When It’s Time to Switch NFP Methods

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BRIDGET BUSACKER

 

There’s a mentality within the “NFP world” that once you pick a method, you have to stick with it until you hit menopause. 

But, the reality is that your body changes, just as the seasons do, and what method works for you during your first years as a newlywed may not work as well postpartum. 

Of course, this isn’t to say that you will need to switch; ultimately, if you’re happy with your method and it’s working for you and your spouse, that’s what matters most! 

However, if you find you’re struggling or something just isn’t working, know that switching methods is a viable option. In fact, it is pretty common. 

But how do you determine whether your method of NFP is right for you?

Sit down with your spouse and talk about it

Ask yourselves what’s working and what’s not going so well in your charting journey together. Are there aspects of this particular method that are hard? Are certain protocols challenging and it’s just not working super well? Is it the technology you’re using and not so much the method itself? 

As an example, if you’re using a sympto-thermal method and it’s really hard to take your temperature at the exact same time every morning, instead of using an over-the-counter thermometer from your local drugstore, try investing in Tempdrop. You can wear it as you sleep and it monitors your temperature, so you don’t have to fumble with a thermometer at 6a (or whatever time it might be for you). 

Related: Three Methods of Natural Family Planning and How to Choose the One for You

Be sure to get granular in your questions with each other. There’s no shame if it’s hard to do a particular aspect of charting. Different methods exist for a reason, so it doesn’t mean that you’re failing at NFP. 

Talk to your practitioner

Once you’ve nailed down the issues and challenges of charting, make sure to reach out to your practitioner and have a conversation with them. Tell them your struggles, what’s working, what’s not, and let them help you process and find solutions. 

Most likely, this person will be able to speak more specifically to your struggles to help you determine changes you need to make within your practice or when it’s time to make a change. 

If you find that your practitioner is not understanding or isn’t listening to you, it’s time to break up and work with someone else. This can feel hard, but ultimately, this is about you and your health care journey!

Looking for a NFP practitioner? Check out these Catholic options. 

Switch to a new practitioner

If you need to make the hard call to switch practitioners, that’s okay, too! 

Sometimes, when a method is hard, it might mean you might need a new practitioner to help you navigate the challenges to find solutions. You want to be with someone you feel like you can be honest with and ask questions. You shouldn’t feel the need to apologize or not ask something because you’re uncertain of how they will react or judge you. This is a judgement-free zone! 

So, how do you switch practitioners? Be sure to reach out to either a designated email provided or a general email and explain your situation. You’ll be connected with someone within the organization that can help you find someone new to work with. It’s that easy - really!

It’s time to change methods

If you find that, even with a practitioner change, it’s still not getting any better and it’s just not working out for you, it’s time to make the method switch. 

This can feel daunting, but there are great resources available to help you find a different method that works better for you and your lifestyle! There’s no “one way” to practice NFP in your marriage, so there’s no need to feel ashamed or overwhelmed that you’re stuck. 

I recommended using Managing Your Fertility, a one-stop shop of NFP resources for women and couples that I designed out of my own personal frustrations with trying to compare and contrast available methods. This resource allows you to compare different methods and find one that works best for you based on commonly asked questions.

The practice of NFP can be challenging in and of itself (it’s the ultimate virtue builder!), so there’s no need to make it twice as hard by pushing your way through a method that really doesn’t fit your needs or your lifestyle. 

You need a method that allows you to feel confident in your tracking and makes you feel empowered. There’s nothing wrong with that! 

The challenges of NFP come with the seasons of marriage, so make sure the wrong method for you isn’t one of them. There are always options and great practitioners available to help you on your charting journey. You’ve got this!

About the Author: Bridget Busacker is founder of Managing Your Fertility, an online, one-stop shop of Natural Family Planning (NFP) resources for women and couples. She is on a mission to fuse the science of Fertility Awareness Based Methods (FABMs) and Theology of the Body (TOB) into the everyday practice of NFP. Bridget is passionate about women’s health and sex education that promotes the dignity of the human person by integrating a holistic approach to self-knowledge of the body.

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The Most Wonderful Time of the Year | Holiday Roundup

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With the start of the holiday season less than a week away, we at Spoken Bride want to help you fully and joyfully enter into this meaningful time of year. 

Here are our favorite pieces from the archives on liturgical living, Christmas weddings, creating traditions with your spouse, and more. 

Liturgical Living + Advent

Cooking Through the Liturgical Year | Liturgical Living ideas | Creating Advent traditions in your marriage and family | Creating Holiday Traditions as a Couple| Engagement as a “Little Advent” |A reflection on waiting and anticipation, and their surprising fruits during engagement | Waiting in Joyful Hope | Meditations on Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception, celebrated December 8 | Thoughts on embracing seasons of preparation. 

Relationship Health During the Holiday Season

5 Tips for balancing family, social events, and time as a couple during the holidays | How to Decide Whose Family to Visit for the Holidays| Distinctively Catholic ideas for celebrating the Christmas season with your beloved | How to avoid fights about money | Spiritual Tuneups for Couples | The Habit of Affirmation | How to Apologize

Hosting and Gift-Giving

5 Creative gift ideas for newlyweds | 4 Winter Hospitality Ideas | Editors Share their Strategies for Giving Gifts to their Spouses | Gifts, Prints, and Digital Downloads from the Spoken Bride Shop | Prayer Books for Brides | Stewardship in Marriage

Holiday Weddings

Maria and Patrick’s Rustic Christmastide Georgia Wedding | Sally Ann and Alex’s Wintery Texas Garden Wedding | Mary-Kate and Faris’ Emerald Christmastide Manor Wedding | Spoken Bride Features Editor Mariah Maza shares the story of her Christmas Octave wedding and tips for planning your own | Claire and Andrew’s blue and silver wedding in a Tennessee cathedral, celebrated on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception | Bridget and KC’s Christmas Octave wedding, filled with symbolism and intention and inspired by Pier Giorgio Frassati | Natasha and Tim’s Minnesota New Year’s wedding, centered on family and community--down to the bride’s vintage gown | Emily and Daniël’s Praise and Worship-filled Christmas season wedding | Christina and Kristian’s Austin wedding, with holiday colors and Christmas hymns | Genevieve and Dalton’s festive celebration at Rock ‘N Bowl | Caroline and Matt’s elegant cathedral wedding, rich with family heritage | Kaitlyn and John’s New Year’s wedding in blue, gold, and white | Becca and Phil’s Christmas picnic wedding

Join Our Team | Social Media Volunteer Team

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We are excited to announce we are expanding the Spoken Bride team! We’re eager to work with individuals who share in our passion for Catholic marriage, with an eye for beauty and a voice of authenticity.

Spoken Bride is seeking a team to manage our social media platforms; specifically, one volunteer each for Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram Stories, & our Instagram Feed. Applications are open through Monday, November 30.

Our ideal candidates are collaborative-minded servant leaders who desire to use social media as an avenue for relationship, community, and growth.

Above all, candidates should have a heart for Spoken Bride’s mission and for the sacrament of marriage. Experience with writing, digital marketing/PR, weddings, and/or theology is ideal.

Feeling called to apply? Find further information and an application form below.

Social Media Team: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram Stories, & Instagram Feed Managers

The Social Media Team will work closely with the Social Media Manager to design, compose, schedule, post, and engage with daily content on Spoken Bride’s social media platforms.

Each of these positions requests a one-year commitment and is on a volunteer basis.

We look forward to hearing from you! Thank you for considering sharing your gifts and experience with Spoken Bride, and be assured of our prayers.

Finding your Family's Mission

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CARISSA PLUTA

 

When we were newly married, a more seasoned couple offered us advice on creating a family mission statement. 

PHOTOGRAPHY: LAURA AND MATTHEW

PHOTOGRAPHY: LAURA AND MATTHEW

Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People writes: “A family mission statement is a combined, unified expression from all family members of what your family is all about — what it is you really want to do and be — and the principles you choose to govern your family life.”

We followed their advice, asked questions, spent some time in prayer, and carefully crafted a mission statement that we recall daily in our work and prayer even now four and a half years later. 

The effects of a family mission statement on our marriage and home life have been profound. 

Forming a family mission statement helped my husband and I sort out our priorities, make decisions, and see more clearly who God was calling us to be as a couple, as a family, and as Christians. 

It grounds us in our identities as a daughter and son of God, unites us, and orders our life toward heaven. 

Read more: How to Create, and  Live By, a Family Mission + Motto

We began the process of creating a family mission statement by asking ourselves several questions:

What are our strengths? 

Take some time to determine your gifts and talents, both as individuals and as a family. Maybe it's hospitality or maybe it's a heart for serving others in your community. 

God has given each of us qualities, talents, and virtues to build up His kingdom both in our homes and in the world. What has He blessed you with and how do you think He wants you to use them for His glory?

What do we value? 

Values are the principles that give our lives meaning and help us in making decisions. Make a list of the values that are at the core of your family. 

This isn’t the time to be idealistic. Focus on those values and principles that truly resonate and inspire every member of your family, not what you think you’re “supposed” to value.

How do we imagine our family in 10+ years?

A mission statement is meant to help you grow and succeed, but to do that you have to have your goals in mind when you write one. 

What does our home look like? What are our dreams? What are some adjectives we would like people to use to describe us and our home? What kind of relationships do we want to have with one another?

Discuss how you might cultivate the soil now for those hopes to flourish in the future.

It’s never too late (or too early) to write your own mission statement and it even makes a great date night activity. 

Surrender the notion that the first draft has to be perfect; just like your family will grow and change over the years, so too can your mission statement.

Answering these questions can help you come to a better understanding of who you are and who God made you to be, and writing a family mission statement can give you the tools to get there.

About the Author: Carissa Pluta is Spoken Bride’s Associate Editor. She is the author of the blog The Myth Retold. Read more

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Is NFP Just "Catholic Birth Control?"

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BRIDGET BUSACKER

 

Is Natural Family Planning (NFP) just “Catholic Birth Control?” 

The Church’s teaching on the use of Natural Family Planning and the distinction between it and the various forms of contraception can be difficult to understand.  I myself have struggled to find a concise way of explaining it.

This article will break down the differences between them and provide you some resources to help you learn more.

What’s NFP again?

NFP is the terminology used by the Roman Catholic Church to embrace the teachings on Theology of the Body and the application of fertility awareness based methodology.

The Catholic Church embraces - and encourages couples to embrace - the integration of faith and science in their marriage. She supports women understanding their bodies for greater self-awareness, which leads to greater self-control. Not birth control.

Read more: NFP: What It Is, How It Works, and Why it is a Blessing to Married Couples

A virtue builder

Let’s not pretend that NFP isn’t hard. Sometimes, as in the case of abstinence, it can be downright painful. But, this is where the spiritual reality of NFP must be paired with the physical reality of charting. 

Fertility awareness is an amazing tool for a woman and/or couple to utilize in order to better understand and respect the female physiology. By choosing to practice Natural Family Planning and discern family life together, you challenge the cultural narrative (dating back to the Fall of Adam and Eve) of treating individuals as objects rather than persons. 

When we actively practice NFP in marriage, we seek to love the other beyond ourselves, our own desires, and even our wounds because in doing so we choose to deny ourselves for the sake of the other. 

We tend to glorify the sacrificial, brooding love in young lovers, but we despairingly laugh when this type of sacrificial love is practiced in true, sometimes awkward, intimacy in marriage. 

NFP challenges a husband and wife to love each other in creative ways and navigate difficult seasons of abstinence. It allows sex to be truly unitive and couples to have a love that is free, total, faithful, and fruitful.

We have to be willing to re-integrate a worldview of virtue back into our bedrooms.

This can be hard when a common American lifestyle prioritizes the global good over the local good, and preaches a gospel of personal sacrifice to gods of degeneration: money, food, pleasure. 

But ours is a God of “generation,” that is, of life.

The practical aspects of NFP

NFP challenges married couples to discern and have important conversations about family life and the intention of achieving pregnancy.

Hormonal contraception presents an unnatural and frankly, offensive approach to the female physiology by shutting down a healthy, functioning system. These synthetic hormones create withdrawal bleeds in women (no, it’s not a real period) and can cause a host of other health problems.

But, what about a condom? There are no hormones messing the system up and it’s responsible, right?

According to the Catholic Church and our understanding of sacrificial love, no, it’s not. It’s a bandaid solution to a deeper reality: our fear of sacrifice to love fully.

The use of contraception (both hormonal and barrier methods) may seem like an easier solution, but would it point us to the deeper reality of a free, total, faithful, fruitful love? Would it help us become saints? Of course not!

Something that contraception doesn’t allow for: conception.

The beauty of NFP is its ability to not only avoid pregnancy as needed, but to also achieve pregnancy with a holistic approach to and respect of a woman’s body in its entirety. It’s welcoming the man and woman’s bodies into the marriage fully, without muzzling any part of them. That is full love.

I don’t know about you, but the fact that my husband doesn’t ask me to shut down part of myself makes me feel fully loved and respected as a woman.

NFP integrates new life (either potential or actual) and existing life, that of two loving spouses. Contraception sterilizes the act, dislocating the life-giving nature of sex.

A love that is procreative & unitive

NFP is not “Catholic birth control” because it embraces the Catholic Church’s teaching that sex is intended to be both procreative and unitive. 

This doesn’t mean that you are supposed to try to conceive every time you have sex; instead, it means that you must discern your family life together as a couple, through embracing the woman’s reproductive system and her fertility. 

The woman’s body is designed by our Creator with times of fertility and infertility, just as in the Creation account, God both worked and rested. 

“In [fertility awareness] the married couple rightly use a faculty provided them by nature. In [birth control] they obstruct the natural development of the generative process.”

If you discern that you need to avoid pregnancy for a season (refer to Humane Vitae in the additional reading list below for a framework of discernment), then you abstain from sex during the fertile period of the woman’s cycle. In doing so, you are not taking away one of two integral aspects of sex. 

This is a difficult teaching, but only a fool would argue that virtue should be avoided because it is difficult. 

This is a bold and radical way of living; you are invited to surrender and trust the Lord in a new (and sometimes difficult) way. By choosing to practice NFP, you choose to fully embrace your spouse, your fertility, and the plan God has for your life.


Additional reading:

Humanae Vitae by Pope Paul VI

Why NFP is not Contraception by the USCCB

Why I don’t refer to Fertility Awareness as Contraception by Emily Frase

Natural Family Planning and the Myth of Catholic Contraception by Michael Wee


If you liked this article, we hope you enjoy this episode of the Spoken Bride podcast featuring Bridget Busacker.

About the Author: Bridget Busacker is a public health communications professional and founder of Managing Your Fertility, a one-stop shop for NFP/FABM resources for women and couples. She is married to her wonderful husband, David, and together they have a sweet daughter.

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Using NFP Won't Just Affect You

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GENEVIEVE ALLEN

 

Most married couples who use Natural Family Planning will tell you that it can be difficult. For some, this is an understatement. 

However, we know that NFP can improve marriages by allowing couples to grow together in the holiness that comes with sacrifice.

When you make the choice to use NFP in your marriage, it often feels like a decision that will impact you and your spouse- and only you and your spouse. 

While it is true that natural family planning is an intimate act of intentional submission to the will of God for your family, the effects of this submission can affect not only your family, but the world.

The obvious evidence of this is, of course, children. Accepting children is the “supreme gift” of marriage, and the creation of new souls should not be taken lightly. 

Spouses should discern the planning of this gift through an open and ongoing conversation with God, but ultimately, NFP is about more than just the nuclear or even the extended family.

Consider the conversations that many of us have had with coworkers or friends who are not Catholic. When the subject of family planning arises, how do we respond? Certainly, it is our right to decline to talk about intimate topics which might make us uncomfortable. 

However, if you feel called to speak, think about what a witness you might be if you talk about NFP in an honest and loving way. 

So many women are now looking for more natural alternatives to the pill and other forms of contraception- maybe you could be the first person who has ever mentioned a healthier alternative. In a world where you can buy “natural” ketchup, these alternatives should be appealing to many.

Don’t be afraid to be honest- if you tried several methods and found one that works best for you, say that! That is a common experience for most women, regardless of whether they use NFP or not. 

Since many people still associate NFP with the rhythm method, speaking about the advances in our understanding of reproductive health can help to spread the word about this option for all women.

Another context in which you might be able to educate others about NFP is when you speak with your doctor or midwife. 

Many care providers are extensively trained in the different options available for contraception, and it’s part of their job to be able to provide evidence-based information to patients. However, those of us who use NFP often find that there is a knowledge deficit surrounding the use of fertility-awareness methods. 

This is a huge problem for all women, not just for Catholics. NaPro Technology has been useful for many couples who struggle with fertility issues but who wish to treat the cause, not just the symptoms.

Imagine if all providers were aware of this technology and knew how to refer their patients. Imagine if they learned it themselves! There would be better access to this care for all women. Don’t be afraid to ask questions of your doctors and nurses and to provide information to them as needed.

If you actively use but hate NFP, I’m still talking to you. You don’t have to keep silent, and in fact, you shouldn’t. 


Hearing about some of the difficulties that come along with using natural methods can help other married couples to not feel alone in their struggles. In particular, if there is an aspect of NFP that you struggle with that is related to confusion about a specific method or frustration regarding fertility options, speak up! This can call attention to areas that need further research or support. 

Speaking with your priest, bishop or others in your diocese who encounter families using NFP can also demonstrate that more resources are needed.

Discussing methods of natural family planning and fertility awareness is so important, not only in your own marriage, but for our society. So much of what we see in the media, hear at work, and even have internalized in ourselves is not consistent with what Catholics believe about sex, marriage, and family. 

Talk about NFP with your friends, married or single. Talk about it with your family, your coworkers, and your doctors. Talk about when you begin to date someone seriously. Keep talking about it with your spouse. 

Our conversations can create real change in our world.

About the Author: Genevieve currently practices as a lactation consultant and blogs with her sister Kat Finney for The Sister Post, a blog offering two perspectives on everything from spiritual discernment to baby gear. Genevieve and her husband Dalton began dating on the feast of St. Joseph. They have two children.

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Join Our Team | Newsletter Manager & Shop Manager

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We are excited to announce we are expanding the Spoken Bride team! We’re eager to work with individuals who share in our passion for Catholic marriage, with an eye for beauty and a voice of authenticity.

Spoken Bride is seeking a Shop Manager and Newsletter Manager and is accepting applications through October 23.

Our ideal candidates are collaborative-minded servant leaders with original, creative takes on Catholic wedding-related content and an eye for growing and expanding Spoken Bride’s ministry. 

Above all, candidates should have a heart for Spoken Bride’s mission and for the sacrament of marriage. Experience with writing, digital marketing/PR, weddings, and/or theology is ideal.

Feeling called to apply? Find information and application forms for each position below.

KATEMAXSTOCK – 6298.jpg

Newsletter Manager

The Newsletter Manager will work closely with the Business Director and Editor in Chief to design, compose, schedule, and send a bimonthly newsletter to Spoken Bride’s email subscribers, offering exclusive content and promoting products and events.

Shop Manager

The Shop Manager will oversee the Spoken Bride Shop by maintaining and updating product listings and providing customer service. This individual will work closely with Spoken Bride’s Business Director to share analytics and employ effective strategies for increased sales and growth.

Each of these positions requests a one-year commitment and is compensated.

We look forward to hearing from you! Thank you for considering sharing your gifts and experience with Spoken Bride, and be assured of our prayers.

Eucharistic Adoration: The Best Marriage Prep

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KATHERINE FINNEY

 

When I was in college, I took a class called Christian Marriage. There are many nuggets of truth I still remember from that class, almost nine years after I took it, and one of those is the reality that marriage preparation begins way before engagement.

PHOTOGRAPHY: MEL WATSON PHOTOGRAPHY

PHOTOGRAPHY: MEL WATSON PHOTOGRAPHY

This is not a really novel idea. In fact, even if you’ve never heard this statement before, you could probably understand why and how it can be true. Marriage preparation begins as early as (and even earlier than) infancy. 

From the beginning of our lives, we are given opportunities to accept and understand our vocation to holiness. Our parents or the people who raise us teach us what love is (and often, what love is not). Our surroundings and the people we know all contribute to our preparation for our vocations to single, married, religious, or ordained life (and ultimately to our greatest vocation of holiness and unity with God in heaven). 

That is why I’m suggesting that all of us, particularly those of us who are single and discerning our vocations on earth, do our best to make Eucharistic adoration the foundation of our everyday lives.

Here’s what I’m thinking--if our surroundings and our actions leading up to our vocation to marriage all contribute to our marriage preparation, it would only make sense to make Eucharistic adoration the center of all of it. 

We certainly can (and probably should) try to educate ourselves on the theology and philosophy behind Christian marriage. We should also do our best to really try to understand the challenges and blessings that arise in the life of a Christian married couple.

But ultimately, the one thing that will truly center us on our vocation to heaven is spending time with Jesus. 

If the Eucharist is really the source and summit of the Christian life, there is nothing that can prepare us better for our particular vocation to married life than spending time in the presence of the Eucharist. It’s that simple.

I don’t feel like I need to give you a lecture about why or how you should make time to spend with Jesus in the Eucharist (partially because I’m not always great at this, and partially because we’re still in the middle of a pandemic and many of us can’t even be near Jesus in the Eucharist), but what I can offer is my own experience. 

Eucharistic adoration has always been what has brought me back to a thriving relationship with God. 

When I was a freshman in high school, I experienced my first Eucharistic adoration, and the instant Jesus was brought onto the altar I knew my life was never going to be the same. 

When I was in college, if I was homesick or stressed, going to Jesus’ presence in the Eucharist always made me feel like I was home. It was the one place I could go to ease my anxiety. 

Almost every morning for the first year of my first job as a teacher, I stopped to pray in the Eucharistic chapel; I needed to start my day centered and feeling calm, so it was the perfect place to fill up for the day.

When I got engaged, it was in front of Jesus’s Eucharistic presence exposed in the monstrance. I think my husband knew that I’d want to make what would probably be the biggest decision of my life in front of Jesus.

It didn’t bother me that it seemed like a Catholic cliché to get engaged in adoration. It was just what my heart wanted and needed.

My husband and I decided that for the night of our wedding rehearsal, we would start the night off in Eucharistic adoration. Thankfully one of his best friends and groomsmen was a deacon at the time and was able to expose the Eucharist for us. 

All of our closest friends and family, the people who would be standing next to us on the altar on our wedding day, were there before the Lord that night. We prayed together and were all gathered with the intention of truly centering our hearts on the real reason for the love we were about to celebrate.

Our love for Jesus in the Eucharist has carried over into the way we live out our Sacrament of Marriage. 

It makes sense that the decisions we make and the surroundings we have growing up all play a part in our preparation for our earthly vocation. If Eucharistic adoration isn’t yet a part of your routine, I highly recommend that you make it a regular part of your life. 

Whether you’re single, married, discerning religious life, or confused about what is the right path for your future, spending time with Jesus and soaking in his presence will always be just what you need.

About the Author: Katherine (Schluter) Finney is proudly from New Orleans, Louisiana, currently living in Nashville, Tennessee while her husband Jonathan finishes fellowship training. She and Jonathan have two daughters, Miriam (3) and Joan (18 months). Kat taught high school religion for four years and has worked for Catholic high schools for six years. She currently stays at home with her two daughters, and she spends most of her time styling hamster play-doh hair and cooking some kind of creole dish for dinner.

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Turning to the Eucharist When Physical Intimacy is Complicated

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KIKI HAYDEN

 

If you, like me, are in a situation that doesn’t allow full sexual union with your spouse, you are not alone. You are worthy of love and fidelity, and your marriage is a beautiful icon of God’s graces. Through prayer, this cross can bring you and your beloved closer to Jesus and each other.

Whatever the reason for abstaining, and no matter how long the period of abstinence lasts, know this: your marriage is blessed—with or without sexual intercourse.

God provides graces through the sacrament of marriage, even when sexual intercourse isn’t an option or doesn’t work for some reason. The Catholic Church teaches us that sex is a gift from God, which means we are not entitled to it nor is it required of us. And the good news is that through prayer, God can provide all the graces of a physical sacrament even when the sacrament is not available to us. This is true of the Eucharist, and I strongly believe it is also true of sexual intercourse in marriage.

There are many reasons a couple may abstain from intercourse. The beautiful (and healthy!) practice of Natural Family Planning calls for couples to abstain periodically when they do not feel called to seek pregnancy. For some couples, the fertile window is narrow, but for women experiencing irregular menstruation due to difficulty ovulating, the fertile window may last a long time. Military couples are keenly aware of the trials of long term abstinence when one spouse is deployed far away. For some couples, attempts at sexual intercourse do not go as planned and must be left unfinished due to pain or physical limitations. 

Related: One wife’s testimony of fidelity and growth through extended abstinence

In such cases, the Lord calls us to be compassionate with our partners and ourselves. For couples suffering from sexual pain or dysfunction, this period of abstinence may last a long time and occasionally is indefinite. If you are in such a situation, don’t lose hope. The Lord still blesses your marriage abundantly.

Let’s pause to look at another act of physical intimacy: the Eucharist. Jesus allows us to eat His body and blood, soul and divinity. He gets stuck between our teeth. He travels throughout our body to literally nourish us with His own. What could be more intimate than this?

And yet God is not limited or defined by the sacraments. Not even the Eucharist.

There are, unfortunately, many reasons not to attend Mass: work schedules, sickness, lack of access, persecution. And most of us have experienced the absence of the physical sacrament of the Eucharist during the 2020 pandemic.

Does this separation from the Eucharist somehow invalidate our relationship with Jesus or deem it “un-sacramental”? Of course not. As with physical expression of our sexuality, the Eucharist is a gift, not a right. When we truly desire union with Jesus, He can overcome any obstacles to bring us the graces of the sacrament. He can even overcome the obstacle of abstinence itself.

An act of spiritual communion begins with an ardent desire to be united with Jesus. A favorite is this Prayer of Spiritual Communion written by Saint Alphonsus Liguori. Of course, anyone can say a prayer of spiritual communion using their own words. Pope Saint John Paul II wrote, “The practice of “spiritual communion”… has happily been established in the Church for centuries and [is] recommended by saints who were masters of the spiritual life.”

According to Saint Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologiae, III, “In another way one may eat Christ spiritually, as He is under the sacramental species, inasmuch as a man believes in Christ, while desiring to receive this sacrament; and this is not merely to eat Christ spiritually, but likewise to eat this sacrament.” Fr. Michael Gaitley sums up this teaching of Aquinas beautifully in his book Consoling the Heart of Jesus: “A person who fervently makes such a prayer of spiritual communion can receive the same grace as one who fervently receives Sacramental Communion!”

If God can overcome our abstinence from the Eucharist, He can also overcome our abstinence from sexual intercourse in marriage. Abstinence, even for extended periods of time, does not invalidate a marriage nor somehow “block” God from giving a couple the full graces of the sacrament.

I propose a new kind of prayer, modeled on the act of spiritual communion: the act of spiritual union.

This is a prayer for spouses in a time of abstinence, whether by choice or forced circumstance, whether briefly or for extended periods of time. Here is an example that my husband and I pray frequently:

“Lord, we believe You have called us into the vocation of marriage. Although we do not have access to physical intercourse right now, we trust in You. Please grant us the full graces and unity of marriage so our love for each other may bring us closer to Your Sacred Heart.”

This prayer may not take away the pain and longing spouses feel during a time of abstinence. But it can certainly bring a marriage closer to Jesus. And growing in faith together is a beautiful way to live out the vocation of marriage.

One last thought: if you and your beloved struggle sexually or are in a period of extended abstinence, remember that the Holy Family, the very model of marriage, was an abstinent relationship. The Virgin Mary and Joseph her Most Chaste Spouse can pray with you and for you.

About the Author: Kiki Hayden is a freelance writer and bilingual Speech Therapist living in Texas. She is a Byzantine Catholic. 

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It's Okay that NFP is Hard.

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BRIDGET BUSACKER

 

“It’s like the honeymoon phase, over and over again.”

But, what if it’s hard? What if the season feels unending and the sacrifice of Natural Family Planning (NFP) can feel like it’s pulling your marriage apart rather than together?

But, if it feels scary or intimidating, it’s okay. You’re not alone, physically or spiritually.

What does this mean? It means that there are providers to walk with you to help you learn a method and ask questions (or to switch if the method or individual you’re working with just isn’t a good fit).

It means there is support available through great therapists. It means that Jesus understands the ache, the pain, of giving and hurting and—ultimately—loving to the end.

When we sugarcoat NFP, we sugarcoat the cross. We miss the mark of its purpose and we forget the true nature of NFP. It is a tool meant to sanctify us. It’s not meant to make everything comfortable and easy because we are not made for comfort in this life, we are made for greatness to become saints and to shed ourselves of the vices we struggle with and the sins we commit.

We can’t do this only with our spouse. We need Christ at the center. When we practice NFP, Jesus must be at the center of our marriage, so that when the storms come and the hardships hit us, we not only find ways to lean into each other, we lean into Jesus - the One who knows suffering so deeply and knows what it means to suffer out of love, too.

Romans 12:1-2: “I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship. Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Our bodies are a living sacrifice of love to each other, to God, in the great mystery of sex and the “yes” we give when we are open to new life. NFP asks us not to be conformed to this age of birth control, but to the renewal of love as God intended it and created us for. It challenges us to live out a love of responsible parenthood, abstinence during the fertile phase, discernment, prayer, and asking God to be actively a part of your sex life.

These are not easy or light—these can sometimes feel like great burdens to carry, but remember that Christ took it upon Himself to carry your burdens, your ache, your hurt on his way to Calvary, ultimately being nailed to the Cross to make us new.

NFP is capable of making us new, encouraging us to grow in virtue, and challenging us to grow in love.

Not a romantic comedy kind of love that promotes quick flings, fast relationships, and cheap sex, but rather faithfulness, permanence, and abiding love physically and emotionally with your spouse.

So, when we say that NFP is easy or beautiful, it’s true; it can be. But, if you’re struggling or find it hard, that’s okay, too. It means your love is being refined and, although not fun or comfortable, you are being asked to participate in the greatness of real, deep love.

About the Author: Bridget Busacker is a public health communications professional and founder of Managing Your Fertility, a one-stop shop for NFP/FABM resources for women and couples. She is married to her wonderful husband, David, and together they have a sweet daughter.

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The Surprising Activities That Prepared Me for Marriage

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STEPHANIE CALIS

 

Vocation is truly a school of love.

My husband and I spent our engagement taking in a range of books and talks on marriage, determined to prepare for our life together with intention in purpose. To our surprise, though, so many activities seemingly unrelated to marriage prep revealed a new depth of our personalities and habits to one another, in a more tangible way than any book could teach.

As you anticipate your life together, don’t rule out the daily tasks and hobbies that can facilitate communication, problem-solving, and deeper knowledge of your beloved! Here, the activities that helped shape our married life.

Shopping for your future home

Even when you’re compatible at the deepest levels, most couples’ décor tastes aren’t identical--a fact that might not come to light until you’re preparing for your first home together. The day I brought home rose-colored hand towels I’d (impulsively, if I’m being honest) fallen in love with, my husband raised a wry eyebrow. They looked like something I’d have bought for the apartment I’d shared with female roommates before we were married, he said. 

Sometimes humility hurts, but he was right. Picking out items for your home--and more so, assembling them--is an exercise in compromise and honest discussion. But it’s exciting, too, to embrace opportunities to dream together about your future dwelling and the tangible items that will fill it.

Related: Explaining why you’ve chosen not to live together with an appeal to the heart.

Cooking

Are you and your beloved follow-the-recipe-exactly types, or more creative in the kitchen? Do you tend to stick with true-blue favorites or constantly seek out new meals to try? How do you feel about delegating specific tasks to one another?

Since our dating days, my husband and I have loved to cook together. Amid the many sweet memories, though, our time in the kitchen has uncovered the areas of my heart that are reluctant to give up control, encouraging me to grow in trust even through the mundane acts of chopping and measuring. I’ve come to realize--and still find myself constantly reminded--that another person’s manner of doing things differently than me is just that: different, not wrong or bad. 

Games

Competitiveness, risk-taking, reacting to success or disappointment...board games and sports have a way of revealing the subtleties of who we are. My husband and I are opposites in this area; as a majorly non-competitive person (I honestly don’t care much if I lose or win!), I enjoy seeing him pursue excellence and model healthy competition and sportsmanship to our children. During our engagement, when we’d play cards with his siblings nearly every weekend, being on the same team was hardly a more apt metaphor for our relationship--a time to strive together, appreciate one another’s skills, and be gracious and affirming with each other’s moves and strategies.

Related: Spoken Bride editors share the hobbies they (and their husbands) love

Planning your honeymoon

I wish I’d known this before marriage, but anticipating one another’s travel habits is something I’ve only recognized in hindsight. On our honeymoon and subsequent first trips together, my husband and I discovered our differing views on matters like how soon to be through security and settled before a flight, how to balance rest and sightseeing in our destination, how much spending was appropriate, and how much of our trip we wished to share on social media during and after. Discussing expectations ahead of time, we now know, sets us up for a harmonious time.

Related: Meet the couple whose intentional, prayer-filled engagement led to relationship coaching and a unique marriage ministry

 As I reflect back on these unexpected sources of preparation for marriage, I recognize my own littleness. Even years after engagement, I marvel at, struggle with, and grow with all the facets of who my husband is; purified, sanctified, and deeply known in all the details and acts that come together to make a shared life. It’s reassuring, and humbling, to know readiness doesn’t end at the altar: “Woman is given to man so that he can understand himself, and reciprocally man is given to woman for the same end. They are to mutually affirm each other’s humanity, awed by its dual richness.”

About the Author: Stephanie Calis is Spoken Bride's Editor in Chief and Co-Founder. She is the author of INVITED: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). Read more

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The Marriage Crucifix

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CARISSA PLUTA

 

The crucifix has long been a symbol of the sacrament of marriage, as it stands as the most perfect example of the sacrificial love and service husbands and wives are called to.

In fact, St. Augustine went so far as to describe the cross as a “marriage bed [in which Christ] united himself with [His bride, the Church].”

More and more Catholic couples, including my husband and I, have decided to remember this meaningful image by incorporating the Croatian wedding tradition of the “Marriage Crucifix” into their wedding ceremonies.

This centuries old tradition is linked back to a small town in Bosnia-Herzegovina called Siroki-Brijeg, which reportedly remains the only place in the world with a 0% divorce rate. 

What is their secret to lasting marriages? Making the cross of Christ the foundation of their marriage. 

When the couple approaches the altar the priest says: “You have found your cross. And it is a cross to be loved, to be carried, a cross not to be thrown away, but to be cherished." He then blesses the Crucifix. 

During the exchange of vows, the groom holds the crucifix in his right hand and the bride places her right hand on the top of the crucifix uniting their hands together.

The couple unites themselves on the Cross, and they recite their vows over this visceral image of Love Himself. 

Before they kiss one another, the couple first kisses the figure of Christ, the source of their love. 

This tradition is called the Marriage Crucifix, rather than the Wedding Crucifix because it was meant to remind the couple of the covenant they entered into, not only during the wedding but throughout the rest of their time on earth. 

My husband and I processed down the aisle after the ceremony with that crucifix in hand to begin our lives together and it now hangs in a central location in our home. 

Before it, we beg God to make our hearts more like His and to make our marriage a more clear reflection of His sacrificial, life-giving Love. 

While including this tradition in your wedding is not necessary to build your marriage on Christ, it can serve as a powerful reminder of the magnitude of God’s call to us in this vocation and the divine weight of our vows.

About the Author: Carissa Pluta is Spoken Bride’s Editor at Large. She is the author of the blog The Myth Retold. Read more

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Reflecting on Our Engaged Encounter Weekend, Five Years Later

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GENEVIEVE ALLEN

 

Recently, on a sunny pandemic afternoon, my husband Dalton and I pulled out our old workbooks from our Engaged Encounter weekend and read them in our backyard while our kids played outside. Five years before, we had written in these books, completely unaware of what marriage would actually look like in practice. It was sweet and sobering--and often hilarious--to read our responses to the prompts, as young and inexperienced as we were. 

PHOTOGRAPHY: FENIX PDE

PHOTOGRAPHY: FENIX PDE

To give you some context, our Engaged Encounter weekend took place over three days at a retreat house in Baton Rouge. There were cafeteria lunches, camp beds, and awkward conversations with fellow engaged couples. Three married couples and a priest presided over the activities. Most of the day was structured to be similar to a classroom-style setting, with our instructors telling us personal stories about different topics, such as budgeting, newlywed life, NFP and child-rearing. We would then have “breakout sessions” with our future spouses, in which we would discuss these topics on a personal level.

As you might imagine, the whole weekend was really designed to offer as much as we as a couple were willing to put into it. Dalton and I were earnest, writing extensively in our workbooks and often having conversations that produced tears--usually happy, occasionally frustrated or anxious.

I recommend this pre-cana weekend to anyone who is willing to really commit to using it as a tool to improve communication and trust prior to marriage. After reading through our workbooks again, some seemingly contradictory truths stuck out boldly to me:

You will change.

One thing that stood out to me is how young we seemed in our communication. The idealism oozed out of the pages as we confidently wrote about all of the things we expected marriage to be. There’s also no evidence in our past voices of the deep intimacy that comes with time. My responses were casual and flippant, often glossing over some of the real issues we finally came to discuss only after we were married. 

The kids who filled out those pages were mere outlines of the adults we are today. Who knows how we will change in the next 5, 10, 50 years from now? 

You won’t change.

Despite some of the superficial responses we gave back then, the raw material of our souls is written on those pages. There was a section to fill out about what we perceived to be our biggest flaws, and I was sorry to see, five years later, that mine remain the same.

There was also a section about what gifts we would bring to the marriage. Happily, Dalton and I have both developed a lot of these gifts, far beyond what we might have expected when we first discussed what they were. Dalton’s patience, for example, is seemingly boundless and somehow only increasing as we add more children to our family.

You get to decide.

One of the most fun aspects of the weekend is the time you spend discussing what your future family will look like. How will you celebrate holidays, develop traditions, raise children?

Dalton and I come from wonderful families, but there were a few things we decided we would like to do differently in our own. Like the founding fathers writing out our own Declaration of Independence, the joy and excitement of creating something new leaps off the pages of our workbooks. For example, we decided that we would prioritize family dinner time. We added a clause about occasionally calling an audible for a rare “treat night” where we would order takeout and watch a movie during dinner. We have consistently kept this law and this amendment to this day.

You won’t get to decide.

Our workbooks covered many of the important topics that a couple should discuss before marriage, but there are certain lessons that come only with time and experience. There are some things you won’t get to choose. 

Prior to our marriage, we had never discussed in any meaningful detail some of the most difficult parts of life, including our deepest fears and anxieties. In the five short years we have been married, we have encountered some of these together. When we said our vows at our wedding, the “worse” of “for better or for worse”--sickness, poverty, death--were all theoretical. Although we have no idea what is still to come in our lives and marriage, we still trust in the mercy and love of God--just like the naïve kids we used to be. 

About the Author: Genevieve currently practices as a lactation consultant and blogs with her sister Kat Finney for The Sister Post, a blog offering two perspectives on everything from spiritual discernment to baby gear. Genevieve and her husband Dalton began dating on the feast of St. Joseph. They have two children.

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Bringing God into Finances and Fertility

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BRIDGET BUSACKER

 

Finances can often be a source of frequent conversation and tension in marriage. When upholding marriage as free, total, faithful and fruitful, Catholic marriage—like Natural Family Planning (NFP)—requires an openness to the possibility of life.

We have to remember that, first and foremost, the Catholic Church’s teachings on marriage and family life are openness to life, not controlling life. NFP is a gift, a tool, to help couples learn and navigate the woman’s body when it comes to discerning family life.

PHOTOGRAPHY: DESIGNS BY JESSINA

PHOTOGRAPHY: DESIGNS BY JESSINA

In the context of costs, budgets and financial planning, anticipating the cost of a child can bring about a lot of fear. And frankly, the last thing you want to do in a moment of intimacy is think about money. 

If we purely live our married life out of worry and physical concern, then it is calculated and feels icky; we are not meant to live in the black-and-white of one reality. NFP requires us to live in the tension of our faith: both the physical and spiritual realities of our marriage. It is just as important to learn our marriage in its sacramentality as well as in its physical nature. 

On one end of the black-and-white spectrum, it is important to have all the finances associated with raising a child saved before beginning such an exhausting and financially treacherous journey. On the other end, it’s assumed that babies will come and you must be prepared to say yes to every fertile opportunity. Unlike these messages from the world, holy, Catholic marriages pursue the middle ground of these poles. 

Finances are an important topic for a couple to discuss because there are obvious realities: where to live, spending habits, mortgages, phone bills, diapers, etc. Without our faith, it can become very calculated and lacking in the bigger vision of our goal: Heaven. 

NFP requires conversation and discernment because there’s no way to skip the fertile phase each month. Avoiding sex during the fertile period of a woman’s cycle in order to avoid pregnancy requires prayerful discernment and conversation between husband and wife. This is much more challenging than using a form of physical birth control and talking about “what if” at a convenient time. We are challenged to remember that life is a gift and we have the opportunity to say “yes” to the adventure of raising a child and saying “yes” to generations. 

Planning and discernment are integral to the vocation to marriage; we can’t deny one or the other. Balance is much harder to strive for than simply picking one way to live. 

At its core, our life should be lived through our faith. Faith is the basis of our existence. It allows us to choose adventure when the world may tell us we’re foolish to live without fear of tomorrow. Christ promises to look out for us and take care of us, so while we are, in fact, called to be prudent and responsible, he fills the voids from our shortcomings. 

Living in the tension between the physical and the spiritual life requires us to prepare and use our finances, to be open to the gift of children, and, ultimately, to trust God in the integrated whole. 

There is an undeniable relationship between finances and fertility. A peace of heart and mind is achieved when finances and fertility are bound together with faith. 

God has a plan for you and he desires you to grow in relationship with him and your spouse. God will never give you something you can’t handle, including a child. It is a blessing to welcome life into the world. A blessing doesn’t mean there won’t be challenges or hardships, but it means that the gift outweighs the cost. 

Anything worth doing is worth fighting for.

There will be hard conversations and budgeting choices you have to make. There will be a learning curve as you begin to navigate NFP for the first time (or for the first time with a spouse). 

Building collaboration and intimacy in your marriage is a practice that, when offered to God, is affirmed with grace. Where there is struggle, there is growth; NFP certainly has its peaks and valleys, but it is worth it.

About the Author: Bridget Busacker is a public health communications professional and founder of Managing Your Fertility, a one-stop shop for NFP/FABM resources for women and couples. She is married to her wonderful husband, David, and together they have a sweet daughter.

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To the Bride Who Struggles with Porn

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CARISSA PLUTA

 
PHOTOGRAPHY: AN ENDLESS PURSUIT

PHOTOGRAPHY: AN ENDLESS PURSUIT

The voice of the lover in the Song of Songs is the voice of Christ, and He is calling out to you. You are His Beloved, and He wants to help you catch the little foxes that threaten the life within your blooming vineyard. 

Entering into the vocation of marriage with wounds inflicted by the sins of pornography and masturbation can fill the heart of a young bride with anxiety and uncertainty. 

Whether or not you are actively fighting for freedom in this area or can sense it lurking, waiting for an unsuspecting glimpse at the newest television show or one wrong page of a romance novel, one question remains: 

Will I ever be free?

And because pornography and masturbation are often only talked about as a problem faced by young men, many women struggling for freedom feel trapped and helpless by the pervasive feelings of shame and self-loathing. 

Personally, as a woman who struggles with this area of chastity, I began to see myself as less of a woman. As less beautiful, as less lovable. 

But remember the words above from the Lover of your soul. You, my dear friend, are not disgusting. You are not an abomination. You are not alone. 

You are not any less worthy of being called a Bride. 

Whenever I thought about getting married, I told myself that I could keep this sin hidden, that I’d never have to share that area of my life, my deepest brokenness, with my husband. 

Who could ever love that part of me? The question cried out in the darkest corners of my heart. Besides, I’d justify, wouldn’t the problem just go away when I married and sex was no longer “off limits?” (It doesn’t, in case you were wondering).

The devil thrives in darkness and secrets; he wants to keep you imprisoned behind the bars of fear and make you feel like you can never break free. The shame that accompanies these sins keeps you in this prison; only by bringing them to the light can healing be found.

Soon after I started dating my now husband, I knew I couldn’t keep my little secret forever. If I was going to marry this man, I didn’t want to hold anything back from him. I couldn’t.

If I was going to truly make myself a gift to my husband, I needed to give him all of me. 

Let your beloved hear your voice. Let him see your face. 

So, I went to confession and brought Jesus everything that I had held back from Him. I asked Him to untangle this knot in my life and to help me to see myself as a gift worth giving. I could feel my bonds loosening as I spoke my shame.

Then I poured my bruised heart into a letter and gave it to my then-boyfriend on my way to work so I wouldn’t have to watch our relationship crumble as fast as the mask I’d worn for far too long.

But it didn’t. He was still there when I got back, and before he said anything, he embraced me and for the first time, I knew he was seeing and embracing all of me.

Bringing this deep woundedness into the light was not the undoing of our relationship but rather, set the foundation for a marriage on Truth and Beauty, forgiveness and grace. 

If you are a bride or wife that struggles with pornography and masturbation, know that these sins, like the serpent in the Garden, directly attacks our feminine hearts and desire to love and to be loved, but they do not have to define our marriages or our role in this beautiful vocation. 

Healing is not only possible, but will give you a strength you didn’t know you could possess. God’s glory can shine from those wounds and illuminate your life and your marriage, helping you to make a full gift of yourself to both your husband and to God. 

Arise, my friend, my beautiful one, and come.

About the Author: Carissa Pluta is Spoken Bride’s Editor at Large. She is the author of the blog The Myth Retold. Read more

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Easing Bridal Shower Anxiety

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CARISSA PLUTA

 

The idea of a bridal shower can cause some anxiety in a bride-to-be.

Being the sole center of attention, especially while opening gifts, can feel uncomfortable and a little awkward. It’s normal to feel nervous.

Follow these tips to relieve some of the uneasiness and enjoy the day. 

Wear something beautiful

Or rather, wear something that makes you feel beautiful, comfortable, and confident. When you wear something you feel good in, it’s much easier to approach the day with a sense of calm and joy. 

Enlist help

If opening gifts in front of others truly gives you anxiety, ask if your fiancé (or a younger relative) can join you for this part of the shower. 

My husband’s family threw me a bridal shower in his hometown, and while I knew almost everyone invited, I didn’t feel as comfortable with them as I was with my own family and friends. Having my husband there to open the gifts with me eased my nervousness and made the process of opening gifts more enjoyable. 

Be gracious 

Expressing your thanks during the shower and after the event through thank-you cards can help cultivate gratitude which has been can help ease anxiety.

Some brides-to-be worry about having to “put on a show” every time they open a gift, but the thanks you give doesn’t have to be inauthentic or forced. 

If you can, try not to peek at your registry before the shower so you can enjoy a little moment of surprise when opening the gifts. 

Practice humility

The friends and family present at your bridal shower are there to shower you with love. They wanted to join in celebrating your upcoming marriage. Let them. 

It’s easy to give into the lies that tell you to feel guilty for people spending a whole afternoon focusing on you and giving you gifts. However, doing this prevents you from truly seeing yourself as God sees you--good, beautiful, and worthy of love.  

It is a great practice in humility to allow others to love you well and to be generous with you and your future husband.

About the Author: Carissa Pluta is Spoken Bride’s Editor at Large. She is the author of the blog The Myth Retold. Read more

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About Food: An Opportunity for Virtue and Hospitality

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MAGGIE STRICKLAND

 

Food plays an important role in our lives. Families gather at table for daily meals and family reunions; the Eucharist was initiated at the last supper and operates under the physical properties of bread and wine; similarly, for a wedding, the reception often plays significant social role and contributes to the bulk of the budget. Unfortunately for many brides, their relationship with food is in conflict. 

PHOTOGRAPHY: VISUAL GRACE

PHOTOGRAPHY: VISUAL GRACE

Despite the personal and social good that food brings, brides are often encouraged to take up strict diet and exercise regimes to look their “best” for their wedding day, and then provide a lavish feast at the reception for their guests, even when the bride and groom may or may not be able to sit down and eat. This was certainly the case when I was planning my wedding, and I believed much of this advice, especially about not eating during the reception. Although my parents helped us throw a wonderful event, I wish I had a healthier view of the event in the planning stages.

Much of this internal conflict comes when we misunderstand the importance of food and its proper role in our lives. When we see dessert as a reward, or a starvation diet as a fast way to lose weight, then we are acknowledging externally a disordered internal moral approach to the food we eat and, moreover to the way we view our bodies. When starvation is a means to losing weight, then we deprive ourselves of the nourishment we need, and when dessert is a reward, then we abandon discipline in the name of celebrating discipline. In extreme cases, these internal views of the body can yield eating disorders.

Emily Stimpson Chapman’s The Catholic Table: Finding Joy Where Food and Faith Meet addresses these issues head on. This short book--only 170 pages--looks at food and eating from a truly Catholic perspective. 

Chapman states in her introduction that “The Church, in her great wisdom, offers us a way to see the world that can restore the gift of food to its proper place. In her teachings on grace, the Eucharist, the virtues, fasting, hospitality, and the body, she charts a course for us quite different from the one the world urges us to follow” (xvii). The book includes Chapman’s own story of recovering from an eating disorder as well as profiles of saints, food film and Catholic cookbook recommendations, recipes, and quotes from saints and Catholic writers. 

The Catholic Table has been instrumental in helping me not only see how the food I eat fits in with my own pursuit of holiness, but also develop a healthy home culture for our children. For couples planning their wedding and reception, three themes stand out as especially insightful. 

Exercise and Control 

This Catholic view of the body and exercise makes it clear that it’s not wrong to pursue physical fitness, as long as you’re using exercise to care for your body and not to punish it. Chapman explains, “To control something isn’t to care for it. Control is about power. It’s about managing a problem. Caring, on the other hand, is about love. It sees to honor a good. Someone who seeks to control their body and someone who seeks to care for their body are doing two entirely different things. One is treating the body like a problem; the other is treating the body like a gift. One sees the body as a thing; the other sees the body as the person – as me, as you” (57).

“Eating and the Virtues” 

Chapter 9, titled “Table Lessons – Eating and the Virtues,” is a reminder that, rather than being “an opportunity for vice,” eating is “a daily invitation to flex our spiritual muscles and grow in justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude. It’s also a chance to demonstrate faith, hope, and charity” (110). Through this virtue-focused lens, the discussion unfolds to reveal ways to practically live out those virtues, rather than going to extremes--which leads to burnout and the formation of bad habits. What better time than engagement to work on developing those spiritual habits that you will need in married life?

For example, instead of eating clean or eliminating a food group, focus on eating with gratitude and in community with others. By shifting a focus away from the food and seeing food as a means to grow in virtue, we are invited to bring prayer and discernment into an ordinary daily task. Many couples strive to prepare for marriage by growing in virtue; making changes around meal times is a frequent opportunity to build virtuous habits and seek God every day.

Hosting and Hospitality 

No matter how many times you have hosted dinner parties or social gatherings, a wedding reception is a one-of-a-kind event to offer hospitality to loved ones. Too often we fall into the trap of thinking that a reception should look like a spread in a magazine in order to impress our guests, an event “meant to demonstrate to all who walk through our doors how perfectly fabulous we are” (130). This mindset misses the point of Christian hospitality: loving others and “giv[ing] people a foretaste of the supper to which we’re all invited: the marriage supper of the Lamb” (139). 

Just as your wedding Mass is an opportunity to show your guests the goodness of God, the reception can be another opportunity to show them how much they are loved and valued as a member of your community, even if your financial means are limited. If you offer what you have in love and a spirit of real hospitality, the impact will be more meaningful and longer-lasting than an Instagram post. 

About the Author: Maggie Strickland has loved reading and writing stories since her earliest memory. An English teacher by training and an avid reader by avocation, she now spends her days homemaking, chasing her toddler son, and reading during naptime. She and her husband are originally from the Carolinas, but now make their home in Birmingham, Alabama.

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The Three Methods of Natural Family Planning--and How to Choose the One for You

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BRIDGET BUSACKER

 

Exasperated, I looked at my fiance. We discussed NFP while dating and during engagement; we recognized the importance and the need for NFP in our marriage to help us grow in holiness. Although I had been charting for a few years and found great freedom in understanding my fertility and advocating for my health care needs, we didn’t realize there were so many different methods to choose from. 

We had scheduled a time to pick a Natural Family Planning (NFP) method during our engagement, but it was difficult to create a pros and cons list of each method and choose one to pursue as a couple. We thought that work had already been done, but here we were, 3 hours later, more frustrated than ever. 

It was through this experience that I founded Managing Your Fertility, an online, one-stop shop of NFP resources for women and couples.

PHOTOGRAPHY: HER WITNESS

PHOTOGRAPHY: HER WITNESS

I didn’t want women and couples to experience what we had gone through; I desire to help facilitate conversations, create pros and cons lists, and simplify picking a method to help women—and their spouses—learn your body, embrace your fertility, and confidently move forward in your marriage.

So, you might be reading this and nodding along, frustrated by a similar situation. Maybe you don’t quite understand the importance of NFP in married life. Or maybe you want to find a different method, but you’re intimidated by all the options.

It can feel daunting. This is the method you are choosing to help you prayerfully discern family planning and embracing new life! But, as my (now) husband and I learned, and are learning, the many options help us to live out different seasons of married life together—prayerfully, open, and discerning every month. 

Let’s start at the beginning and review the foundation of NFP, so you and your partner feel confident picking a method, and can embrace this teaching of the Catholic Church with great joy and confidence! 

What is Natural Family Planning (NFP)?

Natural Family Planning is the definition given by the Catholic Church that supports the teaching on human sexuality and science of tracking fertility. The Catholic Church does not support the use of contraception of any kind as a means to avoid pregnancy. Rather, the Catholic Church supports a holistic approach of the woman (and couple, working together) tracking her cycles and determining fertile and infertile times. If the couple has prayerfully discerned avoiding pregnancy, abstinence is practiced during fertile times.

In 1972, the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development and the Human Life Foundation co-sponsored an international conference for NFP. Experts from around the world were in attendance and it was at this conference that the definition was developed to encompass the three commonly used methods: hormonal-only, mucus-only, and sympto-thermal. Then, in 1976, the World Health Organization (WHO) provided an official definition: “the naturally occurring physiological manifestation of fertile and infertile phases of the menstrual cycle”.

The Catholic Church supports fertility awareness based methods (FABMs), which are a way to track fertile and infertile times during the reproductive cycle and based on daily observations, which fluctuate each cycle. During fertile times, abstinence is practiced to avoid pregnancy. 

You may hear the term Fertility Awareness Methods (FAMs) trending in news articles and social media, so it’s important to know that these methods also track fertile and infertile times and follow daily observations of the cycle, but the difference is that barrier methods are used during fertile periods. And the Catholic Church doesn’t condone the use of barrier methods during fertile times to avoid pregnancy.

How many methods are there?

Now that we have the foundation of NFP and the two different umbrella terms for various methods (FABMs and FAMs), it’s time to break down the methods available under FABMs that are safe, effective, and supported by the Catholic Church and science (these go hand-in-hand and work together)!

There are three different types of FABMs: hormonal-only, mucus-only, and sympto-thermal.

Hormonal-only method | Detects production of key fertility hormones with daily at-home urine tests with an electronic fertility monitor and cross checking it with daily cervical mucus observations.

Mucus-only method | Teaches users how to observe biomarkers during the phases of the menstrual cycle, specifically, through observing and charting changes in the color and consistency of cervical mucus.

Sympto-thermal method | Based on the observations of cervical fluid, basal body temperature (waking temperature) and biological signs (i.e. changes in the cervix).

Under each of these methods, there are various organizations and instructors available, so that you can pick a method that works best for you.

Which one should I choose?

It is a great fortune to have so many options available. Although it can seem stressful, a variety of methods means you can pick what works best for you based on your season of life and lifestyle.

If you are someone who thrives on a schedule and wakes up at the same time every morning, the sympto-thermal method may be a great option for you because it not only requires checking cervical mucus throughout the day, you have an additional checkpoint of taking your temperature at the same time every morning.

Maybe you are expecting a baby and you would like to track your fertility postpartum, but know that hormones are adjusting and your fertility may not come back for a few months, so hormonal-only is a great option. It checks hormone levels in your urine and uses an electronic fertility monitor, while cross-checking mucus to help you navigate those early months as a new mom and beyond.

Perhaps you want something simple and you want to track your cervical mucus, preferring to learn one thing at a time. Then, the mucus-only methods are the best option for you! Checking your cervical mucus is a part of each method and may be just what you need to get started.

Take your time to learn about each method and ask questions of practitioners, so you feel comfortable and confident with the method you choose to move forward in your marriage.

Wherever you and your partner may be in your journey together, I hope this encourages you and inspires you to know that the Catholic Church supports you in understanding your body, recognizing the beauty of your fertility, and relying on scientific research that supports a holistic approach to your health. This journey is not easy, but it is rewarding to put in the work and understand how incredible your body truly is!

For additional professional NFP support and coaching, Spoken Bride’s Vendor Guide includes several NFP Instructors.

If you liked this article, we hope you enjoy this episode of the Spoken Bride podcast featuring Bridget Busacker.

About the Author: Bridget Busacker is a public health communications professional and founder of Managing Your Fertility, a one-stop shop for NFP/FABM resources for women and couples. She is married to her wonderful husband, David, and together they have a sweet daughter.

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Editors Share | Accessories that Made our Wedding Attire Complete

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It’s our privilege to be invited into your story and vocation. In gratitude, we love to share our stories with you, as well. Today, the team shares about bridal accessories that served as unique ways to personalize their wedding attire.

PHOTOGRAPHY: MATTSON PHOTOGRAPHY

PHOTOGRAPHY: MATTSON PHOTOGRAPHY

Jizo Zito, Co-Founder and Creative Director

My accessories were fairly simple, mostly due to budget. Since Etsy and the like were not yet in existence, I bought a mantilla off eBay for $30. My earrings and bracelet came from my mother. While the bracelet was new, the earrings were from her wedding day. I also purchased “dressy” sandals on a budget, but then I wore my old ballroom shoes for the wedding reception for my swing-dancing husband. 

 

Theresa Namenye, Contributing Writer

I am a super minimalistic person when it comes to accessories. I got my wedding dress on ModCloth for $200. I bought some pearl earrings at a thrift store for $5 and I wore a pair of dress sandals that I already had. I wanted my look to represent who I was in real life! I’m not fancy or formal, so comfort and ease were important for me to feel beautiful and truly myself on my wedding day. 

 

Kat Finney, Contributing Writer

One of my favorite accessories was a “going away outfit,” solely used for the last 10-15 minutes of the reception.  My parents have a stunning picture from their wedding day of them in their “going away outfits,” and it’s one of my favorite pictures of them. I thought it would be fun for my husband and I do our own take on the going away outfit. I got a birdcage veil, a lace cocktail dress, and some pale blue pumps, and we danced out of our reception to the limo in these outfits. It was a fun way to carry on the tradition my parents and their parents started.

 

Andi Compton, Business Director

I knew I wanted a tiara and cathedral length veil for the ceremony, and when I went in to purchase it I ended up trying on a blusher and loving it. The tiara and blusher have become heirlooms for our family as our daughters use them for their First Communion.

For the ceremony I also wore a crucifix that I still use daily, and has now been touched to relics from all over the globe and is one of my favorite treasures. At the reception, I swapped my tiara for a jewel encrusted comb and my crucifix for a sparkly necklace (which I’ve since lost!). My shoes felt like sparkly Cinderella stilettos and were so comfy I barely wore the accessory I was looking forward to the most: my jeweled jellies! 90’s kids will know what I’m talking about.

 

Bridget Busacker, Contributing Writer

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to wear for my wedding jewelry or what I wanted to give to my bridesmaids either, but it was quickly figured out by the generosity of one of my bridesmaid’s moms! She had recently been to the Philippines to visit family and she brought back jewelry sets for all the bridesmaids to wear (earrings & necklaces) of beautiful faux pearls.

I was stunned by such a generous gift and it was perfect! It was such a joy to not only gift my bridesmaids jewelry on our small budget, but to have the added sentiment that it came from the thoughtfulness of a wonderful woman in my life.

My aunt and mom also gave me my great grandmother’s pearl necklace to wear, which my grandpa had given her as a gift while he was fighting in the Korean War. I treasured wearing the strand of pearls, thinking about the beautiful women in my life who wore it and the great sentiment it had. The jewelry from our wedding day was such a sweet surprise and it was so wonderful to wear a family heirloom—it felt like having generations of women in my family close to me and praying for me!

A Tiny Chalice Balanced on your Finger

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JAY ROSS

 

When I was asked by a fellow artisan if I could make a chalice for her son—whom she hoped, obviously, would become a priest, I immediately had a ton of questions. 

What metals can be used? Is there anything that can’t be used? How would I use my jewelry equipment to melt that much precious metal and then pour it into something so big as a chalice? After all, I am a jeweler—not a dish-maker! And even if I can make something like a chalice, am I allowed to according to the Church? 

There is actually a wealth of information on this, and it turns out chalices have a lot in common with wedding rings. Maybe more than you think.

Much like wedding rings, it is preferred that chalices are made with precious metal. In the Ecclesia de Eucharistia, a document used for Instruction on liturgical norms, there is an explanation of these intentional preferences.

In addition, Saint John Paul II’s 2003 encyclical Redemptionis Sacramentum states, “Sacred vessels for containing the Body and Blood of the Lord must be made in strict conformity with the norms of tradition and of the liturgical books...It is strictly required, however, that such materials be truly noble in the common estimation within a given region, so that honor will be given to the Lord by their use, and all risk of diminishing the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharistic species in the eyes of the faithful will be avoided. Reprobated, therefore, is any practice of using for the celebration of Mass common vessels, or others lacking in quality, or devoid of all artistic merit or which are mere containers…”

As a sacred artist, these words are encouraging but not surprising. It’s amazing to read a governing church body advocate for artistic merit in Liturgical practice. 

Though God often has other plans for my life,  I have no intent of repositioning myself as a chalice maker After reading this document, I feel it is my duty to inform people of the similarities between chalices and wedding rings. After all, my calling is to make sacred objects of another type--one that nearly all faithful will wear at some point in their lives: wedding rings.

So I dug a little deeper into the question at hand—why must they be made of precious metal?

I asked my friend Carlos Sacasa, a Canon Lawyer and speaker on prayer and Catholic tradition.  He told me, “Yes, you can make a chalice, but the inner lining that touches the host and the body and blood of Jesus Christ has to be gold.”

“Why gold?,” I asked.

“It is a precious metal. Only precious metals are supposed to be touching the host; it is a sign of reverence. Usually the most traditional chalices are lined with gold.”

Now, there are some priests who may not choose this and use glass vessels instead.But the fact that using gold is a sign of reverence really stood out to me. 

I hear a similar question in my own line of work: Why must wedding rings be made of gold? Why not nylon? Why not titanium? The answer is the same as Mr. Sacasa gave me—it is a precious metal. It is a sign of reverence.

But there is something else. The gold in a chalice  is touching the host. 

Am I going to be so bold as to say that we are as precious as Jesus Christ, incarnate in the Eucharist? Not quite. However, I will remind you that we, the Faithful, are the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27). What touches our bodies as a sign and symbol of the marital sacrament should be held to the highest standard; especially in the gift that is crafted for a man and woman to reveal their union as one body in front of a congregation at a Holy Mass.

As we think more about the artistic merit, the form and function, of both chalices and rings, they are not merely containers. These are not utilitarian items. There should be craftsmanship and care that goes into their design! 

An extraordinary amount of intention and financial cost goes into the bride’s dress, the dessert (our cake was made with real fruit and flowers by an amazing Frenchman named Bruno), and the decor. Most of these wedding essentials are only enjoyed once or twice. The wedding ring is worn as a unique symbol every day beyond the wedding day. Make it more than a generic container. 

Finally, the occasion of the event requires a standard of reverence in the icons that represent the vows. The sacrament of marriage is a sacrament, and the sacrifice, that spouses perform—for better or worse, sickness or health, rich or poor—on a minute-by-minute basis. Wedding rings are the longest lasting reminder of your marriage vows and should therefore be holy. 

In the celebration of the Mass, Jesus offers his body, blood, soul and divinity to us through the Eucharist. The chalice is the means by which we receive his living sacrifice and participate with him in the sacrament. His offering of himself, as bridegroom, to his Church, the bride, is an image of marriage.

The parallel significance of the sacramentals to be created with precious metals—both a chalice and wedding ring—makes sense in light of the communion of persons and God’s call for holiness through the vocation to married life. 

Catholic wedding rings, if not all wedding rings, should be held as sacred reminders of this holy sacrament. 

Jewelry is a language; wedding rings not only represent but, more significantly, communicate a message of the value one holds about marriage. The wedding ring is sacramental, it is a visible, outward sign which communicates your sacrament to the world. Wedding rings are evangelizing.  

When intention, precision, sacrifice and discernment goes into the process of designing either a chalice or a wedding ring, all who encounter the gift will engage with reverence, with wonder and awe. As an ornate precious metal created either to carry the Body of Christ or to communicate the sacrament of matrimony, these products are holy. 

Something with such meaning and depth should be more than something you purchase off the shelf. Like the Chalice which brings the Church closer to the Eucharist, wedding rings help bring husbands and wives into a sacramental bond. Even more, they bring others into an encounter with Love himself. 

Scripture helps us understand the love God has for his people by creating a parallel with the love between a husband and wife. We are invited to take part in that creative, sacrificial act with Him! I encourage you to approach the sacramental artifacts of your marriage with the same reverence by which you approach the Eucharistic chalice on Sunday morning. By doing so, your marriage becomes a living sign of love: between husband and wife and between Christ and his Church. 

About the Author: Jay holds an MFA from the University of Central Florida. Jay and his wife Angie are Co-Founders of 31:Four Artisan Jewelry--an all-Catholic design and manufacturing studio based in the Orlando area. They are teaching the trade to their four children, who will be fourth-generation jewelers.

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