Men and women considering marriage yearn for certain things. They want to be accepted unconditionally by each other. They want their marriage to be filled with love and happiness. They want a family. In short, they want their marriage to be a source of joy and fulfillment their whole life long. God’s plan for marriage, from the time He first created human beings as male and female, has always included all this and more.
What does the Church teach about married love?
Marriage is more than a civil contract; it is a lifelong covenant of love between a man and a woman. It is an intimate partnership in which husbands and wives learn to give and receive love unselfishly, and then teach their children to do so as well. Christian marriage in particular is a “great mystery,” a sign of the love between Christ and His Church (Eph 5:32). Married love is powerfully embodied in the spouses’ sexual relationship, when they most fully express what it means to become “one body” (Gn 2:24) or “one flesh” (Mk 10:8, Mt 19:6). The Church teaches that the sexual union of husband and wife is meant to express the full meaning of love, its power to bind a couple together and its openness to new life.
What does this have to do with contraception?
A husband and wife express their committed love not only with words, but with the language of their bodies. Married love differs from any other love in the world. By its nature, the love of husband and wife is so complete, so ordered to a lifetime of communion with God and each other, that it is open to creating a new human being they will love and care for together. Part of God’s gift to husband and wife is this ability in and through their love to cooperate with God’s creative power. Therefore, the mutual gift of fertility is an integral part of the bonding power of marital intercourse. That power to create a new life with God is at the heart of what spouses share with each other.
Suppressing fertility by using contraception or sterilization denies part of the inherent meaning of married sexuality and does harm to the couple’s unity. The total giving of oneself, body and soul, to one’s beloved is no time to say: “I give you everything I am– except ...” The Church’s teaching is not only about observing a rule, but about preserving that total, mutual gift of two persons in its integrity.
Are couples expected to leave their family size entirely to chance?
Certainly not. The Church teaches that a couple may generously decide to have a large family, or may for serious reasons choose not to have more children for the time being or even for an indefinite period (“Humanae Vitae,” 10).
What should a couple do if they have a good reason to avoid having a child?
A married couple can engage in marital intimacy during the naturally infertile times in a woman’s cycle, or after child-bearing years, without violating the meaning of marital intercourse in any way. This is the principle behind natural family planning. Natural methods of family planning involve fertility education that enables couples to cooperate with the body as God designed it.
What is natural family planning?
Natural family planning is a general name for the methods of family planning that are based on a woman’s menstrual cycle. A man is fertile throughout his life, while a woman is fertile for only a few days each cycle during the child-bearing years. Some believe that NFP involves using a calendar to predict the fertile time. That is not what NFP is today. A woman experiences clear, observable signs indicating when she is fertile and when she is infertile. Learning to observe and understand these signs is at the heart of education in natural family planning.
When a couple decides to postpone pregnancy, NFP can be very effective. NFP can also be very helpful for couples who desire to have a child because it identifies the time of ovulation. It is used by many fertility specialists for this purpose. Thus a couple can have marital relations at a time when they know that conception is most likely to take place.
Is there really a difference between using contraception and practicing natural family planning?
On the surface, there may seem to be little difference. But the end result is not the only thing that matters, and the way we get to that result may make an enormous moral difference. Some ways respect God’s gifts to us while others do not. Couples who have practiced natural family planning after using contraception have experienced a profound difference in the meaning of their sexual intimacy.
When couples use contraception, either physical or chemical, they suppress their fertility, asserting that they alone have ultimate control over this power to create a new human life. With NFP, spouses respect God’s design for life and love. They may choose to refrain from sexual union during the woman’s fertile time, doing nothing to destroy the love-giving or life-giving meaning that is present. This is the difference between choosing to falsify the full marital language of the body and choosing at certain times not to speak that language.
What has been the impact of contraception on society? On married couples?
Many would likely be surprised at how long all Christian churches agreed on this teaching against contraception. It was only in 1930 that some Protestant denominations began to reject this long-held position. Those opposed to this trend predicted an increase in premarital sex, adultery, acceptance of divorce and abortion. Later, in 1968, Pope Paul VI warned that the use of contraception would allow one spouse to treat the other more like an object than a person, and that in time governments would be tempted to impose laws limiting family size. Pope John Paul II called attention to the close association between contraception and abortion, noting that “the negative values inherent in the ‘contraceptive mentality’ ... are such that they in fact strengthen this temptation (to abortion) when an unwanted life is conceived” (“Evangelium Vitae,” 13).
These predictions have come true. Today we see a pandemic of sexually transmitted diseases, an enormous rise in cohabitation, one in three children born outside of marriage, and abortion used by many when contraception fails. A failure to respect married love’s power to help create new life has eroded respect for life and for the sanctity of marriage.
Conclusion
By using contraception, couples may think that they are avoiding problems or easing tensions, that they are exerting control over their lives. But the gift of being able to help create another person, a new human being with his or her own life, involves profound relationships. It affects our relationship with God, who created us complete with this powerful gift. It involves whether spouses will truly love and accept each other as they are, including their gift of fertility. Finally, it involves the way spouses will spontaneously accept their child as a gift from God and the fruit of their mutual love. Like all important relationships with other persons, it is not subject solely to our individual control. In the end, this gift is far richer and more rewarding than that.
The Church’s teaching on marital sexuality is an invitation for men and women – an invitation to let God be God, to receive the gift of God’s love and care, and to let this gift inform and transform us, so we may share that love with each other and with the world.
— Excerpted from the U.S. bishops’ 2006 statement “Married Love and the Gift of Life”
The music associated with the Christmas season has always maintained a special place in the Catholic Church and in the hearts of the faithful. There are many beloved sacred music works linked to this season, from G.F. Handel’s “Messiah” and Arcangelo Corelli’s “Christmas Concerto” to J.S. Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio.” One sacred Christmas Vespers text, however, seems to have captured the imagination of composers through the centuries more than any other: “O Magnum Mysterium.”
I was recently reminded of the beauty of this text prior to a Mass at St. Bartholomew Church in Sharpsville, Pa., when their phenomenal and holy priest, Father Matthew J. Strickenberger, was playing the work. As the title “O Great Mystery” suggests, the text describes the great mystery of the Nativity of Our Lord, lying in a manger with animals looking on, and closing with a reference to Our Blessed Lady whose virgin womb bore the Christ Child. While joyful, it is a reserved wonder and almost every composer – regardless of the century in which they lived – has set these words to music that illustrates the mysterious and sacred event.
The most famous is undoubtedly the motet by Tomás Luis de Victoria, a native of Ávila, Spain. His “O Magnum Mysterium,” written in 1572, dates from his employment in Rome as a Church musician. Three years later in the Eternal City, he was ordained a priest. In Victoria’s work, the listener is drawn into the significance of the role of Our Lady by the manner in which he sets “O beata Virgo” (“O blessed Virgin”). The phrase is preceded by two beats of silence immediately prior to enhance the syllabic text setting in homorhythmic texture, meaning there is one note per syllable with the voices sounding the words synchronously. These elements contribute to the textual clarity, to signify the importance of our Blessed Mother.
An example of a contemporary setting is by Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Dr. Jennifer Higdon. As the composer explained, her setting of “O Magnum Mysterium” resulted from her desire “to create a bit of mystery, which is why wine glasses are a part of the piece.” Like Victoria’s composition, the work is scored for a chorus of soprano, alto, tenor and bass voices, but with texts in both Latin and English complemented by two flutes, chimes and two crystal glasses. The contemporary harmonies are quite different than the Renaissance counterpoint of Victoria, yet the work maintains the beauteous, mysterious nature of the text. A superior recording of the work can be found on the 2005 album “All Is Bright” by the Handel and Haydn Society Chorus.
Father Christopher Bond, pastor of St. Lucien Parish in Spruce Pine and St. Bernadette Mission in Linville, reflects on the text of “O Magnum Mysterium”:
“I find within ‘O Magnum Mysterium’ (in its various haunting arrangements) an extremely simple approach to the birth of Our Lord. So often, we get caught up in the anxieties of Christmas preparations that we fail to slow down to the point of mere marvel that God would humble Himself to enter our world, take on human flesh, and redeem the human person through the blood of the cross. If lowly animals can put their worries on hold and stop to ponder the glorious mystery of the Incarnation, why can’t we?”
As the faithful prepare to celebrate the Christmas season in a simpler way this year, the numerous settings of “O Magnum Mysterium” – in particular, the Victoria and Higdon compositions – can foster quiet devotion in pondering the stillness combined with wonder that defined the very first Christmas.
— Christina L. Reitz, Ph.D., Special to the Catholic News Herald. Christina L. Reitz, Ph.D., is professor of music at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.
Listen to Tomás Luis de Victoria’s musical setting of “O magnum mysterium” performed by the Cambridge Singers:
‘O magnum mysterium’
O magnum mysterium,
et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,
iacentem in praesepio.
O beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt
portare Dominum Iesum Christum. Alleluia.
O great mystery,
and wonderful sacrament,
that beasts should see the newborn Lord,
lying in a manger.
O Blessed Virgin, in whose unblemished womb
was carried the Lord Jesus Christ. Alleluia!