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!

[The first couple paragraphs were written months ago, but quickly got sucked into the stresses of moving, new job, etc. So I'm back.]

If indolence was an achievement, my mantle would be crowded with the crowns, statuettes and medals of one who’s virtually made a career out of insecure resignation and incomplete projects.

This post is a sort of public examination of my writer’s conscience and apology for giving much less than I am able to. It took me a decade to realize–more than superficially–that I am smart. In all honesty (which is what humility is) I am really smart, and I have been given a suitcase full of talents and gifts on this little journey I’m on. But more or less for my whole life (there are a few exceptions), I’ve stashed my bag ‘o gifts under the bed where my will has been napping for decades.

I’ve always struggled with this sanguine tendency to be ultra passionate in the moment, which dies quickly once removed from the fire. Faced with a fabulous person, an interesting topic, or stimulating topic or conversation, I immerse myself. Then…..

Though I’ve been aware of this tension between my promise and my actual performance–I’ve labeled myself a consummate failure for years–it was really this past winter and spring (Lent in particular) when I finally read Lukewarmness: The Devil in Disguise, that I realized how seriously I’ve not lived my capacity for great things. Under the guise of forgiving myself for my humanity, I’ve ceded the struggle for holiness. This  simple but striking book about how little compromises in the everyday lead to calamity for the soul and the beneficiaries of our God-given gifts was a real cause for examination of conscience.

Now you may think I’m being too hard on myself, but that’s probably because you don’t know me extremely well. Despite my lukewarmness for the better part of five years, God’s used me to do some very cool things for his glory. However, that doesn’t mean I’ve been  as faithful to my interior life and hard-working as I could be, does it? No.

So, to my God I’ve apologized. To my past employers I apologize. To my friends and colleagues, I apologize. To all those who’ve invited me to write for them, I apologize for rarely or not delivering altogether. (Right Strat? Right, Joseph? Right Christina?) For the latter I am particularly contrite, because I’ve come to realize that not only do I love to write, but that I am called to write. I have a seed of artistry in me, which has been poorly sewn and stewarded for several years.

So, as I begin a new journey and challenge as small school administrator in rural Wyoming, pray that I will remember the gift within me, the call to cultivate it, and the imperative to persevere and to finish what I’ve begun. The Lord will bring to completion what He’s begun in me (Phil 1.6), and I only pray I can be faithful in the present moment, always moving forward.

1 John 4.4

Faithful blog readers and friends, thank you for your words and messages of encouragement in these last months of silence. Stay tuned for more….

(C) Guadalupe Shrine. Used with permission.

Here’s an oldie but goodie, a post on St. Gianna Molla, who’s feast is today! Happy feast day moms, doctors and more!

Meanwhile, keep me in your prayers, as I’m facilitating an entire Marriage Prep day, God’s Plan (which I’ve previously written about),  by myself in Fort Collins Saturday, April 25th. I’m looking forward to it!

March 19 is Father’s Day in Italy. Why March 19? Because it’s universally the feast of St. Joseph, patron of fathers. So, wish your beloved, your pastor ( a spiritual father) and men who are godfathers, mentor or work with youth (spiritual fathers) a happy father’s day, and send them this link to a previous entry on St. Joseph (includes a talk I’ve given).

(Note: It’s a solemnity in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church, so you can ease off your Lenten fast a little March 19!)

Other links:

• Catholic Culture on St. Joseph & his feast
• Scripture readings for the feast day
• Saints Online: St. Joseph
• About the swallows that return on St. Joseph’s Day

Remember to pray for fathers (spiritual and biological), people with Joseph as their namesake (Joseph, Josephines, & other Joseph-related names), workers, and especially for the underemployed (my husband and me!) and unemployed, seminarians, and also these, of which St. Joseph is also the patron:

Against doubt; against hesitation; Americas; Austria; Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; California; Belgium; Bohemia; bursars; cabinetmakers; Canada; Carinthia; carpenters; China; confectioners; craftsmen; Croatian people (in 1687 by decree of the Croatian parliament) dying people; emigrants; engineers; expectant mothers; families; Florence, Italy; happy death; holy death; house hunters; immigrants; interior souls; Korea; laborers; Diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin; Archdiocese of Louisville, Kentucky; Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire; Mexico; Diocese of Nashville, Tennessee; New France; New World; Oblates of Saint Joseph; people in doubt; people who fight Communism; Peru; pioneers; protection of the Church; Diocese of San Jose, California; diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota; social justice; Styria, Austria; travelers; Turin Italy; Tyrol Austria; unborn children Universal Church; Vatican II; Vietnam; Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston West Virginia; wheelwrights; workers.

I’ll be giving my version of Janet Smith’s “Contraception: Why Not” called “Family Planning: Thinking Outside the Pill” at the Denver Cathedral CLAY Group, April 11th at 7:45pm (after 6:30pm Mass) in the parish rectory basement.

The talk will cover contraception, its false promises, what the Church really teaches on marriage, family, fertility and family planning, and what what the deal is with Natural Family Planning (NFP).

Questions that will be addressed include:

• Contraception helps women and families? Why is the Church against helping ease family stress?
• What about overpopulation? Isn’t contraception helping this?
• Doesn’t contraception help prevent unwanted pregnancies and lower the abortion rate…isn’t the Church against abortion?
• I need the Pill for medical reasons. Isn’t that okay?
• NFP isn’t effective. If we really need to postpone a pregnancy, why would I even use NFP?
• I’m not Catholic. Isn’t NFP just a Catholic thing?

….and more!

Facebook invite is here.

Presenters include Janet Bettcher, a registered nurse and director of Natural Family Planning of St. Joseph County, and Rick Becker, a registered nurse and member of the nursing faculty at Bethel College.

For those wishing to continue learning the method, another session will be held March 25. To register, please call (574) 234 – 5411 or e-mail nfpstjoseph@catholic.org.

From the Messenger-Gazette in New Jersey:

“HILLSBOROUGH — St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church will host a Respect Life Celebration on Sunday, March 21, at 3 p.m.”

[This event]…”will be an afternoon of prayer, reflection and fellowship. Everyone is invited to share in two short Byzantine Catholic prayer services and to hear a presentation by Theresa Notare of the Natural Family Planning Program of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops….”

“Reservations are not required, but would be helpful for planning. For more information or to make reservations, call 908-725-0615.

The church is on Brooks Boulevard.”

Meaningful Volunteer is a volunteer placement organization currently operating in Uganda and Philippines. They place volunteers. They also teach the Standard Days Method of NFP as part of Project Lifecycle, their effort to provide family planning options in accord with the religious and ethical needs of the countries they serve. Yay, you’re thinking.

Well, except for the fact that they don’t really know that much about NPF, and evidently resent it.

They posted on the their Facebook & Twitter account Tuesday at link to an article about the Church in the Philippines, who’s been in a long, long fight against secularist pressures to mainline contraceptive methods into their country,

“Why Project Lifecycle is forced to used natural family planning methods and not modern methods like the pill and condoms.”

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t NFP a modern method? (We can have a discussion about the downfalls of SDM another time. Additionally, SDM is not the only method available in the Philippines.) Also, according to MV’s description of Project Lifecycle, this program was established to respect the regional religious and ethical preferences where they serve. Yet, this type of attitude flies in the face of the respect they supposedly trying to show.

So, if you could, please stop by MV’s Facebook page and/ or reply to their recent Tweet on this topic, letting them know that 1) NFP is a modern method and it’s amazing (your own words–whatever), and 2) Respect the countries they serve; Nobody’s forcing them to do anything–if they don’t want to teach SDM, let Project Lifecycle go. In order to comment on their FB page, you have to become a fan of MV (you can undo this later if you want), and if you want to reply to a Tweet, I believe you need to follow first. Small price to let them know.

Update: Here’s Meaningful Volunteer’s reply to me on Facebook (Please do jump in on FB if you disagree with this!):

oops. I stand corrected. SDM is obviously a modern method.

I would disagree that _natural family planing_ is a modern method though. People have been avoiding having babies by natural means ever since humankind got the whole “sperm + egg = babies” concept.

I would also wholeheartedly disagree with the link on njnfp.org that states natural family planning methods are 99% effective.

Why is it that people take about 10 seconds to look at something–not being as scientific as they claim they are–then decide that NFP is still what they incorrectly judge it to be? What really gets me is that they think SDM is more effective than NFP (Ovulation and Sympto-thermal).