Contraception and Communion

[edlinked]

The arguments against contraception by the Church are not about “superficial things” even if those things are very real, but they go beyond what’s superficial, and affect our inner being, because these things (like contraception) affect our spirituality. Contraception affects the aspect of love, and by affecting this aspect it becomes something that is bad, it puts pleasure as a north (worldly passing things), and when that happens we will not affirm the value of the person, we will not give the persons its dignity (because pleasures as north make itself “louder” than someone’s affirmation) . And this is a problem because that will happen inside the family, as there is where intercourse can happen because there is where a marriage happens. And if the family is the basis of society, and we don’t act Gods love in the family, we will not teach His way in it correctly. Love cannot be partial love, as love partially is not still fully love. That’s why we follow Truth, the faith guides us in the Truth through love.

We will always have problems related to economics, to disease and to many other things, but we cannot make those problems bigger than those that are spiritual, because those that are spiritual affect directly your union with God, and therefore with everything that is actually good. Only through true goodness we will be able to do true good, without being guided by “convenience”. That’s why self denial and the carrying of the cross is part of the formula. We can see the life of saints, we find them impossible to follow, why would that be? The cross is not a walk in the park, it is an awful death.

But what do saints believe and see as a fact, as a reality. Life beyond death through The Way, that is the Hope that is the Faith, God is Love that gives eternal life.

 

[Kanade]

Thank you, edlinked, for your long and detailed response. Sadly, I agree that we will not see eye to eye on this. I feel like a learner driver who is asking how the pedals work and getting a textbook explanation of the physics of internal combustion in reply - all very interesting but it doesn’t help me to drive the car. Proof texts in lieu of application reminds me of being back in evangelical circles.

Maybe your reference to the Holy Family helps illustrate how far apart we are. I wonder how this teaching applies to a family with a disabled child and a parent who has lost their job; you ask me to consider a family where the son is God incarnate, the wife is conceived without sin and assumed into heaven and the husband is, by some accounts, too old to be interested in a sexual union.

I suppose the answer is that us poorer people are not welcome to fall in love or marry in the Catholic Church, as only the rich are able to follow this particular teaching of a homeless rabbi.

 

[JimG]

We’ve wandered pretty far from the topic of the original article, “Contraception and Communion,” the gist of which, if I recall, is that contraception results in a non-fruitful marital union and perhaps a non-fruitful communion as well.

I’ve heard that it may be marriage itself that is becoming the province of the rich. The poor can have children, but if mom is unmarried, the government will help pay for the kids. No such benefits for the married, leaving marriage as the province of the rich.

It seems that children are often viewed, at least in the abstract, as an expense item rather than an asset. But at least they can help to support you in your old age, at least by paying into social security if not by more familial support. That’s an asset item.

I came across an old article by Rachel Lu talking about her non-contraceptive lifestyle. She mentions having two children within 15 months. My own mother had her first two children within 14 months of marriage, but I was glad of that, since I was the second one.

Anyway, I thought her musings might provide some amusement, so here is a link:

Why I don’t use contraception.

 

[edlinked]

Yes JimG, sorry about that. i will just answer one last time to Kanade.

Kanade,

In my undertsandings, love is not intercourse, intercourse is not love, that’s one of the big problems we have in this culture. Love is of God as God is love, and intercourse should follow love, that is the standard.

What happened before contraception, how did people manage then?

One can only give the information, then we have to decide what we do with it.

I told you to see if you could join your understanding of the verse in scripture you wrote, with what we believe about the Holy Family, and I said that the way you understood that verse cannot come to terms with the Holy Family. It can’t, because we need to see the whole context (include the Bible and Tradition), to understand the principles that we need to see. And, that is the problem when we see the Holy Family, we believe Mary and Joseph are some “immortals” beings, that don’t have anything to do with us, because they are too far from us (just like the saints). Mary and Joseph were a man and a woman. When did Abraham had his children? Mary was conceived without sin, but even Jesus was tempted. Adam and Eve were tempted but decided for sin for they doubted God, and believed they could be like gods and decide between good and evil (the science of good and evil). Mary and Joseph are who they are because their spirituality (closeness to God by their own decision) made them who they are. The faith, the trust in God, made them who they are. But they had to say yes to that, the same way that you and I have to take that leap of faith. Their love of God (their yes to God), made God work in them, to achieve who they are. We can believe in God a certain way by “sugar coating” everything, but if faith does not tells us God is a reality, and that The Way is lived a certain way, then we should be wary that maybe our faith is a “faith” that relies on the way we want “the way” to be.

This is where we decide where we put our security, we decide on what each of us assumes is a better choice.

I would advice you to go and talk to some priests, see what they tell you as they work and know more about this problem. They work with families, they work with the poor, see their perspective, see why they still tell us that contraception is not good.