Oct. 15, 2014

By Suzanne Pietropaoli
Diocesan NFP director

“Open our hearts.”  These words express a beautiful attitude of faith, one often encountered among couples who learn and live Natural Family Planning.

It is humbling and awe-inspiring to be a part, however small, of a couple’s journey toward God, toward deeper love and trust in their marriage.   Through their stories, we have had a privileged window on the unfolding of God’s plan for married love, and of his grace at work in their lives.

When Chad and Jessica came to Natural Family Planning class, they were in their twenties, married five years, parents of a toddler and an infant.  Enthusiastic and talkative, they were very open about the road they had traveled to that point.

By the time they met as college juniors, Jessica had already had an abortion.  Her friendship with Chad helped Jessica to heal and to return to the Catholic faith of her childhood. They married a year after graduation and, like most couples, brought the habit of contraception with them.  But deciding to have children changed everything for them.

As the couple themselves told it, “The miracles of our children simply turned our world upside down.”

Filled with gratitude for such marvelous gifts, Chad and Jessica discovered that God, and their faith in him, mattered more than anything else. So, after the birth of their second child, the couple decided to look into this thing the Church thought was so important—and they came to NFP class.

They were amazed by what they learned there:  that fertility manifests itself through physiological signs that can be observed, understood, and interpreted—and that this knowledge can be used to postpone pregnancy with 99% effectiveness, on par with the Pill; NFP can also be used to help achieve pregnancy.

Intelligent and motivated, Chad and Jessica caught on quickly to the sympto-thermal method of NFP, and were very excited to begin living in harmony with their fertility.

They said: “In school sex-ed classes, we had been taught that fertility was to be feared and must be eliminated through contraception. It was treated like all the other sexually transmitted diseases.

“NFP opened a whole new world for us as we learned about the beauty and intricacy of human fertility. NFP increased our awe at God’s goodness in creating us male and female. It freed us from contraception and brought us closer together. 

“Knowing so much about our bodies and how they work just increased our respect for one another so much.

“Last but not least, it helped us see our children as the fruit of our love and as the greatest gifts God ever gave us.” 

Ten years later, Chad and Jessica have continued to grow in love and faith.

Today they have six beautiful children, “Each one asked for, cherished, and delighted in. And us?  We are more in love than we could ever have imagined!”

This couple’ story is uniquely their own.  But the faith, hope, and love that can grow through the use of Natural Family Planning can come to all couples open to receiving them, which is why the Diocesan NFP Office works to propose and promote the teaching of the Church on God’s plan for sex and love. 

Using St. Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, our presentations focus on the truth of the human person made in God’s image.  This truth is foundational for understanding who we are in Christ, and for knowing what modes of acting are consistent with our dignity as beloved sons and daughters of God; it also leads to happiness since it corresponds to the deepest desires of our hearts.

This beautiful part of the Good News is carried forward in a variety of ways by the work of the NFP Office. 

This message is brought to hundreds of couples each year who are preparing for marriage through Pre Canas and parish marriage preparation programs.  Presentations are made upon request to other groups, including college students. 

Posters, pamphlets, and CD’s are made available to all parishes as part of National NFP Awareness Week each July. (A highlight of the 2014 observance,  in concert with several other diocesan offices, was the July 26th “Building Strong Families” workshop, which featured author and professor, Dr. Angela Franks.)

NFP and Theology of the Body materials are always available from the NFP Office upon request, and there has been a marked interest in the latter from parents looking for faith-based material to assist them in the formation of their own children in matters of sex and love.

As the NFP Office continues this vital work, we keep ever in mind the generosity of the people of our diocese, and of the Bishop’s Fund, that makes it possible.  May God bless you for your kindness, and may he continue to open our hearts to himself and to one another.