Author Archives: LMFLY Intern

Newlyweds in the Time of Coronavirus

Here we sit, nice and cozy on a rainy spring morning, laptops out, sipping tea, and working from home. Like most Americans, our home – a one-bedroom apartment – is now acting as our temporary office, school, and even church. Unlike most people, though, Eric and I were just getting the hang of living under the same roof! We have been married for just over four months. There are still boxes to unpack, thank you notes to send, and we are still figuring out our daily rhythm as a married couple. Now we have every waking and sleeping moment together for what looks like at least a month; it’s a perfect opportunity to grow together as a couple.

We are thankful for this extra time together. It is the most quality time we have been able to spend with each other since our honeymoon. So far, it has been a time of renewal, almost like a newlywed bootcamp/retreat. We both work full time, so, until now, being at home together was only a few precious hours before it was time to crawl into bed. But, since we have been home, we have enjoyed taking long walks in the beautiful spring weather. These walks offer an opportunity to reconnect – reflecting on our marriage thus far and talking about our dreams for the future.

It is also a time for us to reconnect on a spiritual level. Like most people, in addition to our closed offices, we are unable to attend Mass until further notice. For the first time in our lives we are not able to go to Mass on Sunday. This unusual circumstance has given us the opportunity to come to a more profound understanding of our identity as a domestic church. About a month ago, I unpacked enough boxes to find and hang some of our sacred art in a place of prominence in our living room. Underneath is a trunk to act as our altar, adorned with flowers, candles, and sacramentals. Our little prayer altar has assumed a new special meaning at this time.

Another blessing of spending more time at home is the opportunity to re-engage in those creative activities and hobbies that easily get pushed aside on our busy normal days. Eric has picked up his trumpet again (practicing with the mute on so as not to disturb our neighbors!) and I have dusted off my watercolors and picked up embroidering. Both of us are reading for pleasure again and we even have designated time to read together.

Obviously, quarantine also has its share of challenges. When people are in the same place together for an extended period of time, there is going to be friction. What would be small disagreements, misunderstandings, and frustrations can get blown out of proportion when we are in close quarters. But even these can be blessings because we have nowhere to go and no choice but to work through them! We are learning to communicate better and to love in difficult moments. We each have plenty of opportunities to grow in the virtues of patience and compassion towards the other.

So, there it is, we are taking life one day and one step at a time, as I am sure you all are, too. As I write, I’m reminded of Matthew 6:25-34, most specifically verse 34, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.” Each day is filled with a blessing from God. As of now, neither of us is sick, but if that happens, we’re prepared to make good on that vow to be there for the other in sickness and in health.

We pray this will be a time of growth for us in every way, but especially in our faith, our identity as a domestic church, and in our ability to love one another with the selfless love which our vocation calls us to. God bless you all. You are in our prayers in these uncertain but grace-filled times.

About the Author
The newly-minted Theresa Lewis has been married to her husband Eric since November 23, 2019. A few years before that, Eric and Theresa both spent time discerning religious life. God had different plans for each of them and they could not be happier that he brought them together! Theresa holds a BA in theology and history from Benedictine College and an MEd in secondary education from Creighton University. After teaching for several years, Theresa has become the program assistant to the LMFLY Secretariat at the USCCB. The newlyweds reside in a cozy apartment in Washington, D.C.

Resources for Responding to COVID-19

Below is a working list of resources to assist in the work ministering to families and engaged or married couples during these uncertain times.

*Please not that inclusion in this list does not indicate any form of endorsement.*

For resources in Spanish, please visit our sister site, Por Tu Matrimonio – Resursos para responder al COVID-19.

Prayers

Mass and Adoration Livestream

Prayer and Liturgical Resources


The following publishers have generously made their resources available to support prayer during these difficult days. We thank them for their generosity and pastoral concern.

Tools for Ministering Online

E-Resources for Ministry and Couples

Diocesan Initiatives

Resources/Articles for Parents and Families

Coronavirus

Faith and Prayer

Fun Activities

Teaching Children at Home

Prayer and Mass for Children

Children’s Activities

Children’s Videos and Podcasts

Talking to Children

More resources can be found on the USCCB website: usccb.org/coronavirus

National Marriage Week 2020 Social Media Kit

Spread the word about National Marriage Week 2020: Stories from the Domestic Church by updating your cover photo or sharing one of our social media images.

To download the image, right click and select “Save image as…” You can post the images yourself or during National Marriage Week 2020, you can share posts from the ForYourMarriage or USCCB Facebook pages.

Facebook Cover Photo

 

Social Media Graphics

(Each image is 400×400.)

NFP Saved My Health—Naturally!

When only seventeen, I experienced my period every other week. My greatly concerned mother took me to see her gynecologist who promptly prescribed the birth control pill. This, the doctor did, though she performed no tests to discover why the frequent menses.

Uninformed about the dangers of hormonal contraception, and desperate for a relief, I happily accepted the medication. About a year later, however, I learned about the negative effects of hormonal contraception. I decided it was not good for me. Returning to the doctor, I asked for an alternative treatment. I was told that there was nothing that could be done for me.

Throughout my college years, I resigned myself to a fate of irregular and painful menstrual cycles. During this time, I had also suffered a number of ovarian cyst ruptures. Unfortunately, I did not dig into the causes of my reproductive health problems until later in marriage preparation when I first started tracking my menstrual cycles through Natural Family Planning (NFP). I worried that my condition would make NFP difficult to practice. And, in fact after I married, the first few months were difficult. My charts were confusing. My husband and I spent hours studying the charts trying to figure out what was going on. I became convinced that something was happening. The clear data empowered me. Not only did I know that there was something wrong, but I knew I could prove it!

After a few months of tracking my cycle, I went to see an NFP trained gynecologist. The doctor reviewed my charts, treated them as medical records, and ordered a number of tests to check my hormone levels. Many medical appointments, charts, and blood draws later, the causes were discovered.

I was diagnosed with both Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis (an autoimmune condition). Though my irregular cycles and difficulty charting seemed like a confusing burden at first, they ended up being my saving grace. It was only through NFP that I was able to recognize the physical signs telling me that something was wrong. If I had not charted, I would not have had the necessary medical data to have my PCOS or Hashimoto’s diagnosed. These conditions would have remained unchecked and untreated—thereby doing further damage to my health and life.

While getting the right diagnosis was just the beginning of a lifelong journey with these conditions, I am grateful for the role NFP played. This journey led me to a compassionate and skilled Catholic NaturalProcreativeTechnology™ (NaPro) physician, who walked with me on a journey of infertility caused by my PCOS. When first diagnosed with PCOS I was told by an endocrinologist that conception would be unlikely. If I had not found a NaPro physician who took my NFP charts seriously, offering appropriate and individual treatment, I would not also be able to say that my husband and I conceived our first child—an amazing gift made possible by God’s grace and NFP charting, naturally!

About the Author
Brooke Paris Foley and her husband, Tim, live in Alexandria, Virginia. They are the proud and blessed parents of a baby due in September 2019, who they welcome as a gift from God. Brooke is a Bioethics teacher, a career through which she passionately tries to empower women in their reproductive health journey by teaching them about the medical and moral benefits of Natural Family Planning.

Brooke Paris Foley. This article is printed with the permission of the author. You have her permission to reproduce it in whole or in part, in print and/or electronically, with the following statement: Brooke Paris Foley, “NFP Saved My Health—Naturally!” Used with permission.

Real Couples Share What It’s Like Practicing NFP

You’ve probably heard that the Catholic Church supports Natural Family Planning (NFP) because it’s the only method of family planning that respects God’s design for married love. You may have also heard about the many benefits of NFP—especially the effectiveness for achieving and postponing pregnancy and the lack of side effects. But, sometimes it’s also helpful to hear from couples themselves.

Many couples can speak to how NFP has not only allowed them to achieve or avoid pregnancy but how the NFP lifestyle has changed their marriages and families for the better. Below is a complete round-up of all the stories couples have been generous enough to share with For Your Marriage and the USCCB’s NFP Office. We also link to several videos from across the country that interviewed NFP couples.

Table of Contents:

Articles:

If I had not found a NaPro physician who took my NFP charts seriously, offering appropriate and individual treatment, I would not also be able to say that my husband and I conceived our first child—an amazing gift made possible by God’s grace and NFP charting, naturally!
Brooke Paris Foley – NFP Saved My Health—Naturally!

NFP asks us to always have before us the deepest questions of our shared life together: Are we open to welcoming new life to our family now? Should we be? What might God be inviting us to?
Josh and Stacey Noem – 5 Ways NFP Has Benefited our Marriage

My husband, Frank, and I have learned that our sexual union should be focused on giving rather than getting. NFP provided the environment to live this out.
Jennifer and Frank – Signs of Grace

Unlike contraception, which usually places full burden of family planning on the woman, NFP promotes shared responsibility of the fertility of both the husband and wife. It lends a spirit of togetherness to a marriage.
Jennifer and John Campbell – Connections: Living Natural Family Planning

Before having children, Misty had been an atheist and I had been an agnostic. With our first child, the miracle of life spurred a spiritual awakening in us… Even after our conversion, however, NFP grew our relationship with each other and with God in ways we never expected.
Tom and Misty Mealey – Be Her Joseph

I found that the chastity required to get through the periods of abstinence caused profound changes in me… I became grateful for all God had given me, most of all for my wife.
Fletcher Doyle – My Slogan: “Practice Saved Sex”

Children do require lots of work, and pregnancy demands its own set of sacrifices, but NFP has helped me meet these challenges by leading me to the realization that children are God’s blessings.
Dawn Farias – How Natural Family Planning Changed My Life

When ill health strikes family members, it adds a dimension of life challenges that spouses never anticipate.
Andrew and Anna Martin – Hard Decisions and Life-Giving Missions

NFP is not moral birth control; rather, it is a complete way of life honoring one’s spouse’s sexuality and fertility. It is loving naturally – the way God designed it.
Michael and Alysha Chambers – NFP, the Theology of the Body, and Our Marriage

In living God’s plan for marriage we found that this “openness” led us also to adoption.
Jennifer and Mike Dress – The Many Dimensions of Openness to Life

Looking back, the most important thing in this whole experience remains our conviction that NFP is a way for us to cooperate with God’s plan. When our plan and God’s plan seemed different, we felt anxious but also hopeful because we knew that God is faithful.
Josh and Stacey Noem – The Week We Were Pregnant

Videos:

For Further Reading:

How to Learn NFP Online

Most NFP instructors will agree that the best way to learn NFP is to meet with an instructor. There’s nothing like meeting face to face for getting the best information and having your questions answered.

But if there’s some reason you can’t take a class in your local area (did you know our Find Support locator can help you find local NFP classes?), below are some resources that meet the USCCB’s Standards for Diocesan NFP Ministry that also offer online programs. Most have classes in both English and Spanish and include the option to talk with a qualified instructor(s) over video chat or phone.

To learn more about NFP check out our page – What is NFP?

Online NFP Resources
Billings Ovulation Method Association
Couple to Couple League
Marquette University College of Nursing Institute for NFP
SymptoPro Fertility Education

Distance Learning
Family of the Americas
Offers a client correspondence course via the US Postal system, with an interactive CD program as part of the curriculum.

For more detailed information on the above Online/Distance Learning options for learning NFP, please visit our NFP Page on USCCB.org.

NFP, the Theology of the Body, and Our Marriage

Many will tell you that the responsibility of being permanently faithful to one person is too great and that being open to life is too much of a burden. They say contraception brings with it freedom and life; however, we have found that it is in openness to God, to each other, and to new life that true freedom is obtained. This is what living Natural Family Planning (NFP) can help couples to experience.

Alysha was in college when she first heard NFP mentioned. All she knew then was that it existed and the Catholic Church considered it a good thing. Michael, a convert to Catholicism, grew up believing that contraception was good and that all couples should use it. Our first real understanding of what NFP is, and what the Church teaches came during our marriage preparation program. We learned that NFP at its core is simply knowledge of the physical changes one can observe in the woman’s fertility cycle. It gives couples a way to measure and chart their fertility signs. We also learned how responsible parenthood is the virtuous application of this fertility knowledge.

One unexpected aspect of NFP that impressed us was how it fosters communication between spouses. Couples practicing NFP discuss the future of their family with every cycle. Knowing how to discuss such important matters has proven a great blessing to many marriages. Michael decided that blessing, by itself, was enough of a reason to learn NFP.

Another theme we discussed in marriage preparation was the Theology of the Body. It helped us understand who we are and how God created us. It is through our bodies that we express who we are spiritually. Also, because we were made in the image and likeness of God, our bodies are supposed to reflect who God is which means we are to act as He acts. How does God act? He loves. God’s love is a total gift of self. God’s love is life-giving. As husband and wife one way we love like God is through our sexuality. If NFP is studied in this context, our appreciation of each other as man and woman increases because the uniqueness and dignity that God has imprinted in our bodies is revealed. It was at this point that Michael realized NFP was not moral birth control; rather, it is a complete way of life honoring one’s spouse’s sexuality and fertility. It is loving naturally – the way God designed it.

In studying NFP in the context of the Theology of the Body, both of us have become more open to each other, to God, and to children. We truly believe that “children are the crown of marriage” and we pray that God will bless us with children some day. Until then, we will “make our plans but hold them lightly.” For us, that means planning to use NFP both when we are attempting or delaying pregnancy, all the while striving to hear and do God’s will!

Michael and Alysha Chambers, Diocese of Arlington, Va., were married September 24, 2005. This article first appeared in the Couple to Couple League’s Family Foundations (Jan/Feb. 2006). It has been edited to fit this publication and is printed with permission.

The Many Dimensions of Openness to Life

Pro-life. Open to life. Welcoming life.These are all descriptions about my marriage with my husband Michael. Although Michael and I didn’t know it when we married in 1995, God would call us to be open to life in an unconventional way.

Michael and I married after taking a series of Natural Family Planning (NFP) classes offered by our diocese. Our NFP teachers were terrific. We appreciated how they took the time to thoroughly explain the method in our classes. Once married, we happily planned our first pregnancy which unfortunately ended in miscarriage. Our second child was born in 1997, and our next two children were spaced every two years, because I breastfed them into toddlerhood, as we had studied in our NFP classes.

Practicing NFP in our marriage so inspired us that we joined our parish’s Pre-Cana team. We have been happy to speak to the engaged couples about NFP. We also found great pleasure in rearing our babies in a life-giving way. We found that this pleasure spilled over to our toddlers as they enjoyed the addition of each new baby.

As our youngest turned five, the call to give birth again wasn’t as clear as it had been in the past. In fact, my husband and I sensed that we felt a different calling. We looked into international adoption. We prayed that if God wanted us to welcome children whose parents could no longer care for them, He would “open the doors”and show us the path. As we discerned, we saw that every step to take was laid in front of us. In just about a year after we began our paperwork, we left for Ethiopia to bring home a wonderful, spirited, creative, ambitious three year old boy. Since arriving in our family, our three older children have surrounded their baby brother, Ejigu, with unconditional love, patience and joy. Michael and I had greatly underestimated their capacity to love and accept a sibling that looks very little like them. Today, Ejigu tags along to all their activities, attends a preschool CCD class, sings in the parish youth choir that I direct, and helps with household chores like his siblings. In turn, his siblings would probably walk through fire for him!

Mike and had always thought we would have several children of our own. Practicing “openness to life ”as our parents did, was our intention. In living God’s plan for marriage however, we found that this “openness” led us also to adoption. After being so richly blessed with our children, we felt an amazing need to look beyond our means and welcome a child whose parents couldn’t provide for him. Our little Ejigu, now three and a half, bore the pain of losing both parents to death and leaving the early attachments of his first home. We feel an amazing honor to continue parenting him as his birth parents would have wanted. In our practice of NFP, we realized that welcoming life has many dimensions. Listening to God’s call is at its heart!

Jennifer and Michael Drees and their children (Emily, Elizabeth, Dominic and Ejigu) are from the Diocese of Camden.

How Natural Family Planning Changed My Life

As a child I was baptized Catholic, but essentially grew up with no religious practice. As a married adult, I reentered the Church, and soon after felt a tugging at my heart to stop practicing contraception. At that time, I did not know about Natural Family Planning (NFP). More basic, I did not know about Church teachings on the moral practice of family planning. What I would learn about God’s design for my married life and through the practice of NFP would change my life.

True Freedom and Openness to Life
When my husband, Ariel and I took an NFP class, I have to admit that I was scared. Giving up control was frightening! It was one thing to be committed to an ideal, but something quite different to follow through on it. It definitely involved a leap of faith! Over time and with some experience, I began to appreciate the gift and beauty of NFP.

In practicing NFP, my husband and I must decide if we, as a couple, are ready to embrace the possibility of a new life in each menstrual cycle. When we had used contraception, we ignored this reality. With NFP we could not ignore how God made us— as a man and a woman. NFP helped us understand the relationship that God designed between the marital act and procreation. It has made us “open to life.” It even brought our last two children into the family!

The Gift of Self
In using NFP over the years both my husband and I now see that we give ourselves to each other fully in the marital act. For us, the idea of contraception has become almost vulgar. It cheapens the marital act. Contraception seems to say: “I love you, honey, but I don’t love you THAT much.”

NFP also guards against the objectification of the woman in the relationship. Contraception often keeps the woman in a defensive position because it allows “intimacy on demand.” NFP does not allow this because of the practice of periodic abstinence when not seeking a pregnancy. A deeper equality between husband and wife can be nurtured with NFP. NFP begins the process of this awareness.

Growing Together in Holiness
The sacrifices that NFP entails have only served to make me a better person and more devoted to the Lord. Without knowing it, using contraception promotes the idea that children are a burden. Children do require lots of work, and pregnancy demands its own set of sacrifices, but NFP has helped me meet these challenges by leading me to the realization that children are God’s blessings. I am constantly forced to pray, change, make concessions and find solutions to the selfishness and laziness that come up often when meeting the needs of others.

Today, I am confident that had I not been open to life in the practice of NFP, I would not have needed to depend on God, and not have grown as a person. This growth benefits my family and the people I meet in everyday life. Jesus calls us to serve others. Marriage and parenthood are ways we can immediately apply this call in our lives. NFP has led me to be more open to life, more aware of God’s design for intimacy in marriage, more dependent on Him to fulfill these plans. It has strengthened my relationship with my husband, given me personal insight and it has given our children life!

Dawn and her husband, Ariel Farias have four children and live in the Archdiocese of San Antonio.