Recently I have received a couple of heart-wrenching letters from married men whose wives are suffering from severe medical maladies that make further child-bearing truly life-threatening. These conditions obscure the signs of fertility and thus make NFP impossible to practice (I have recommended expert advice on these matters). Home life becomes increasingly unpleasant due to the stress of anxiety about pregnancy and/or the deprivations of abstinence. These individuals have previously embraced enthusiastically the truth of Humanae Vitae and even witnessed of its truth to others, but find that their current circumstances have made them reconsider: they think their situations permit use of contraceptives or even “temporary sterilizations.”
My response to one of them included the following: “I am not married and thus cannot personally attest to the difficulties of very prolonged abstinence within marriage though you and others have convinced me it must be very difficult indeed. I can, though, attest to the difficulty of a life without a spouse, with no sexual intercourse at all and perhaps even more difficult – no constant intimate companionship, no shared life. I do not mean to say my life is miserable – it is not; indeed, generally, it is quite satisfying and sometimes even spectacularly wonderful, but it lacks elements that are extremely appealing, the absence of which I can experience intensely (but as long as I am doing God’s will, what does it matter how happy I think I am?). From testimonies of a friend who suffers from a homosexual orientation and who is trying to lead a chaste life, I think that individuals such as he have perhaps the hardest time of all. You have the prospect of sexual relations at least at some time of the month (it would seem that no matter how irregular your wife’s cycles or unreliable her signs, there must be a period at least at the end of the cycle that would be reliably infertile) or in the future, when your wife is postmenopausal. My homosexual friend has no prospects ever unless he undergoes a reversal of his desires and until then and perhaps always, he must struggle with being “different” and even being a suspect guest in the homes of his friends with children.”
“Being a faithful Christian, striving to attain holiness, often, if not always, entails a great cross. That may explain why so many of those wanting to be radically faithful are faced with situations that greatly test their faithfulness. Those of us who are called to call others to lives of what they perceive to be heroic virtue (marriage without contraception, for instance) are likely to be asked ourselves to live lives of true heroic virtue (marriage with a great deal of abstinence). We need to walk the walk, as they say, and not just talk the talk.”
It is never easy to walk a mile in another’s shoes; it is very difficult for the single to understand the challenges of the married, for the married to understand the challenges of the consecrated life, of heterosexuals to understand the challenges of struggling with a homosexual orientation. Thus we should be wary of excusing ourselves when our vocations get difficult and of being more demanding of others than we are of ourselves. Unless we are uncompromisingly faithful to the demands of our vocations it is hypocritical and illogical for us to demand that others, who have some condition or are in some situation that makes marriage impossible, be faithful when they must forgo sexual intercourse, marriage or other goods so satisfying to the human person.
