From your experence why does NFP feel better than contraception?

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Bookcat said:
"Paul illustrates the same idea of a necessary renewal of our way of being human in two passages of his Letter to the Ephesians; let us therefore reflect on them briefly. In the Letter’s fourth chapter, the Apostle tells us that with Christ we must attain adulthood, a mature faith. We can no longer be “children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine…” (4: 14). Paul wants Christians to have a “responsible” and “adult faith”. The words “adult faith” in recent decades have formed a widespread slogan. It is often meant in the sense of the attitude of those who no longer listen to the Church and her Pastors but autonomously choose what they want to believe and not to believe hence a do-it-yourself faith. And it is presented as a “courageous” form of self-expression against the Magisterium of the Church. In fact, however, no courage is needed for this because one may always be certain of public applause. Rather, courage is needed to adhere to the Church’s faith, even if this contradicts the “logic” of the contemporary world. This is the non-conformism of faith which Paul calls an “adult faith”. It is the faith that he desires. On the other hand, he describes chasing the winds and trends of the time as infantile. Thus, being committed to the inviolability of human life from its first instant, thereby radically opposing the principle of violence also precisely in the defence of the most defenceless human creatures is part of an adult faith. It is part of an adult faith to recognize marriage between a man and a woman for the whole of life as the Creator’s ordering, newly re-established by Christ. Adult faith does not let itself be carried about here and there by any trend. It opposes the winds of fashion. It knows that these winds are not the breath of the Holy Spirit; it knows that the Spirit of God is expressed and manifested in communion with Jesus Christ. However, here too Paul does not stop at saying “no”, but rather leads us to the great “yes”. He describes the mature, truly adult faith positively with the words: “speaking the truth in love” (cf. Eph 4: 15). The new way of thinking, given to us by faith, is first and foremost a turning towards the truth. The power of evil is falsehood. The power of faith, the power of God, is the truth. The truth about the world and about ourselves becomes visible when we look to God. And God makes himself visible to us in the Face of Jesus Christ. In looking at Christ, we recognize something else: truth and love are inseparable. In God both are inseparably one; it is precisely this that is the essence of God. For Christians, therefore, truth and love go together. Love is the test of truth. We should always measure ourselves anew against this criterion, so that truth may become love and love may make us truthful. "

~ Pope Benedict XVI

The whole thing is wonderful…one of my very favorites…do not miss a word of it:

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20090628_chius-anno-paolino_en.html

(this is connected with my last general post in a particular way…so read that too in the light of the above)
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"The power of faith, the power of God, is the truth. The truth about the world and about ourselves becomes visible when we look to God. And God makes himself visible to us in the Face of Jesus Christ. In looking at Christ, we recognize something else: truth and love are inseparable. In God both are inseparably one; it is precisely this that is the essence of God. For Christians, therefore, truth and love go together. Love is the test of truth. We should always measure ourselves anew against this criterion, so that truth may become love and love may make us truthful. "

~ Pope Benedict XVI

From the above homliy

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20090628_chius-anno-paolino_en.html
 
Odell said:
But how is abstaining put pressure on lovemaking? Is your marriage totally dependent on sentimental impulses and transient emotions or rather does it possesses, apart from all this, a distinct objective existence in the person and between the persons?
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Here’s the extremely short version:

Since our time to have sex was limited each month, it made us feel like we had to do a really good job and have really good, long, passionate sex on the nights I was infertile. We felt like we had to make the most of the infertile time each month, because we knew it would be a while till we would be able to have sex again. This pressure felt unnatural and stressed us out. Sex became a stressor, and it made it hard for us to focus on our lovemaking when we were so concerned about trying to have “good” sex while we still could.
If so how does abstaining or willing a child from the action put pressure on lovemaking?
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See above. 🙂
 
LaSainte said:
I think the idea is that sex rarely happens spontaneously just because you want to unite with your spouse. It is always a matter of “CAN we do it today?”, or “Well today’s the last day we can do it so I guess we should…”, or “How bad do we want it because we are cutting it pretty close…” One way or the other, there is often so much pressure and anxiety associated with what is already a tricky part of married life.
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Exactly. 😦

For me, it became something very calculated, mechanical, and cold. Not at all what I hoped married sex would be with the love of my life.
 
Debora123 said:
Here’s the extremely short version:

Since our time to have sex was limited each month, it made us feel like we had to do a really good job and have really good, long, passionate sex on the nights I was infertile. We felt like we had to make the most of the infertile time each month, because we knew it would be a while till we would be able to have sex again. This pressure felt unnatural and stressed us out. Sex became a stressor, and it made it hard for us to focus on our lovemaking when we were so concerned about trying to have “good” sex while we still could.

See above. 🙂
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Such is a difficulty to work out in marriage…in time etc…

Contraception…is not the answer.

Such is objectively exchanging a marital act for a non-marital act.
 
Debora123 said:
Exactly. 😦

For me, it became something very calculated, mechanical, and cold.
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Then I would suggest going and learning a new method…for such does not describe the NFP I know from when we had the reasons to avoid…
 
Contraceptive intercourse is meaningless, selfish, gravely sinful, can even be physically harmful, a manner of lust, contrary of course to openness to life, contrary to marital love, contrary to the commitment of marriage and the meaning of marriage, and in fact non-marital.

No ‘apparent’ temporal “benefit” is worth the the choice of contraception. It would be the exchange of the martial act for a non-marital act. The choice of an apparent good over a real good.

A great article: cormacburke.or.ke/node/282
 
**Now of course the comment can come where someone says “contraception is good for my marriage”. My experience of it is good.
**
Not to get into the all the details that it is not good…(one can read all sorts of books etc on the subject)…instead lets look at the general idea of something being good that in fact is an objectively grave evil. Where a person may think their “experience” justifies such an action.

Lets use a different moral issue (though still a grave matter like Contraception) Sometimes this helps …and though they are fictional…and hopefully more far fetched then real (though given our world it is possible) …I hope they will help.

Leo and Sally are married…they are engaged in adultery with others…and are very unhappy. They have a conversion …and repent of their deeds and set out to follow Christ faithfully and to be faithful to each other. The find this really also helps their marriage. And they find that they have new life in him here…and look forward to being with him…happy they are not longer living in a way that would send them to hell but are following he who is life. Many like couples experience the same and objectively they are doing good.

Sam and Sue are married. Their marriage is troubled. They are always fighting about Sam’s unhappiness about Sue not want sexual relations so often. They are terribly unhappy. Sam prays about it…and decides that God will understand if he finds a companion on the side for the sake of his family…heck men have done so in all ages. Sam decides to have an affair on the side. The fighting practically goes away entirely…the affair continues for years and years…and they report their marriage is now happy. Sam in a discussion with a friend with similar problems…suggests he get a girl on the side…for this has saved their marriage and they are now happy…and when he later meets with his friend…he finds his friend has had the same experience…so he is confirmed in his feeling…I had to save my family…it was good for my marriage…

So it can be said that some find that adultery is helpful to their marital happiness…

Does that make it “good”?

No.

Can there be spiritual consequences to such…yes …of the most grave kind.

The ends do not justify the means.

Adultery and other gravely evil proposals are well… evil …they are contrary to God…and even if someone experiences some “temporal” happiness …even if they think “this will help my marriage”…or “this is good for such and such”…“I need to do such and such otherwise such and such will happen”…

It is the age old thing that the Bible talks about…the choosing of some temporal or “apparent” happiness…over God and true happiness…true life.

Now is it possible that they have a really erroneious conscience that God will take into account?..it is possible…is it possible for some other things to reduce the culpability?..yes it is…but I would not count on either…for often we can be at least guilty along the way in getting there… (read Pope Benedict XVI in Spe Salvi!) and these are very dangerous waters…to say the least…and we have a duty to correct a conscience in error…

Many though perhaps listen to their feelings or even rationalize things away…and think in terms of the temporal good…“this helps my marriage” …“I need to do what the Church thinks is wrong but it is the Church that is wrong” (misunderstanding the nature of the Church and her authority etc)…or “If I do not do X …Y will happen and Y will be bad for me or for my family”…etc…

Such is not the way to go…we are to find another way…the right way.

A “temporal benefit” …a “temporal happiness”…is not necessarily a true happiness and certainly not the final happiness we are called to. A temporal happiness is not worth the exchange.

Jesus is very clear though: what does it profit for a man to gain the whole world…and loose his soul…? ( see Mark 8:36)
 
Bookcat said:
Contraceptive intercourse is meaningless, selfish, gravely sinful, can even be physically harmful, a manner of lust, contrary of course to openness to life, contrary to marital love, contrary to the commitment of marriage and the meaning of marriage, and in fact non-marital.

No ‘apparent’ temporal “benefit” is worth the the choice of contraception. It would be the exchange of the martial act for a non-marital act. The choice of an apparent good over a real good.
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You may not agree with it Bookcat or with the meaning that people attach to their own lovemaking even if it happens to be contraceptive, but I think that to keep harping on it as “meaningless” is out of line and frankly, completely untrue. It may not hold the exact meaning that you or the Church believe it should, but it is FAR from meaningless.

So much more goes into sex than procreation or openness to procreation. What you’re saying is like saying that sex between animals is deeply meaningful simply because it is procreative, which is absurd.

I know you’re just trying to reiterate a point, but what you are saying is hurtful and untrue.
 
I will share something…we reconverted after we got married. During our reconversion I learned that one of my tasks was to get my husband to heaven.

I remembered the times when we contracepted and many times at my insistance. It was heartbreaking to me to realize we sinned together, and I allowed/ encouraged him to sin. What if he had died not in a state of grace, because of a sin we comitted together?. 😦
 
LaSainte said:
You my not agree with it Bookcat or with the meaning that people attach to their own lovemaking even if it happens to be contraceptive, but I think that to keep harping on it as “meaningless” is out of line and frankly, completely untrue. It may not hold the exact meaning that you or the Church believe it should, but it is FAR from meaningless.

So much more goes into sex than procreation or openness to procreation. What you’re saying is like saying that sex between animals is deeply meaningful simple because it is procreative, which is absurd.

I know you’re just trying to reiterate a point, but what you are saying is hurtful and untrue.
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I am not saying that the marriage itself…or the other actions of love between husband and wife have no meaning…or are meaningless…of course not or that they suddenly stop per se loving each other (like in a divorce etc). But contraception is a betrayal of the meaning of the marriage. It is objectively an act contrary to their love in the heart of what should be a great moment of love and self gift…open to new life.

I do not intend to hurt…but sometimes certain things need to be said in a very clear way…which can bring some hurt as a side effect. (though one can also stubble in how it is said!..sorry if such was the case)

Sometimes truth is painful at first…but then it becomes a healer when embraced.

For those who engage in contraceptive intercourse…it does not carry the meaning it is suppose to carry…the marital meaning is absent…contracepted away…the marital act is frustrated…the act of intercourse is frustrated…it it an act contrary to their love…it is a it a non-marital act…it is in contrary to the love of marriage…contrary to the meaning of marriage…

I suspose that should not have said it so starkly that it was meaningless (sorry …I should have said things better)…or if it seemed like that the married couple does not (hopefully) love each other in their intercourse in a sense (just as they love each other all the time and do various other loving acts)…but contraceptive intercourse is contrary to the meaning of marriage…the act is not a conjugal act. It has lost that marital meaning.
 
Bookcat said:
I am not saying that the marriage itself…or the other actions of love between husband and wife have no meaning…or are meaningless…of course not or that they suddenly stop per se loving each other (like in a divorce etc). But contraception is a betrayal of the meaning of the marriage. It is objectively an act contrary to their love in the heart of what should be a great moment of love and self gift…open to new life.

I do not intend to hurt…but sometimes certain things need to be said in a very clear way…which can bring some hurt as a side effect. (though one can also stubble in how it is said!..sorry if such was the case)

Sometimes truth is painful at first…but then it becomes a healer when embraced.

For those who engage in contraceptive intercourse…it does not carry the meaning it is :thumbsup:suppose to carry…the marital meaning is absent…contracepted away…the marital act is frustrated…the act of intercourse is frustrated…it it an act contrary to their love…it is a it a non-marital act…it is in contrary to the love of marriage…contrary to the meaning of marriage…

I suspose that should not have said it so starkly that it was meaningless (sorry …I should have said things better)…or if it seemed like that the married couple does not (hopefully) love each other in their intercourse in a sense (just as they love each other all the time and do various other loving acts)…but contraceptive intercourse is contrary to the meaning of marriage…the act is not a conjugal act. It has lost that marital meaning.
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No problem BC. Thanks for the clarification, it is much appreciated and understood! 🙂
 
LaSainte said:
You may not agree with it Bookcat or with the meaning that people attach to their own lovemaking even if it happens to be contraceptive, but I think that to keep harping on it as “meaningless” is out of line and frankly, completely untrue. It may not hold the exact meaning that you or the Church believe it should, but it is FAR from meaningless.

So much more goes into sex than procreation or openness to procreation. What you’re saying is like saying that sex between animals is deeply meaningful simply because it is procreative, which is absurd.

I know you’re just trying to reiterate a point,** but what you are saying is hurtful and untrue.**
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Yes 😦
 
From my experience, NFP feels better than contraception because it is heartbreaking to sit in a pew at Mass and watch others receive Jesus in the Eucharist knowing that you can’t.

I don’t know how Catholics who are content to contracept stay away from the Eucharist without a profound feeling of loss.
 
Now what I just argued above…and what Msgr Burke says in his article…and what other orthodox theologian write…is based on the reality that marriage is both unitive and procreative. Each marital act is to have both aspects of these meanings in its meaning. Hence I argue that to contracept is to deprive that act of its marital meaning …it is an act contrary to love.

Bl. Pope John Paul II noted in an Audience

" In the conjugal act it is not licit to separate the unitive aspect from the procreative aspect, because both the one and the other pertain to the intimate truth of the conjugal act. The one is activated together with the other and in a certain sense the one by means of the other. Therefore, in such a case the conjugal act, deprived of its interior truth because it is artificially deprived of its procreative capacity, ceases also to be an act of love.
Code: 
It can be said that in the case of an artificial separation of these two aspects, a real bodily union is carried out in the conjugal act, but it does not correspond to the interior truth and to the dignity of personal communion-communion of persons. This communion demands that the language of the body be expressed reciprocally in the integral truth of its meaning. ..."
~ Bl. Pope John Paul II General Audience, August 22, 1984
 
LaSainte said:
No problem BC. Thanks for the clarification, it is much appreciated and understood! 🙂
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Now what I just argued above…and what Msgr Burke says in his article…and what other orthodox theologian write…is based on the reality that marriage is both unitive and procreative. Each marital act is to have both aspects of these meanings in its meaning. Hence I argue that to contracept is to deprive that act of its marital meaning …it is an act contrary to love.

Bl. Pope John Paul II noted in an Audience

" In the conjugal act it is not licit to separate the unitive aspect from the procreative aspect, because both the one and the other pertain to the intimate truth of the conjugal act. The one is activated together with the other and in a certain sense the one by means of the other. Therefore, in such a case the conjugal act, deprived of its interior truth because it is artificially deprived of its procreative capacity, ceases also to be an act of love.
Code: 
It can be said that in the case of an artificial separation of these two aspects, a real bodily union is carried out in the conjugal act, but it does not correspond to the interior truth and to the dignity of personal communion-communion of persons. This communion demands that the language of the body be expressed reciprocally in the integral truth of its meaning. ..."
~ Bl. Pope John Paul II General Audience, August 22, 1984
 
Now what I just argued above…and what Msgr Burke says in his article…and what other orthodox theologian write…is based on the reality that marriage is both unitive and procreative. Each marital act is to have both aspects of these meanings in its meaning. Hence I argue that to contracept is to deprive that act of its marital meaning …it is an act contrary to love.

Bl. Pope John Paul II noted in an Audience

" In the conjugal act it is not licit to separate the unitive aspect from the procreative aspect, because both the one and the other pertain to the intimate truth of the conjugal act. The one is activated together with the other and in a certain sense the one by means of the other. Therefore, in such a case the conjugal act, deprived of its interior truth because it is artificially deprived of its procreative capacity, ceases also to be an act of love.
Code: 
It can be said that in the case of an artificial separation of these two aspects, a real bodily union is carried out in the conjugal act, but it does not correspond to the interior truth and to the dignity of personal communion-communion of persons. This communion demands that the language of the body be expressed reciprocally in the integral truth of its meaning. ..."
~ Bl. Pope John Paul II General Audience, August 22, 1984
 
Good_Daughter said:
From my experience, NFP feels better than contraception because it is heartbreaking to sit in a pew at Mass and watch others receive Jesus in the Eucharist knowing that you can’t.

I don’t know how Catholics who are content to contracept stay away from the Eucharist without a profound feeling of loss.
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Easy, because they aren’t abstaining from the Eucharist, they are receiving happily and in overwhelming numbers at that. Like it or not…🤷
 
Blacksword said:
Easy, because they aren’t abstaining from the Eucharist, they are receiving happily and in overwhelming numbers at that. Like it or not…🤷
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Yeah, I was gonna say I don’t abstain from the Eucharist because I don’t believe that what I am doing it wrong. If I did, I wouldn’t be doing it.
 
“Presenting oneself to receive Holy Communion should be a conscious decision, based on a reasoned judgment regarding one’s worthiness to do so, according to the Church’s objective criteria, asking such questions as: “Am I in full communion with the Catholic Church? Am I guilty of grave sin? Have I incurred a penalty (e.g. excommunication, interdict) that forbids me to receive Holy Communion? Have I prepared myself by fasting for at least an hour?” The practice of indiscriminately presenting oneself to receive Holy Communion, merely as a consequence of being present at Mass, is an abuse that must be corrected (cf. Instruction “Redemptionis Sacramentum,” nos. 81, 83)…”

(From a memorandum by Cardinal Ratzinger made public in the first week of July 2004.)
 
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