USCCB's NFP Awareness Poster 2010
[Update: as was pointed out in the comments section, NFP Awareness Week this year has changed to begin July 25th, rather than culminate on the anniversary of Humanae Vitae's release. Take note! You have time!!!]
No pun intended on the title! 
How did your NFP Awareness Week begin this weekend? Did your parishes get something going? Posters? Bulletin articles? What’s happening in your area? Or perhaps, what’s not happening in your area?
I had a panic attack last weekend when I realized NFP Awareness Week was coming up and I knew it was completely off my pastor’s radar. To make things more difficult, he’d just left for a trip abroad, so the possibility of getting approval for my ideas was slim. Uggh. I still shot off an email with a bullet point list of ideas. The day after I sent it, I was inundated at work, and never got/ made the time to do any of my things. There’s still time for some of them, I suppose, but Sunday is really the launching point for the week. Here’s my list of things I wanted to do/ advocate:
- Order or print out a couple NFP Awareness Week Posters–theme this year: “Trust: God has a plan for your marriage”
- Have Prayers of the Faithful taken from the USCCB’s suggested prayers for this week
- A mention in the homily about trusting God and how this relates to our family choices and openness to children
- Have some catchy brochures available in the vestibule–I can just print ones posted online
- Include a bulletin insert (such as the one here) in the bulletin
- Have a bulletin article telling people that I can help answer questions about NFP and family planning.
On a positive note, I was happy to find out that we have four NFP Instructors in the Diocese of Cheyenne (the entire state), when I wasn’t expecting to have more than one or two. One of them is even a Creighton Model Practitioner! So if you’re in Wyoming and looking for an NFP Instructor, shoot me an email!
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I don’t know about the beginning of the week or in my parish (been to mass abroad for the last few weeks), but we have a diocesan NFP Mass and potluck dinner at the co-cathedral with the Cardinal here in Houston this weekend.
A reporter from the Detroit Free Press attended a friend’s NFP class and wrote the article below. While the article is well-written, it seems the majority of the 200+ commenters just don’t get it. I’m about to add my own comment and join the discussion, and was wondering if maybe you all might want to leave a comment as well?
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20100719%2FNEWS05%2F7190355%2F1319%2FForget-contraceptives-go-natural-church-teaches&template=fullarticle
I didn’t realize it was this week. But we did have an article in the secular paper, an article in the church paper and a NFP conference for medical professionals and teachers to learn more
Missed you! My parish does NOTHING. It is sad. We have a FertilityCare center in our county with 11 FCPs. There was also nothing in the diocesan newspaper. sad. sad. sad.
Actually, NFP Awareness Week is NEXT week, July 25-31…so we all still have time to do something!
Thank you, Ann, for the correction. Can’t believe I didn’t know they changed it. Wonder why they changed it this year….Well, good news either way.
http://www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/nfp/myths.shtml
This has been the talk of the town around here. Many are surprised to hear that the early suffragettes were solidly pro-life and pro-family. By contrast, naive modern feminists failed to notice that the sexual revolution was pushed by those who wanted to objectify women. You’ll never see Hugh Hefner or Larry Flint come out against abortion or the pill.
At the other extreme, many of the post war generation of demasculated men have embraced an understanding of NFP that has nothing to do with them. Hopefully, we will come to a balanced position soon.
I learned SO much from this the last time I attended. You need to tell not only your catholic friends but your non catholic friends as well. God created all of our bodies the same regardless of religious affiliation.
This is NOT just for fertile couples. Pastors can benefit as can high school health teachers. I was surprised to learn how this knowledge has found a receptive audience among women who were sterilized as well as some open minded members of the LGBT communities that God is working through. Check out the Courage news in Oakland.
We had an awesome column in the paper this week for NFP Awareness Week (Growing in Grace: Our NFP Journey), and I’m really, REALLY hoping people read it, because it’s I think very moving and really inspiring to hear a testimony like that. Other than that, though, I don’t think I saw anything in our bulletin. But I wasn’t at Mass in our parish this week, so who knows — perhaps our pastor said something.
Info & links for National NFP week can be found here:
http://allhands-ondeck.blogspot.com/2010/07/national-natural-family-planning.html
The 42nd anniversary of Humanae Vitae (On Human Life), the prophetic encyclical of Paul VI which reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s opposition to artificial contraception:
http://allhands-ondeck.blogspot.com/2010/07/42nd-anniversary-of-humane-vitae.html
The emasculation of men is a phenomenon no one wants to talk about. Personally, I’d like to be a bug on the wall of an all men’s NFP conference.
Sadly, my diocese has done so little to promote this and contraception is never talked about as a sin. We were involved in this series and the precursor. I think there have been a lot of graces flowing from these conferences. For us it has also meant opening up to all the Church’s teaching on this matter.
When I heard this following lecture on Matrimony, the following papal quote on NFP hit like a 2×4 to the face.
http://tinyurl.com/NFPandGodsLove
“The mere fact that the couple do not offend the nature of the act and the couple would willingly accept and raise a child conceived despite precautions to avoid pregnancy, would not of itself be a sufficient guarantee of the right intention and unquestioned morality of periodic continence.”
I’ve gone round and round on this one. At times it seems easier to defend NFP on frivolous grounds than serious grounds. The latter makes it look like Russian Roulette-which was not the theologian’s intent, nor the pope’s.
I guess I’m just grateful that exposure to all of these experiences has renewed my desire to search for the truth and serve God in a way that pleases Him most. Best wishes for conferences such as these and all who find themselves on similar journeys.
A beautiful idea getting together like this and a ray of hope in an anti-Life world. Thanks so much for the sermon too. I hear a lot of good people talking on this subject but none of them quoting popes.
Thank you so much for “God’s Love and NFP”