You are my luxury

Sometimes, thanks to social media, the internet feels like a very small place, a limited orbit. I shared this on the blog's Facebook page last night after seeing it posted on another site, but by morning it was everywhere.

Maybe you've read it by now, in which the "luxury" of stay at home motherhood is contrasted with the "necessities" for survival, as so deemed by society at large. 

I thought it was a well written piece that walked the fine line between values statements and judgmental proclamations handily. Not everyone agrees with that assessment, but I think that's more to do with the emotionally charged nature of the debate (mom-at-home vs. mom-at-work), and not any fault of the writer's.

My own impression? I thought it was spot on. And before that gets me in trouble with my working mama friends, hear me out.

I see you, too. I know you must struggle to leave them every day, to put on your professional face and set your primary mom identity aside from 9-5. I know because you love your kids as much as I love mine, and that while I get a thrill of freedom and relief over the occasional half day in the office every other week or so, spent in meetings or working on a special project, you have to do it every single day, and that it probably doesn't feel much like escape to you. 

Home probably feels like your escape when you pull into the driveway at night, because that's where you left your heart when you pulled the door closed behind you that morning. 

And I don't envy you for that. Because I know that no matter how much you love your job, that can't be easy, and that no amount of uninterrupted time in the restroom can make up for the pain of that separation. 

I'm not saying you shouldn't be working outside the home, by the way. You've made your choice and I've made mine, and we're both doing our very best for our children.

But when I contemplate the idea of luxury like the New York Times piece touched on, when I stop to think about what makes life sweet and satisfying and ultimately, worth living, it isn't cars or a beautiful home that come to mind, or honestly, even being able to pay my bills on time.

It's them.

My children are my luxury. 

So in that sense, yes, I have embraced the most luxurious life possible, in choosing to stay home with them, to work a job that fits mostly into nap times and late nights, and in forgoing some of the more typical decisions that might otherwise accompany one's early to mid thirties in modern America.

We're nowhere near buying a house, but that has more to do with me choosing to spend invisible money on higher education more than a decade ago than with the cost of diapers. We drive older, sort of ugly cars. But there are two of them, which sometimes causes me to catch my breath at the sheer indulgence of it. We did the one car thing and then, living overseas, the no car thing. A car is an enormous luxury.

But I'd trade my minivan for the chance to be home with them if it came to it, honestly I would. And I know couples who have made that decision, no regrets.

There's something that only another parent can understand: your child is an unstoppable and ever-changing force of nature, and childhood is fleeting. 

And every time I leave them, even if just for a weekend away with their daddy, or an hour or two at the coffee shop, I long to be with them again. Sometimes I even miss them while they're sleeping, an admission that only hormones can be responsible for. (You know you've made the late night forehead kissing pilgrimage too, don't deny it.)

And I know too, that no matter how far my eyes roll up into my head in Costco when yet another well-intenetioned stranger tells me that I'm so lucky to be able to stay home with them all day...in the end, they're right.

I am so lucky. And I need to do a better job keeping that in mind, day in and day out. Because I chose this life, and we are choosing it daily, as a couple, and there are sacrifices and sufferings and little deaths involved, as there are in any other big decision. But when we add them up nothing compares to the immeasurable luxury of time with our children. 

And I don't have to explain that to a single other person. Besides, they couldn't possibly understand what I do: that these particular kids are beyond worth it for this particular mother, and that no matter what else I could be doing in a professional capacity, it pales in comparison to what I've been asked to do within the 4 walls of my own slightly ill-kempt home. 

And that's not a judgement on anyone else's lifestyle choices. Just the recognition that my own life is, indeed, immeasurably privileged.

Such a time as this

 From the Associated Press this morning:

"The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for same-sex weddings to start in Alabama, letting the number of gay-marriage states climb in advance of a constitutional showdown that may mean legalization nationwide.   

In a 7-2 order, the justices rejected Alabama’s bid to stop a federal trial judge’s legalization order from taking effect Monday. The state now will become the 37th where gays can marry."

At first glance, this perhaps doesn't look like much in terms of news. States' marriage laws have been crashing down left and right like felled timber over the past 2 years, and it's hardly shocking that Alabama has joined the ranks of the other 36 places in the U.S. where same sex couples can legally contract a "marriage."

No big deal, right?

Live and let live, and live the life you love, and you love who you love, and all the other platitudes that fill the airwaves and our ears in this modern cultural milieu.

I have some news for us Christians, and maybe it's going to come as a bit of a shock, but it may well be that none of those clever turns of phrase are going to apply to us before too long.

Make no mistake, this has never been about simply leveling the playing field so that all may freely participate in the institution of marriage; what it is about - what it has always been about - is redefining and recreating marriage into something else entirely.

And when something gets redefined, the old definition is, by necessity, destroyed. Retired into the annals of history, if you will. Marked down as a tried-and-failed social experiment, and abandoned in the name of Progress.

If you believe that Christians, Jews, progressive Muslims, people of other faiths who practice monogamous, heterosexual life-long fidelity within the context of a religious sacrament are going to be allowed to continue to teach, preach, and contract said marriages in peace once gay "marriage" is enshrined as the law of the land, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise.

Maybe not immediately, but highly likely in the not-too-distant future

If you think you're going to be able to teach your publicly-schooled fourth grader that sex is sacred and reserved for the intimate communion of marriage between husband and wife, you may have another think coming. (And possibly a visit from CPS, to boot.)

Once gay "marriage" becomes the law of the land, it will no longer be possible to hold a competing worldview and still be viewed, either professionally or legally, as a person of good will.

You will be a bigot, first and foremost. A menace to the pluralistic good of a society unshackled from the burdensome moral code of the past. And your kind - our kind - may not be tolerated.

Oh, it might not be a matter of legal troubles, at least not yet. It will probably be a quieter persecution. Passed over for a promotion. Let go from a job. Denied entry to a committee or school organization. Little things like that, white martyrdoms in varying shades of grey.

Because you see, it's not really possible to live and let live when life trajectories are fundamentally opposed. Something has to give, someone has to yield.

We can't all be right.

Relativism only works on paper. In real life it plays out like this: someone is right, and someone else is a bigot who is breaking the law.

Marriage can't be both a monogamous, permanent, life-long commitment between a man and a woman and an open-ended sexual relationship configured by any two consenting adults. The two definitions are fundamentally contradictory.

And while I may be perfectly capable of ignoring the antics and goings-on behind my neighbor's bedroom doors right now, when I am forced to publicly endorse their lifestyle by the laws of the land, my reality is altered.

Then it's no longer live and let live, but becomes instead applaud what we do and accept what we teach, because you are now legally bound.

It's time for us to wake up. Authentic Christian charity doesn't mean turning a blind eye to social ills and harmful behavior just because they're fashionable, trending heavily on Twitter, and popular in Hollywood.

I can love my gay brother or sister - and indeed, true love is willing the good of the other - without endorsing the institution of gay "marriage."

But I may not have that option forever.

One day in the not-too-distant future, it might not be okay to say that in public. It may be something we whisper in private: "oh, we still believe in the Sacrament of Marriage personally, but we can't talk about it here."

And you know what? That's on us. We have been hand-picked, each one of us, to occupy this unique space in this place and time in history. So what witness are you prepared to give, and what defense for the faith you have?

We ought to be praying, fasting, working like crazy to share the goodness and the truth and the beauty of married love. Not sticking our heads in the sand and pulling our kids, our voices, our potential to be influencers and world changers, out of the public square.

We have to be fearless. St. John Paul II said to us, over and over again, "be not afraid." This is the heart of the Gospel: perfect love that casts out all fear.

I won't let my fear of what somebody may think of me prevent me from speaking the truth. And so long as we have the freedom to do so, we ought to be speaking it boldly, humbly, inviting people in to the Faith, not cowering in church doorways, bracing ourselves for disaster.

Be not afraid. Over and over again, I have to remind myself. Be not afraid.

Gay "marriage" isn't going to satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart; only the one Who created us can do that. Let's invite as many people as we can to experience the truth of that firsthand. Jesus is what this sad, suffering culture of ours seeks, whether or not they know Him by name. And if we center our lives and our marriages on Him, we cannot lose.

Marriage is a beautiful vocation, and it is worthy of being defended. But it is our lived example that speaks volumes to a visually distracted and chaotic culture starved for beauty.
So that awkward encounter with a fellow commuter holding a matching newspaper early in the morning? Be not afraid.

A hard conversation with a beloved friend or college roommate who champions an alternate view of marriage? Be not afraid.

An unpopular stance with your child's school administration for the sake of your impressionable 5th grader who won't be participating in the sex-ed program? Be not afraid.

"For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Esther 4:14

A Love Stronger Than Death

Have you heard of the Coakley family? Maybe you read something on social media over the past month about their story, about the sudden diagnosis of aggressive testicular cancer, just before Christmas. About the beautiful back story involving infertility, miscarriage, and then finally, joy of joys, adoption and conception. 

Maybe you clicked on a picture of Paul, grinning magnetically in a bright pink shirt, and followed the link to one of dozens of blog posts popping up all over social media, extolling his otherworldly thirst for adventure and his outrageous sense of humor.

Maybe you checked Facebook dozens of times each hour, one cold week late in January, holding a kind of cyber vigil over the span of a couple days, your heart seizing with an indescribable ache when you happened upon the picture of Paul and Ann holding hands as he labored for breath in his hospital bed, hers clad in latex to protect their unborn baby from the chemo drugs poisoning his system in a heroic effort to halt the terrible march of cancer through his ravaged body, now his lungs, his brain.

Maybe your babies woke you up all night the day before he went to the Father's house, forcing you to count your blessings and hold them, quieting their whimpers and offering midnight prayers for a family you never met, a couple whose love story inspired you and terrified you by turns.

And perhaps that next morning you read Ann's updates with a lump in your throat and real tears trickling down your face as she announced bravely that her beloved had raised his arms (after 12 unresponsive hours of suffering) and gone to meet his Savior. And then maybe your 4-year-old scrambled into your lap and asked what was wrong, and then cracked the dam of sorrow open wide with his innocent, joyful observation that "Heaven has a new saint, Mr. Paul is with Jesus now!"

Such sweet sorrow, this family's story. And it's the story of a wider community rallying around his widow and their 4 precious children, one still in the womb. 

The week following his death has to be one of Franciscan University of Steubenville's finest, as alumi and students from decades past and present rallied around this grieving family, offering support, prayers, food, money, and finally, literally lowering Paul's coffin into his grave with their bare hands, the bonds of Brotherhood evident in an indescribable and unforgettable photo.

Photo credit, Jason Pohlmeier

We live in a culture both saturated with and utterly terrified of death. It isn't understood, it isn't revered, and it certainly isn't discussed. 

These past few weeks the Coakleys showed us in an unforgettable way that this life is but the beginning, and that the point of our time here on earth is to love fiercely, to live bravely, and to seek His will above all else. Thank you, Paul and Ann, for your living tutelage of what it means to "do" marriage. You have offered us a glimpse of heaven, of the Father's heart, and of what it means to be Christian.

For ways to support the Coakley family, and to meet Annie and the children, visit LoveLikePaul.com. 

Paul Coakley, pray for us.

Unspoken Faith: When Couples Don't Share Beliefs

Today I have the real privilege of hosting a guest writer I think you guys will really enjoy.

During the month of October when I was running my 31 days series on Catholic teaching on sex and marriage, I got a ton of questions about mixed faith or faith/no faith couples, and what it might look like for marriages where one spouse doesn't practice the Faith, or maybe any faith at all.

Here's one answer to that question.

Sarah* has been generous and vulnerable enough to offer a reflection on what life looks like with 3 young kids and a husband who is supportive of - but not actively practicing - her Catholic faith.

I hope you enjoy.

A couple of months ago, my four-year-old son and I were having a conversation about the Mass. I was trying to explain the Eucharist to him when he cut in: “Oh, but dat’s just for girls.”

“No, Communion isn’t just for girls!” I protested. “Your daddy doesn’t take Communion, but lots of other daddies do. You’ll see – I’ll show you next time we go to church.”

I protested, I assured, I tried to tell myself that his was nothing but a silly little remark, but my heart sank. “Oh no,” I couldn’t help but think: “He’s already noticed.”

In my personal experience, believing is left to the women.

My father is not Catholic. Nor is he a religious person of any persuasion. I’ve only ever seen him go to church for the sake of someone he loves: He accompanies my mother to Mass on Christmas, Easter, and some random Sundays when it seems to matter to her; he attends family baptisms, first communions, and confirmations; he goes with my grandmother to her Methodist church on Mothers’ Day. He does it for our sake, not his own.

Of my mother’s large, Catholic family, few devoutly practice the faith. None of her (many) siblings are married to Catholics. Most have raised their children in the Church, but they’ve done so without the help of their husbands. My cousins (and many of my friends) attended Mass like I did – sitting in the pew every Sunday without our fathers.

As normal as this felt, it always bothered me.

It’s lonely to sit at Mass week in and week out with part of your family missing. It’s especially lonely on days when family blessings are given or on Father’s Day, when dads stand up for a blessing of their own. It’s hard to sit there, looking around at the men scattered throughout the congregation, biting your tongue to keep from shouting out, “I have a daddy too!”

So I resolved that when I grew up and had a family of my own, my children would have their father at Mass with them. I wanted to spare them that loneliness. And I wanted them (particularly any sons) to have the example of a father who attends church.

I did not, however, resolve to consider only devout Catholics for a husband – or indeed only Catholics at all. Because – my father. Ruling out non-Catholics felt too much like ruling out my own father. My wonderful, supportive, loving father – who is in almost every way, a beautiful example of what it means to be a husband.

Without a doubt, my parents have the best marriage I’ve ever witnessed. Growing up, I was just about the only child I knew who never, ever doubted that her parents loved each other and who never, ever feared that her parents might someday divorce.

My parents’ relationship just has that one, gaping hole: they don’t share a faith.

When I met my own husband after years of hoping and praying for “the one,” everything fell into place easily. So easily that I couldn’t help but see Providence’s hand in it. My husband is kind and gentle, hard-working, responsible, smart – all sorts of good things. Our values align. We work well together. We hold the same views on how to raise a family.

I was beyond relieved to learn that he was Catholic. But I was made a little nervous by how he said it: “I was raised Catholic.” Not I am Catholic. I was raised Catholic. Past tense.

Still, he harbored no ill will toward the Church (as too many, sadly, do) and he seemed to think it was valuable for children to be raised in a Faith. He attended Mass with me occasionally. He understood that I was serious about my Catholic Faith.

As our relationship progressed and we discussed marriage, he agreed that we would raise our children as Catholics and that he would attend Mass with us. He was happy to be married in the Church. He was fine with the prospect of not using contraception. And he never, ever pressured me to have pre-marital sex. (As far as ‘devout-Catholic-marrying-someone-who’s-not’ goes, I realize that my husband made it pretty easy on me. Many are not so fortunate.)

But though my husband was raised Catholic and though he (now) attends Mass regularly, I wouldn’t say that he and I share a Faith. That hole in our relationship may not gape as far as my parents’ does, but it’s still there.

I don’t know that he believes.

I don’t know that he doesn’t, either. We don’t talk about it. 

Because to be honest, I’m afraid to hear his answer. Actually afraid: I’m afraid of the sadness it might bring me.

So, we go to Mass. We say Grace before meals. We give to the Church. We do a family prayer whenever I can make it seem as seasonally-required as possible (say, over an Advent wreath). We carry on with the motions of the Faith, me hoping that in the doing, my husband will one day come to believe.

I also pray for him. I’m afraid to say, however, that I don’t do an awfully good job of it. I don’t have an awfully good prayer life, period. I pray in fits and spurts through the day, tossing prayers heavenward as I drive or do dishes or lie in bed. It’s one of the many parts of my life that I continuously try, and fail, to improve upon.

It’s easy to blame any number of things for my failure to pray as I should, but the hardest to swallow is the thought that if I had a devout, prayerful husband, he might encourage me in that effort. I hear (or read) from Catholic friends and bloggers this idea that a husband and wife’s primary goal in life should be to help each other get to heaven. And I’m … left short.

What an idea.

I’m sad to admit how foreign it is to me. In my mind, I visualize this space – say, a square – which represents all that a marriage is supposed to contain: things like love, patience, kindness, hard work, compromise, consideration, generosity, appreciation, etc. And I think, “We’re doing pretty well. We check those boxes. We must have a pretty decent marriage.”

But then I read one of my favorite Catholic blogs, where I learn of spouses praying together as they work to come to an important decision, or a husband engaged in a ministry at church, or a father praying over his children – and I start to see a space beyond that square. I see that there can – and should – be so much more to a marriage, to a family.

I see freedom.

I see the freedom to own one of the most elemental parts of who I am – a believer. I see the freedom to be open about my beliefs, my questions, my doubts – and to know that my husband will reciprocate. I see the freedom to accept our weaknesses, to say them out loud and to – together – ask for God’s help in overcoming them. I see the freedom to lean on my husband, to trust him in this part of my life, just as I do in others.

I also see grace.

What grace must come to a husband and wife who pray together. What grace must come to their marriage, their family, even their friends and the community to which they belong.

I wish I had that.

But I don’t. At least for now, I don’t. So I’m left to work on this (very important) part of life by myself. And I wonder: How can I be more open about my faith, so as to expose my family to it and help them to see it as normal and important? How can I provide them with examples of men who believe? How can I encourage my boys to consider a priestly vocation? How can I attract my husband to the Faith without hitting him over the head with my evangelism?

How can I help to open my husband’s heart and mind to God?

A couple of weeks ago at Mass, I found myself standing in the vestibule, looking through the glass at my husband. He was sitting in a pew a few rows from the back, mostly by himself. The baby sat quietly on his lap; there were no squirming, climbing boys to distract him from the Liturgy of the Word. (Our older boys were attending the Children’s Liturgy of the Word – big mistake – and I was standing at the ready in case they caused a ruckus.)

As I watched my husband, I prayed for him. I prayed that those quiet moments, those sacred words, might have some effect on him. I prayed that he would – bit by bit, Sunday by Sunday – someday come to believe. And that he would someday express that belief to our boys.

While I stood there, our three-year-old ran up to me. “I haffa tell you somedin’!” he said with some urgency. “I find Jesus up dayer!” He was pointing at the large crucifix above the altar. My boy was breathless; his eyes were wide. He saw Jesus.

I knelt down next to him, followed his pointing finger to the crucifix, and expressed some of the excitement he was giving off. I smiled and hugged him and said a few words about Jesus.

But the short, sweet moment was soon tempered by worries I’m only now starting to recognize:

“How long will this last? How long do I have before he grows tired of church, of thinking on Jesus? 

How can I help this all sink into his little mind before he chooses others’ influence over my own?” And the most worrisome question of all: “When they’re grown, will my boys believe?”

I have to admit, when I think on the situation much, I’m left feeling quite anxious. But one thought soothes me no matter how grim things seem: 

“Every time I go to Mass, I love my husband more.”

I realized this when we were first married and it’s held true ever since. Whether we go together or I’m alone, whether we’re happy or in the middle of a disagreement, I leave every single Mass loving my husband more than I did when I walked in. I can only attribute this to God and the graces he bestows on us through the sacraments.

 Though my husband may not believe (or if he believes, may not care much), he and I both received the sacrament of Marriage. Though he hasn’t received the Eucharist since our wedding day, I have received it countless times.

These sacraments matter. They matter, and I believe we continue to receive blessings because of them. 

So I hope. 

I hope that after witnessing the Consecration for the 942^nd time, my husband will feel moved to receive the Eucharist himself. I hope that my boys will notice the good, believing men of our parish as they line up every Sunday to receive Communion. I hope that I will receive the graces I need to nurture my own belief and to be a convincing witness to my family. 

I hope that someday, we will all feel the freedom and experience the graces that come from sharing a Faith.

*Not her real name.

Talking sex (and marriage) with Fountains of Carrots

(I cannot WAIT to see the google search results for that title)

Hey, I got to do something really fun last month and chat it up with two of my favorite bloggers, Haley from Carrots for Michaelmas and Christy from Fountains of Home. They've recently launched a new weekly podcast, and I think it's going to be really good.

I really love finally hearing people's voices after I've "known" them by their writing voice alone, you know? It's almost always a huge surprise how they sound in real life. So, just to set your expectations nice and low, expect me to sound like a 15 year old girl from Southern California. (Except I'm double that age, and originally from the Bay Area.)

Anyway, enjoy my little brush with celebrity, and have a beautiful wine-drenched and pie-filled Thanksgiving.

Catholics, sex, and marriage: the elevator pitch

Man, has it been a month or what? 

I told you guys when I started writing this series that I had some serious resistance going on, but I had no way to prepare for the all out spiritual warfare that this venture would trigger. I'm not actually even being facetious. 

It.has.been.real.

Which has me even more convinced that these conversations, virtual though they may be, are so deeply necessary. 

And the point is not that they remain virtual, you know? I'm fully aware of the limitations of the internet as means for evangelization. I get it. Things don't always translate, and layers of complexity and nuance are all too often lost amidst the keystrokes and the fiery rage of the combox.

But the internet is a great place for sharing information. Which, in turn, is good for facilitating communication. It's up to us to do the actual communicating on a one-to-one level though, got it?

So, to wrap things up, here's a tidy 2 minute overview of what Catholics believe about sex and marriage, and why.

Sex is good. It isn't dirty or naughty or some kind of half-hearted concession to our fallen animalistic nature...it is good, just as it was good in the beginning. Be fruitful and multiply, He said. And so we are, and we do. 

And we absolutely have to teach our kids that. Early and often. There's no such thing as "the talk" in good Christian parenting; rather, it must be a series of talks, spanning childhood into early adulthood, continually drawing children into the beauty and the truth of human sexuality. If you're waiting until your little snowflake starts middle school to say anything positive or informative about sex and the human person, well, I'm sorry to say it, but you're about 3 years too late.

We live in a sexually saturated culture, and our children's eyes and brains are bathed in provocative, violent, and sadistic images of a sexual nature at every turn. It's our job to combat that with beauty, and goodness, and above all, the truth of who and why they were "created, male and female." 

Marriage is also good. For the majority of people, it's not only good, but it's the means of our salvation. If you are called to the Sacrament of Marriage, it is through those graces (and crosses) that you'll make your way to heaven, leading and alternately being led by the spouse you choose. 

Marriage and sex go together. You might even say that attempting to separate them is at the root of almost every problem facing our society. We reserve sex for marriage not out of prudishness or repression, but for the same reason you wouldn't build a nuclear bomb in the garage: that kind of power demands respect. Mishandle plutonium and you're going to have a disaster, because you are violating the stuff's nature. You can't change nature. You can ignore it, or deny it, or repackage it as something of your own creation, but the stuff is still radioactive.

That's the reason the Church will never change her position on marriage: she doesn't have the power to. Marriage is the union between one man and one woman, designed by the Creator of plutonium, etc. to produce brand spanking new humans. We can tinker with the definition and broaden and rewrite all we want...but we can't alter nature. Even if the State does. Even if every country on earth proclaims marriage to be "an open ended living arrangement featuring a rotating cast of 4 or more adults featuring occasional collaborations with domesticated animals." Or something. Even then, the Church will not alter her stance on what marriage is, because it isn't hers to alter.

The Catholic Church's teachings on sex and marriage are profoundly freeing, which is a shocking claim to make on a libertine, pleasure-worshiping culture. But it's true! There is such freedom in chastity and fidelity and wild abandonment and trust. And while there's never a guarantee for happiness, it sure makes sense to stack the deck in your favor when it comes to matters of the heart.

If you think you know what the Catholic Church teaches about sex and marriage, make sure you've actually read and learned what the Catholic Church teaches about sex and marriage.

Humanae Vitae

Evangelium Vitae

Letter to Women

Theology of the Body

Sex is good. Marriage is good. Life is very, very good. Now let's go live it like we believe it.

As a guy I really like was fond of saying,

"Be not afraid."

Click to read the rest of the month-long series on the Catholic Church's teachings on sex and marriage.

I'm Catholic, can I get a vasectomy/tubal ligation?

There have been a number of questions about permanent sterilization during this month-long series, and while I wrote a post on it a while back, I think it deserves a fuller treatment, and a more nuanced explanation.

I know this is a question that many, many couples wrestle with. Even couples who have zero moral qualms whatsoever about shutting down their reproductive functions struggle with the permanence of surgical sterilization, because, well, it's permanent. And that makes you feel something on a deep emotional and, dare I say, spiritual level.

We know this part of our bodies is sacred. Walk into any delivery room or birthing center and watch the miracle of life unfold and just try to remain unmoved.

There is something profound and powerful at work in our fertility.

The short answer for why Catholics don't practice permanent sterilization is the same one you'll get for why Catholics don't use any other form of contraception: it isn't broken. 

For those of us who are called to marriage and to parenthood, the invitation to participate directly in God's creative process by bringing forth new human life is a staggering, gut-wrenching responsibility.

Vasectomies and tubal ligations take the "I will not serve" of contraception and carry it a step further, beyond the moment to moment "not this time" of hormonal contraceptives and barrier methods. They allow us to say with our bodies, in effect, I will not act in accordance with my nature, not now, and not at any point in the future.

In other words, God, you screwed up. I'm not supposed to work this way.

The Church isn't anti contraception because it's science. Or because it's artificial. Or because she has million dollar stock options in thermometers. The Catholic Church (and, up until about 100 years ago, all of Christianity) opposes contraception because it is in direct defiance of the very first thing that He commanded us to do, once He created us, man and woman.

Do you remember?

Be fruitful, and multiply.

(Not: have so many children your uterus falls out and you go bald/die of starvation because you have more children than can fit in your doublewide. But be fruitful, and multiply.)

Children, in Scripture, are only and always a blessing. For couples who have many of them, and for couples who wait in longing for a single one. (Ahem, Abraham.)

There is never a point at which God says, okay, I think we're good here, plus, you guys, college is so expensive right now, you probably need to go ahead and shut things down and start maxing out that 529 because otherwise you are going to be SO screwed.

If He sends them, we accept them.

And if we can't accept them? If we are simply not in a place where it would be prudent/loving/responsible/safe/possible to accept a(nother) child?

We don't. Have. Sex.

If you cannot welcome a child into your family you should not be doing the thing which invites children into your family. It's that simple. And it's that difficult.

For couples who have grave, serious reasons why having a child would be absolutely disastrous, how could anything else but abstaining be loving?

Because what if it happens anyway? We all know that couple who still got pregnant, in spite of their best efforts to prevent it. And then what? Hopefully not abortion...but what if the reason for not getting pregnant was a grave medical complication for the mother? How is that fair or loving to her?

It's not just that, though. It's not just the "you might still get pregnant even though you're fixed" argument. It's also because it's sexually bulimic. It's doing one thing with your body, but meaning another. When we do that with our words, it's called lying. So when we do that with our bodies...it's still lying. And denying the truth has consequences. Real, tangible, physical, emotional, and spiritual consequences.

Marriage is hard enough when everything is on the up and up. But when a couple chooses to consciously and systematically say one thing with their bodies but mean the opposite, there is going to be tension. There is going to be strife. There is going to be a breakdown in communication and mutual respect. And God knows we don't need anything more stacked against us, not when it's already an impossibly tall order. (Matt 19:10)

This is not a condemnation of couples who have made this decision and who regret it. This is, hopefully, a wake up call to couples who have never considered the real spiritual and emotional ramifications of physically severing the connection between sex and reproduction.

While there is no guarantee that either tubal libations or vasectomies can be reversed, there are doctors out there who are willing to try. Depending on the individual circumstances of the procedure, it can sometimes be done. And even if it doesn't work, what a huge opportunity for grace and for reconciliation to make that sacrifice, bodily, to attempt to restore what has been damaged.

For couples who are older, it might look a little different. While there is no way to return to one's childbearing years and make different choices, there is a huge opportunity for older couples to minister to younger couples in the trenches who are considering making this decision for their own marriages.

It's a message that younger couples desperately need to hear, and there are far too few voices speaking this truth: your bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made, sex was created for marriage, and marriage is designed to be fruitful and life-giving. 

Don't separate your love! Don't try to undo what God has intentionally and lovingly written into your bodies. It is good that you are together, and it is good that you love each other enough to participate in bringing forth new life out of that love.

And God knows this world could use a little more love.

Click here for the rest of the series.

When NFP is hard to swallow

The funny thing about talking shop about NFP (Natural Family Planning) with other users is that the conversation, either online or in person, usually goes one of two ways.

Exhibit A: NFP blows. Meet my fourth daughter, Maria Faustina, miraculously conceived 13 days post peak. She's our 5th child in 6 years. Still, be it done unto me according to my chart...

or else

Exhibit B: NFP is so magical. It will change your life, divorce-proof your marriage, and guarantee smoldering, ecstatic sex almost every day of the month (except for a teeny tiny window, if you're seeking to avoid pregnancy.) You're an idiot if you find it challenging. Because science.

I guess I fall somewhere in between there. And I'd guess that many of us do.

I had the opportunity to speak to a group of beautiful mamas at my own parish yesterday (talk about humbling) and it was just so refreshing to be able to speak openly and honestly about the beauty AND the struggle of NFP. Because, like so much else about love and marriage, it's not always easy and it's not always clear. Because sometimes it's cloudy. Or cloudy-clear.

Aaaaaanyway, the thing is we aren't doing ourselves any favors as a Church or as couples in desperate need of support, fellowship, and wisdom from other families in the trenches if we don't speak openly about this thing that we're all expected to do (wink, wink) but that few of us are actually doing. And those of us who are doing it? Well, we're idiots. And sometimes we believe that to be true.

It's not easy being open to life in a culture so utterly opposed to it.

Our neighbors think we're weirdos. Our parents think we're irresponsible. Our bosses think we don't know what causes that. And our cashiers at the grocery store wonder if we know where the condoms are stocked.

Here's the thing though; Jesus doesn't promise convenience, lack of suffering, or predictability. There was something about a cross and lifting it upright and, you know the rest.

We live in a time and a place where convenience is the highest good. I think some of us actually worship it. I think of this most often when I'm doing the microwave dance, reheating my morning coffee, wondering how 28 seconds can pass so slowly and if I stare intently at this glowing box, will it heat any faster?

But Christianity is not convenient. 

Forgoing contraception and having difficult, meaningful, frustrating conversations about love and eternity with your spouse month after month after month...is not convenient. Having a baby 11 months after the last one was delivered, or facing down months and maybe even years of abstinence due to a medical diagnosis is not convenient. Learning to practice temperance, self control, and chastity within - yes, within marriage - is not convenient.

But convenience doesn't guarantee happiness. Or rather, it doesn't guarantee joy.

Using NFP will not make you happy. It will not earn you a free ticket to heaven or a front-row seat at a papal audience. It's not a panacea for marital woes, and it's definitely not some baptized, back-assward Church-approved method of contraception.

It's more than that. But also less.

NFP is, first and foremost, a tool. It's something the Church, backed by scientific research, offers to her children as a means to understanding the mysterious and often confounding gift of human fertility.

Contraception, on the other hand, is the deliberate dismantling of fertility. Rather than seeking to understand, it shuts down, short circuits, or disables it.

NFP and contraception have something in common in that both can be used to avoid pregnancy. But only so much as both an umbrella and a nuclear bomb can shelter you from the rain. One works within reality, the other creates an alternate reality. And it's not pretty, though it might be very effective at keeping you dry.

NFP isn't Catholic contraception. But as long as those of us who bow our heads and bend our knees to the teachings of Christ and His Church on the matter try to compare it as such, whether in our mirrors or in conversions with each other, we're going to come up short. 

Contraception offers apparent freedom and happiness to couples longing for love. But it doesn't deliver. It can't. It cuts off love at the root, making small what could grow into something grand and majestic. 

NFP isn't a failsafe, foolproof guarantee against marital unhappiness. But it isn't self destructive, either. It's actually morally neutral; we inform the morality by our own use of it, and the choices we make.

So let's have this conversation, shall we? Let's admit that yes, living the Church's teachings on sex and marriage is difficult, insanely difficult in some circumstances. Especially in this culture, in this moment in history, in this climate of me-ness and mine-ness and all the nesses. But let's go further. Let's let people in for a glimpse at the messy, the chaotic, the honest, and the beautiful. Because for everything this culture lays claim to, beauty is not a credible option. We are starved for beauty, searching for meaning, and desperate to find - and to be - love.

And marriages that are truly open to life have a depth and a sincerity to them, even in the difficult moments, that is wildly attractive. That's the real reason people can't stop talking about it. Sure, some people are legitimately disgusted by the sight of more than a couple children trailing a simliar-looking adult in a crowded shopping center. But they're the minority. 

People are naturally drawn to what is true, good, and beautiful - so let's draw them in. And let's not be afraid to look them square in the eye and say, yes, you're right, my hands are full, and somebody just pissed on my foot in the Chipotle bathroom a few minutes ago...but I'm still going to keep them.

Click here for the rest of the series.

Suffer the children: the highest cost of divorce

Last week I had the opportunity to sit down with a fabulously talented writer and speaker who was in town to give a lecture on motherhood. Since the event was in the evening, she had some time to kill and I figured what more relaxing thing could I offer her than brunch at my favorite restaurant surrounded by 3 mewling, jam-covered children? What mother of 8 who, having flown across the country to escape her own brood, wouldn't relish the opportunity?

Anyway, that's how I ended up eating eggs benedict with Lisa Lickona, who was gracious and funny and entertaining and didn't bat an eyelash when I stripped Evie from the waist down on the patio lawn in plain view of all the other diners because I didn't feel like heading to the restroom for the 15th time for something as simple as a diaper change.

We circled around all kinds of fascinating topics, but there was one thing she shared in particular that really stuck with me. Her own parents, she explained, divorced when she was in grad school, sending shock waves through her universe.

Throughout the tumult and pain of the years following, she recounted that it was her mother's difficulty with the Church's teachings on divorce and remarriage that kept her in relationship with Christ through it all. 

Her mom, she explained, was so mad that she couldn't receive Communion. She was so hurt that her new "marriage" wasn't recognized by the Church as such. And she wanted her children to take sides. Hers, particularly, not the Church's.

Then she told me something wild. She said that in a very real way, the Church's response to her parent's divorce provided a tremendous source of comfort to her and her siblings.

You read that right. She was comforted by the Catholic response to divorce and remarriage, which says, essentially, not ideal to the former and not possible of the latter. 

In other words, divorce is never the solution, and remarriage is actually not possible. 

There is a common misunderstanding that instead of divorces, we Catholics have annulments which are basically just religious divorces. Or something.

But that's not the case. The Catholic Church teaches - has always taught - that what God has joined, no man must separate. And in fact the Church does not have the power to dissolve a licitly contracted marriage. Plain English: if two people contract a valid, sacramental marriage...there's no getting out. Well, there's one way, and it's through the morgue.

Catholics cannot get divorced because marriage is a lifelong covenant. As long as both spouses are living, the marriage is, too. 

Annulment, which I'll cover in greater detail another day, is the process by which the Church determines the validity of the marriage itself, in other words, was a marriage actually contracted? Was something missing from the get-go (free consent, openness to life, exclusivity, to name a few...) that prevented a sacramental marriage in the first place?

When Lisa's parents called it quits on their marriage, they weren't just walking away from their covenant with each other; they were also walking away from the covenant they'd made with God. And God doesn't walk out on covenants.

What was incredibly painful for her mother was actually immensely comforting to the children left in the ruins, because the Church recognized, as they did, that something had gone wrong. 

That there was a real wound, a real suffering, and a real loss when mom and dad walked away from one another. And that it would be fair to no one to permit things to continue on, business as usual, when in fact their family had suffered a terrible rupture. 

That's why remarriage isn't an option for Catholics. Because as long as both spouses are alive, they're still married...to each other. Even in the most unimaginably difficult circumstances. Even if one, or both, get "remarried" to somebody else.

Do you see the complications that ensue?

But more importantly, do you see where the greatest suffering lies?

It's in the lives of their children.

Children are the real victims of divorce, and they're the reason that marriages must be preserved at all cost. Sometimes at unimaginably great costs. 

But what's the alternative? 

Look around. Look at our society, so full of insecure and wounded people whose parents thought first of themselves and only later of the innocent little lives torn apart by adult decisions. Look at all the young people unwilling or unable to commit to relationships of their own, so scarred and gun-shy from the experiences of their youth. 

We spend a lot of time talking about the need to support and minister to divorced couples, but very little time addressing the needs of their children, for whom the fabric of the very universe has just ruptured.

The Church's firm and loving response to divorced and "remarried" Catholics is actually the most sane, compassionate, and logical response possible: "you have made a mistake, come, let us try to make it right, and let us not further your destruction by refusing to acknowledge the mistake."

And, perhaps most importantly, she says to the children, your suffering is real, and you have lost something irreplaceable. We cannot look the other way and pretend otherwise.

It's a small comfort in a crisis of epidemic proportions, but it's something. 

Click here for the rest of the series.

p.s. For a better, smarter, and far more in depth treatment on the topic, you really ought to click over and read Lisa's piece on Children of Divorce. 

Let's talk about "openness to life"

In a Catholic wedding, just before the exchange of vows, the priest or deacon receiving the couple's promises to one another and to God asks a series of three questions. I thought they were part of the vows themselves, but they're actually preliminary questions which allow the vows to proceed, if that makes sense. 

They're conditional, in a way. A sort of final litmus to test the sincerity of the couple entering into Holy Matrimony, making certain the conditions necessary for a valid marriage are in place.

"(Name) and (name), have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourselves to each other in marriage?" 

"Will you honor each other as man and wife for the rest of your lives?" 

"Will you accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?"

That last line always gets me. I said those words with such sincerity, and without the faintest idea what I was actually getting myself into.

How hard can it be, right? 

Dave and I were well prepared for marriage and kids, both by the examples we had in our own families and in our varies jobs. We were professional oldest siblings, bossy as hell (well, one of us) and super mature.

We were so set.

Then went and like, had a child of our own and we were all, oooooooohkay, this is a little different then what I was expecting.

With each additional kid we've added to our ranks, I've observed an odd mixture of increasing love and parental competence accompanied by stark, raving terror. Because more kids are more work, yes, but also because with each new baby bump my anxiety level ratchets up another thousand points because love invites loss.

There's a very real point at which openness to life intersects with openness to loss.

There are the more obvious examples; infertility, miscarriage, still birth, infant death, loss of a child, major illness...and then there are the less apparent losses. Loss of autonomy. Loss of control. Loss of income. Loss of (perceived) ability to know the future.

I get why a culture such as ours, hell bent on control and predictability, has such a hard time accepting children. And actually, I don't think it's unique to our time. What is unique is the accessibility and widespread acceptance of contraception.

We still pledge to accept children lovingly from God, but we do so with fingers crossed behind our backs, knowing that at the end of the day, we don't really have to rely on God in that arena in this day and age. I mean maybe we think He'll send a couple our when we're good and ready, hopefully healthy models that tick all the right boxes...but we don't honestly plan on throwing caution to the wind and sailing bravely into the unknown, opening wide to the adventure of marriage and parenthood.

But what if we did?

What if agreeing to accept children lovingly from God was more than just an archaic line in an ancient religious ceremony? What if we actually lived that promise, (and I'm not talking about going quiver full or moving to Arkansas, though we do love a good Duggar episode in this house) giving our future over to God and asking for His plans, not our own, for our families. And what if His answer looked completely different from what we'd hoped?

What if there were no children at all, or only a precious one? What if there were 6, and we felt stretched past our breaking point and ready to drop dead? And what if, no matter what story He wanted to write with our fertility, we bowed our heads and whispered, not my while, but Yours, be done.

Maybe we'd be happier. Maybe our marriages would be richer. Maybe our houses would be destroyed and maybe our hearts would be broken open by disappointment and difficulty and sorrow ... and maybe they would be so much larger for it.

I know this is a crazy thought, but what if God knows better than we do the plans He has for us ... plans for our welfare and not for our woe? Plans to give us a future, and hope?

I struggle every single day with relinquishing control. From my first cup of coffee until my eyes close at night. I have three beautiful children. I've got it made. And I'm so lucky. Why rock the boat? Why be open to more difficulty? Why risk the chance that things might get messy(er)/painful/uncertain?

Well, this is why. Faith like this woman's. That's the kind of boldness I want to practice. That's the stuff saints are made of. Radical openness, wild trust, and abandon to divine providence.

Now, to find the courage. Because quite frankly, it's still a terrifying prospect.

Click here for the rest of the series.

A little porn never hurt anybody

I escaped from momdom for a couple hours this afternoon and found myself with a hour left on the baby-sitter-meter and nary an errand or appointment to occupy my remaining 60 minutes of freedom.

I have a deep seated weakness for the pedicure chair. Maybe it's because I went into labor for the first time while seated in one. Or maybe I just like polished toes. But whichever the case may be, I found myself cozied up with a stack of Good Housekeeping magazines and a truly hideous shade of mauve that I swore up and down to myself was stone-cold Autumn in a bottle, but looks fairly corpse-like on my feet. C'est la pedi.

As I flipped through my extremely age-appropriate choice of magazines and relaxed into the pummeling of a massage chair set to "drunken kidney punches" I came upon a strange interview with Jennifer Garner, aka Mrs. Ben Affleck.

She had the weirdest reaction to one of the interviewer's questions about pornography.

Just for reference, she has a new movie coming out about the internet, and her A-list husband reportedly flashed some serious skin in his latest blockbuster, so I was curious to see her answer.

It was ... odd.

Basically she started by saying that she was afraid for the day her daughters might find something scary online, and that she really needed to be mindful, as a parent, of what they were exposed to. Okay, so far, so good.

But then...then she said that pornography between two adults was probably fine, and that there was "probably a time and a place for porn" if two people are on the same page and mature. Or something. But still, not for her daughters. Not now, anyway.

I can understand a mother's heart wanting to protect her children from harm. What I can't understand is ever not wanting that.

The truth is, there's no such, this as "a little bit of porn between two consenting adults," because first of all, the camera man makes three. And even with selfie-style contemporary amateur porn, the inevitable internet makes three...million.

Part of what makes porn so destructive is the intrusive nature of making something so intensely private as sex, public, and not only public, but actually intended and designed to be consumed by an other, an outsider, an observer.

Porn degrades sex into a transactional exchange, into an open invitation to use a human person as a tool, to consume them as a product. 

Everyone involved, from the "actors" on the set to the producers behind the product to the consumer on the other side of the computer screen is participating in the use and abuse of a human person.

There's no such thing as just a little bit of porn. And there's no acceptable age at which it becomes "healthy" or "normal" to consume porn, or more accurately, to be consumed by it.

Because even if two consenting adults were to sit down with a completely digitally-acted movie and use it as a means to introduce a level of erotic excitement into their own sex life, it's still an utterly self-centered means to arousal. When you're watching porn with your partner, you're not experiencing any kind of intimacy with them as you both get excited by the person on the screen in front of you.

It might be titilating and it might lead to sex in real life, but at what cost? You just used another person's body (either actual or CGI, it really doesn't matter) to bring yourself to sexual arousal so that you can, essentially, dump your feelings (and then some) into an available receptacle in the form of your partner.

Self, self, self.

But that's not what sex was made for. Sex was designed to draw us to the other, to invite our small and selfish little hearts to open wide enough to let another person inside, and to pursue their happiness above our own, seeking to outdo one another in love.

That's part of why St. John Paul II was so (and scandalously so, for his time) insistent that mutual climax be the goal of sexual union between spouses, so that husband and wife were continually seeking the good of the other, constantly trying to outdo each other in love.

Porn seeks the opposite. It wants immediate self gratification.

Forget delayed gratification, porn says 'give me what I'm owed, and if you can't deliver it, I'll just click over to the next option.'

And even if it's used alone, in the privacy of one's own bedroom, with nary another flesh and blood participant to be found, it's still deeply damaging. To the person consuming it, to the person performing it, to the spouse or boyfriend or daughter on the other side of the closed door, perhaps unaware but not unharmed by the transaction taking place on your screen.

There's never a time or a place for it, and there's no relationship on the planet that's better off because of it.

The reason that a little porn never hurt anyone, is that there's no such thing as a little porn. It's a dark, insidious, addictive,  and destructive force that feeds on human love. And God knows we've got too little of that to go around these days, anyway.

Click here for the rest of the series.

Why does the Catholic Church care about what I do in my bedroom?

This is a valid question, and it's one that gets asked frequently, especially in our sexually schizophrenic culture. On the one hand, we're super freaked out by the idea of anybody, for any reason, asking anything about our sex lives...let alone having opinions or making judgements on what goes on behind closed doors.

Then again, reality tv. And pornography. And sexual deviance the likes of which the world has probably not seen since the days of ancient Rome.

So we're both consumed by the idea of sex as something private all while simultaneously flaunting our sexuality in an intensely public manner, making sure the whole world, starting with the stranger on the subway or the unsuspecting fellow parent on the playground, knows precisely how things are going in that department.

Then we've got this Church. This 2,000 year old, preposterously behind-the times, headed-up-by-a-celibate-male-hierarchy Church, trying to tell people who are having sex all the ways they shouldn't be having it.

What?

First off, the whole "celibate male hierarchy argument." Let's just put that one to rest, shall we?

Catholic priests are called to a life of celibacy and chastity in imitation of the life of Christ. They give up the great good of sexual expression within the context of a human marriage for the greater good of a spiritual union with Christ, and a fruitful life given in service to the larger Church. So sex is good, and priests surrender this very good thing as a gift to the rest of the Church. A life devoted entirely to Christ, to His Church, and to the proclamation of the gospel.

Some of my closest friends are priests. One of my girlfriends left her job, her friends and family, and her life this past summer to enter a religious order. Their lives are beautiful, fruitful, and deeply meaningful. And they're never, ever going to have sex! In the year 2014...can you even fathom it?

It's no small sacrifice, but it yields some beautiful fruit, and as Catholics, we believe that it offers a glimpse of eternal life as "in heaven people are neither married nor given in marriage." Not because marriage isn't incredibly good, but because marriage itself is just a preview of eternal life with God who is love.

So, just to recap, sex and marriage = good.

Good enough to have a few rules around it for its - and our - protection.

Catholics are expected to behave a certain way in the bedroom. Namely, to practice faithful, chaste, sacrificial love for our spouse within the exclusive and permanent commitment of marriage.

We're also expected to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to refrain from committing murder, along with a handful of other commandments.

In other words, there are rules for everything. Not because God hates us, or because sex is shameful, or because we're hysterically guilty about everything...but because we live in a fallen world that has been redeemed by a loving God.

All relationships have rules. Otherwise they're just hook ups. And God doesn't want to hook up with us. He wants to wed Himself to us for eternity.

So the next time someone questions you about the Church's stance on sex, be sure you're prepared to explain that actually, there's no other place on earth where human love is held in such high esteem.

Click here to read the rest of the series.

The link between contraception and homosexuality (and it's not what you'd think)

Sometimes God just throws you a big 'ol softball and you can't help but take a swing at it.

I had the unexpected privilege today to interview Fr. Paul Check, executive director of Courage International, for a forthcoming episode of Heroic Media (it's slated to air Nov. 1st on EWTN) and he said something profound. Actually he said about a dozen things that were profound, but one sentence stuck with me, because I've been reflecting on it for years. It was, loosely paraphrased,

"50 years ago as a culture, we severed the connection between sex and babies, and ever since, we've distanced ourselves further and further from the reality of sex."

Basically, with the advent of commercially available birth control, once it became permissible for some couples to engage in sterile sex, it was only a matter of time before other couples came clamoring for their own perceived "rights" in the sexual arena.

If you think about it it makes a lot of sense. If married couples can have sex without babies, and indeed, if sex has nothing to do with babies (until and unless we tell it to) then who's to say what constitutes "sex," anyway?

Maybe sex is just mutual masturbation. Maybe sex is any genital contact in any configuration, as determined by the participating parties. Maybe there can be more than 2 parties involved. Maybe there are no rules at all, because we've remade sex in our own image and to our own liking, forgetting that we were made in His image and likeness.

When society accepted contraception as commonplace and replaced the expectation that children might reasonably result from sexual activity with the promise that sex could be "freed" from any consequence, we got more than we bargained for.

What we've got, in short, is a civilization in sexual free fall, and a society that is struggling to piece together some kind of new normal. And meanwhile there are victims everywhere, the walking wounded who've bought the lie and who've been burned by the reality that sex is much, much more powerful than we give it credit for.

Homosexual couples, within this modern sexual construct, have every right to the same kind of sterile, self-centered sex that heterosexual couples are practicing. 

Because if sex doesn't lead to babies, and if marriage isn't ordered towards procreation and the mutual good of the spouses (laymen terms: getting each other to heaven), then we can pretty much reinterpret marriage through whatever lens suits our particular world view. And really, we ought to, from an egalitarian perspective. Fair's fair.

But it's not really possibly to separate sex from its life-giving potential.

Deny it, yes. Suppress it, sure. But the reality of sex is that it was meant to do this thing, to bond two people together in such a profound and lasting way that, in the words of my favorite professor, "9 months later you might have to give it a name."

Homosexual sex can never do that.

Even a surgically sterilized, contracepting, post-menopausal married couple was, at one point, fundamentally capable of bringing forth new life by the very nature of their creations as male and female.

We are intentionally designed, and in the design we see the potential for participation in the creative heart of God, in His own divine life. Life which begets love, from love.

This is in no way an attack on the dignity of the human person who struggles with same sex attraction. And it's not a judgement on people who engage in a homosexual relationships.

The Church has always taught, and will always teach, that although contraception and homosexual activity are immoral and gravely disordered activities, those persons practicing them are worthy of the same love and respect of every other person on this planet.

I hope you know that. The Church does not condemn you. She is mother. She is the place where you are unconditionally loved and accepted.

But like any good mother, the Church desires what is best for her children, and what will serve their ultimate happiness.

There is freedom here.

For further reading on what the Church teaches on homosexuality check out Courage's website.

And you know I'm going to end this post by telling you to read Humanae Vitae again.

Click here to read the rest of the series.

I've made a mistake. Now what?

One thing I'm realizing in writing my way through the month of October, unpacking the Catholic Church's teachings on sex and marriage, is how many people out there have found themselves in the oh-so-familiar position of begin on the wrong side of those teachings.

In other words, having sinned.

First off the good news: YOU AND EVERYBODY ELSE WHO EVER INHABITED THE PLANET, the Blessed Mother excluded.

Including me.

Oh, how very much I belong in this camp. The camp of regret and heartache and anger and remorse and resentment toward God and a Church that would ask me to not do the thing which I had just done, because it would hurt me. And then it did hurt me. And so I was doubly mad.

So where does that leave someone who has sinned?

Well, hopefully, in line for confession.

Honestly, it's that simple. And it's that difficult.

The practice of reconciliation is essential for the health and wellbeing of any successful relationship. How much more essential is it to our relationship with God? And how much more effective?

Catholics go to confession to repair the relationship between the Creator and the creature. We go to admit (and this takes humility) "I screwed up. I did the thing you warned me against. And I'm sorry. I'll try not to do it again. But You have to help me."

And you know what God says, every time?

I forgive you.

Read the account of the prodigal son in Luke's gospel and you'll get a perfect, simple and profound explanation of the Sacrament of Confession.

But, but, you might be thinking...my sin is too great. God can't handle the magnitude of my screw up.

Yes, He can. The same way He's handled it for every other sinner and saint (often one and the same) who've roamed this earth. There's nothing He can't handle.

God can handle abortion.

God can handle a sexual homosexual relationship.

God can handle an extramarital affair.

God can handle prostitution.

God can handle vasectomies and tubal ligations.

God can handle an IUD.

God can handle the Morning After pill.

God can handle sex trafficking.

God can handle a pornography addiction.

God can handle abuse.

God can handle divorce.

God can handle murder.

And God can handle you.

There's nothing you've done He can't (and won't) forgive, if you are willing to come to Him and ask for it. And that's the entire premise of the Gospel right there, isn't it.

He died for you. And He rose again for you. And He founded His Church to help carry you to Him. And He entrusted the Church with His laws, with His best plan for your life. And every time you stray from that plan, He's ready to welcome you back.

Every time.

So if you've had an abortion, do not despair.

If you've cheated on your spouse, do not give up and walk away.

If you're addicted to pornography and want so badly to believe the cultural lie that it's harmless and healthy and completely normal...listen to the small, still voice in the back of your mind that's telling you differently. And come to Jesus. He longs to rescue us from our sins.

The reason the Church teaches anything about anything at all is out of love. That includes in a particularly powerful way Her teachings about sex and marriage.

The "rules" and the "restrictions" are all there to protect us, and to call us back into relationship with God when we fall short.

And we all do. All.of.us.

That doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Pornography reaching epidemic proportions doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Birth control being practiced both in the pews and by the culture at large doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Abortion on demand available in most places and for any reason doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

Homosexual relationships being recognized as marriages in 31 out of 50 states in the US doesn't mean the Church is wrong.

And the idea that you did x or y or z or even all three together and you might as well just accept yourself as "that kind of person" and walk away from Jesus because He doesn't want you and He doesn't accept you and His Church sure as hell doesn't want you around...

That's dead wrong.

The Church is your home. Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected is your savior.

And if you've screwed up a hundred times, He is all the more your savior.

Sometimes the more a soul has suffered, the more a soul is capable of loving. And the more profound the conversion to holiness. Think of St. Paul. Think of St. Augustine.

It's never too late.

I hope you'll read everything I've written so far this month with that in mind, and everything else I'm going to write for the remainder of the month.

"Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground." -G.K. Chesterton

Click here to read the rest of the series.