will not treat pain caused by other things” (source) and I had no proof that my chronic pelvic pain was actually from endometriosis.

But I felt that, as unreasonable as it was, I had to have surgery. I needed to know if endometriosis was actually the cause of my pain, and I needed to try everything before I gave in and finally started the hormonal treatment my body so desperately needed.

From a fertility perspective, the surgery was excellent. The surgeon confirmed endometriosis and removed all that was visible, except for a spot on one ovary. Perhaps because I was so young, my doctor was concerned about preserving fertility and did not think it worth the risk to my ovary to remove something which was not hindering ovulation.

I was upset that my doctor had prioritized fertility over pain management. After all, I would have eagerly agreed to trade half of my baby-making-ability in exchange for the ability to actually live my life! Yet my doctor was pleased to inform me that everything looked excellent from a reproductive prospective.

And then my doctor told me to start taking the pill.

She did not expect me to try to get pregnant immediately, and I needed to suppress ovulation in order to prevent the endometriosis from growing and causing more damage in the future.

I knew that my doctor was focused on preserving my fertility and that I should appreciate that, but I was extremely disappointed in her care. I did not want to go on the pill to preserve my future fertility at the cost of shutting down my natural cycle.

I felt the full weight of the irony of what I did next. I chose to ignore the importance of protecting my fertility in order to avoid the pill that I so loathed. I decided to give my body a chance to function without the pill now that most of the endometriosis was gone. Sure, it might mean that I would never have the option of having biological children, but my hatred and fear of the pill was irrational.

It did not work. My next few cycles were miserable. I only got through exams because I saved the painkillers given to me for surgical recovery and used them instead for the days where I had to go to class but could not because of the debilitating pain.

But opioids did not seem like a long-term solution, and I had no intention of taking them as frequently as I would have needed to, even if I was fine with their hazy cost of living without pain.

I started hormonal contraceptives.

And then I went to my final NFP class, wryly thinking that I was the one person who could find a way to “fail” NFP without even having sex!

My instructor was wonderfully kind and interested to see the chart which I had continued to keep both because I felt obligated to go through the motions of charting, and because I was also curious to see precisely how it would look. But it only took the instructor a quick glance to see that there was nothing to see on my chart. It showed continuous low-quality cervical fluid and high temperatures, almost as if I were pregnant. There was no change except for the hormonal withdrawal week, and I tried to shorten by a few days each month.

It was quickly clear that, as I had known all along, it was not possible to chart fertility while pumping one’s body full of artificial hormones. The only thing to chart was evidence of my infertility, and as the instructor saw in one glance, that was pointless.

I certainly was not going to ask Josh to keep careful track of my lack of fertility cycle, so I replaced charting with a simple reminder on my calender for each break week from the hormones.

My break from charting did not last long. By June I believed that maybe God wanted me to suffer, and I did not think that working and preparing for marriage was a good enough reason to justify my desire to live without debilitating pain.

I was one of the lucky ones with a body that started preparing to ovulate as soon as I stopped the hormones. As always, I could feel the pain of the hormonal withdrawal within hours, and note the difference in fertility as soon as the typical week off was over.

And this is why I am confounded when people talk about practicing NFP while on hormonal contraceptives. I wonder if they do not know how NFP works, or if they simply mean that one should still schedule periodic abstinence that has no connection to one’s fertility (or, rather, infertility as is the case when on ovulation suppressing hormones).

I do accept the Church’s longstanding tradition that times of sexual abstinence are an important part of a virtuous marriage. But sexual abstinence is not the same thing as NFP.

Some couples may want to schedule a regular time of abstinence in order to keep from boredom or else to compensate for the reduced libido which is a common side-effect of hormonal contraceptives.

But many women who need hormonal contraceptives for health purposes will still experience some degree of pain or discomfort with sex, even while on the pill. For such couples it seems absurd to prescribe even more abstinence than what their marriage must naturally endure.

If one is interested in abstinence for the sake of holiness, then it seems clear that one should start with abstinence dictated by the Church’s liturgical cycle rather than a nonexistent fertility cycle. And if a couple is abstaining in accord with the Church’s penitential days, then I have no doubt that they will be able to discern whether they will benefit from further abstinence designed to mimic the use of NFP for avoiding pregnancy.

Regardless of what a couple may choose, scheduling abstinence while on hormonal contraceptives can never be NFP, because the basis for NFP–the fertility cycle itself–is suppressed.

Marriage , , , ,

Why I am an NFP cheerleader

Posted on July 19, 2011 by Rae 2 Comments

The lovely Katarina brought it to my attention that I am an NFP cheerleader. I had to stop and think about her assumption because I have never thought of myself as such. A promoter of NFP? Certainly. After all, I am both Catholic and feminist. But a cheerleader?

Apparently I am that as well.

Why am I a cheerleader for NFP?

First of all, because fertility awareness used for NFP needs all of the cheerleaders it can get! So often the women who learn about their fertility are those who grudgingly admit that they need some way to stop their state of constant pregnancy and breastfeeding. Thus, when they finally learn NFP they find the discipline incredibly challenging, both in terms of observing their fertility and abstaining during potentially fertile times.

I tend to think of Church documents as broadly applicable, regardless of how narrow the context or phrasing might be.

So when I read Vatican II that

Those too who are skilled in other sciences, notably the medical, biological, social and psychological, can considerably advance the welfare of marriage and the family along with peace of conscience if by pooling their efforts they labor to explain more thoroughly the various conditions favoring a proper regulation of births.

I take it to mean that bloggers should promote understanding of NFP. I am an NFP cheerleader because I know that people need the facts about NFP. Most people already know that NFP is not perfect. They don’t need me to tell a self-pitying story about how I happen to fall into the 5% of women for whom fertility awareness for avoiding pregnancy is a medical challenge.

What they do need to know is that with no gadgets, gizmos, or charts, NFP is 96% effective in preventing pregnancy with correct use and more than 86% effective with typical use. That is right, with nothing more than paying a bit of attention throughout her day, a woman can rely on NFP to be as effective as barrier methods of contraception. And if one really wants to put effort into monitoring fertility, careful charting, and diligently abstaining, that NFP can be as close to 100% effective as anything other than complete abstinence.

I am an NFP cheerleader because I know that NFP is a tool to make my life easier, not a solution to all of my problems. I don’t blame the tool for not making my life perfect, I am thankful for all that it does provide me.

I don’t use NFP to avoid pregnancy just for the fun of it. When I am avoiding pregnancy I am doing so for a reason. If I show confusing signs of fertility for 3 months I don’t think “I hate NFP, it doesn’t let me have sex for 3 months!” Instead I would think “I hate the fact that we don’t have health insurance and my husband may have cancer and I don’t currently have the emotional stability to handle pregnancy/another baby.”

There is nothing about NFP that forces me to abstain during potentially fertile times. It is life that determines whether I need to abstain to avoid pregnancy. Fertility awareness in the form of NFP provides a way to understand exactly how to time that abstinence in order to minimize the chance of pregnancy.

I am incredibly thankful for NFP and happy to chant about its goodness in the hope that someone may be encouraged to try it for herself. Does that make me an NFP cheerleader? I guess so!

Marriage , , ,

The Good Thing About Confession

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Rae Leave a comment

One of the very good things about the Sacrament of Reconciliation is that it really does not matter what the priest hearing one’s confession happens to think.

I am scheduled to have surgery on Thursday. The chance of death is low. One source I read placed it at roughly 1 in 250,000. But as low as that is, it feels like more of a window for death than a typical day. And so I am taking it as a rare blessing for an American young adult. I am taking it as an opportunity to consider my readiness for death.

Among other things, this calls for confession. It had already been two months since my last confession, so I had plenty to deal with anyway.

I planned to go to my parish’s regular hour on Saturday, but was unable. And so I took advantage of the National Shrine’s regular confession schedule. By the time I entered the confessional the priest had probably been there for an hour and a half.

I started my confession as usual, and after I confessed my first sin the priest stopped me.

“So, did you, or did you not break the law?” He asked, referencing the Church’s law related to the third commandment.

I used different words to re-explain what I had done, and he responded by asking me how I defined the word “work.”

I said that in this context I would define “work” as unnecessary labor which prevents one from using Sunday to rest and worship God.

I realized then that the tired elderly priest who was most certainly working on a Sunday in order to hear my confession was eating. And so I continued on despite my fear to how he would react to the sin that I had felt the most pressing need to confess. Because, while it was even worse than the first sin, it was less objectively a sin in the scientific “X done with Y attitude is always and everywhere a mortal sin” way. If this priest was questioning my first sin, then there was no way that he could grasp the gravity of my other sin.

The priest simply assigned me a Hail Mary and an Our Father and absolved me after I had read aloud the typical Act of Contrition provided by the shrine.

I left both excited from the stress of the situation and delighted with the knowledge that it did not matter what the priest thought. I had confessed everything which was burdening my conscience.

And that is a wonderful thing about the Sacrament of Reconciliation: even if the priest hearing the confession could not care less about the penitent or her sin, Christ is still present.

There have been times when I have been deeply wounded by the misunderstandings, or perhaps simple lack of care exhibited by priests in the confessional. But yesterday I received not only the grace to make a good confession, but also the grace to appreciate the grace–despite a jaded priest who experienced my sixty-second confession as a pelting with popcorn.

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