Archive for the ‘Theology of the Body’ Category

Natural Family Planning: Find a Priest and Become an NFP Teacher

Sunday, October 7th, 2012

There are couples who want to help others in their Church.  There are also priests who desire to help couples follow Church teaching on love, marriage and sexuality.  These priests who desire the right kind of natural family planning (NFP) instruction for their engaged and married couples might consider making the NFPI course required for their engaged couples preparing for marriage.

Some folks believe that you should not teach the engaged anything about NFP.  But where else will they learn about spacing their babies naturally through eco-breastfeeding?  This is part of God’s plan which involves little instruction and no abstinence.  Where do they learn about being generous in having children?  Where do they learn about the covenant theology of marriage (a way to teach the theology of the body that the couple can easily remember)?

Try to find a priest who wants to make a good NFP course a normal requirement for his engaged couples and become an NFP teaching couple.  Unfortunately, if your priest does not make the course required, then you will probably have no one to teach. Church bulletin announcements rarely bring in anyone to your classes.  The teacher training is free and can be done online.

For more information about becoming an NFPI teacher, contact NFPI.

For learning the method well, read carefully Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach—doing the work as you progress—or take the online home study course.

This is a vitally important ministry.  To learn why, watch this video.

Sheila Kippley
Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding: The Frequency Factor

Theology of the Body easily explained

Friday, July 29th, 2011

In his Letter to Families from Pope John Paul II, published in February 1994, almost 10 years after the last TOB lecture, “Responsible Fatherhood and Motherhood,” the Pope wrote:

“In the conjugal act, husband and wife are called to confirm in a responsible way the mutual gift of self which they have made to each other in the marriage covenant.  The logic of the total gift of self to the other involves a potential openness to procreation: in this way the marriage is called to even greater fulfillment as a family.” (emphasis his, n.12, “Responsible Fatherhood and Motherhood.”)

When I read this some 15 years ago, I was delighted.  Since well before Humanae Vitae I have been advocating the covenant theology of sexuality as an understandable way to explain and defend the received teaching affirmed by that encyclical.  The key idea can be stated in 17 words:  “Sexual intercourse is intended by God to be at least implicitly a renewal of the marriage covenant.”  It seems to me that the Pope was saying essentially the same thing.  Obviously, the concept that the marriage act ought to be renewal of the marriage covenant lends itself to considerable expansion about what is actually entailed in that covenant—such as fidelity, permanence, and not only basic openness to life but a call to generosity, and the love so well described by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13.  I submit that in his 1994 teaching, Pope John Paul II gave us an authoritative and summary interpretation of his Theology of the Body.

I understand the “renewal of the marriage covenant” concept to mean that anticipation of the marriage act ideally would focus attention on the marriage covenant.  For example, it might elicit an examination of conscience such as “Is there anything in my behavior to my spouse today or during the last week that reflects the self-giving love I promised on our wedding day?  Have I taken my spouse for granted?  Have I done anything that my spouse would recognize as caring love?  Etc.”  That’s the ideal.  More practically, “Have I done anything that contradicts our marriage covenant?”  By the way, the words “at least implicitly” are very important.  The spouses do not have to be thinking in these terms.  If the spouses have not done anything to contradict the marriage covenant, such as contraceptive behaviors, they are at least implicitly renewing it.

While the culture places almost exclusive emphasis on copulation under any circumstances—with mutual consent as the only proviso, the “renewal of the marriage covenant” places the emphasis on the marriage covenant and the meaning and the challenge it offers from the wedding day till death parts the spouses.  I think that’s exactly what the Pope was saying in 1994.  At the least, it offers educators the opportunity to teach these things in a way that can be easily understood and remembered.

For more information on the covenant theology of sexuality, read Sex and the Marriage Covenant.

John F. Kippley

Eco-Breastfeeding and Theology of the Body

Sunday, September 19th, 2010

A mother writes:  I read Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood about a year ago and it brought so much peace as it reaffirmed my beliefs about the importance of this bond. Lately I have been trying to research my vocation as wife and mother so that I can cooperate fully with God in my vocation.
I have been saddened by books by good Catholic authors, but they seem to be folks who have children sleeping through the night soon after birth, a modern common parenting theme. This seemed to influence their parenting advice which I didn’t feel fully comfortable with. In my continued research regarding my vocation I was excited to come across works on Theology of the Body and felt this should also be explored with regards to breastfeeding.
I began to read some articles on this theology and ran across a stumbling block that caused me to research more. But after tears and frantic research, I pulled out Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood again and here Sheila so eloquently put into words all that God had led my heart to in my search to resolve this issue. And it seems to boil down to this: that an interpretation of the Theology of the Body which is not applied to Ecological Breastfeeding is certainly incomplete.

Sheila Kippley
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood