Vocation – Page 5 – Susanna Spencer

My Three Most Memorable St. Valentine’s Days

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M and I our “first time dating” freshman year.

1. February 14, 2005—A serious discussion with a pre-theologate (not really a seminarian, I promise… he was just in the “discernment program”)

Freshman year at Franciscan University of Steubenville was a rough year emotionally. I happened to have a massive crush on a guy in the pre-theologate program, and the thing is, he was acting as if he had a crush on me. You know, hanging out together all the time (we were in the same group of friends), singling each other out for discussion, walking a friend back to her dorm across campus together so we could walk back to our adjacent dorms alone, on movie nights sitting right next to each other on the same couch, and there may have been some flirting.

Well it all came to ahead right around St. Valentine’s day (or Sts. Cyril and Methodius Day for those of you who prefer the new calendar). I was confused: was this guy really discerning the priesthood or did he like me? He was less confused about my affection and more confused about his discernment. I confided in a few good friends, including a wonderful couple who let me interrupt their date night in a common room to get advice. They advised me to talk to him and tell him that he was confusing me.

I called him up, and asked to go for a walk because “we needed to talk.” My plan was to tell him that I was attracted to him and to ask him to give me some space, so that I could get over him and he could go on discerning the priesthood. We met up on a rainy courtyard clad in rain jackets (what a mild February that must have been!). I dove right into my problem. “I am attracted to you,” I confessed to him. “Um, well, I am attracted to you,” he replied, and then we paused. What were we supposed to do? Well, I decided to tell him the entirety of my past crushes and involvements with boys; I am not really sure why. I think I wanted to let him know that I really needed him to be straight forward with me. By the end of our discussion we decided that we needed to put serious limits on our interaction since we had become way to close to be “just friends.”

That worked for one emotionally painful week, and then I guess he had had enough. He met with his formation director, told all, and then left the program. He was free to date. The next day he asked me out. There is a lot more that happened after that, but eventually we got married, well three years later, which seems like a long time when you are only 18. I will tell the rest of the relationship history another time.

8 months pregnant with our first. I was showing more than he was.

2. February 14, 2009—Star Trek marathon.

I was 8 months pregnant with our first, and we were 8 months into our marriage. We decided that St. Valentine’s day was the last night of our youth since we were going to be taking care of our baby in a month. We went out to dinner (I can’t remember where), and then went to the best grocery store on the face of the earth, Wegmans, bought some snacks or something, and took turns riding the cart in the parking lot. Yep, I rode a cart at 8 months pregnant; I was empowered by Bradley birthing classes. Then we went over to Blockbuster and rented three of the original Star Trek movies. We then proceeded to watch them one after another, eating food, and wondering if the baby was a boy because the baby sure liked all the sound effects. (She was a girl, or course.)

I think this was my favorite St. Valentine’s day. We spent the first year or so of G’s life watching Star Trek Voyager, and then went through all the other Star Trek shows. We are pretty nerdly.

My Valentines dates in 2012.

3. February 14, 2012—Me and my daiquri.

The winter of 2012 was one of the most stressful of our relationship. M was “on the job market,” and we were in a continual state of anxiety waiting for calls or emails about job interviews. February is the normal month for on campus interviews, and boy M had a lot of them (for which we were very blessed). It seemed like every couple of days he was called out to another interview. I think he was gone for two full weeks of that month.

Well on St. Valentine’s Day, while M was at an awkward job interview dinner with two potential colleagues (not for the position he ultimately accepted) at a restaurant full of couples out on dates, I was hundreds of miles away, at home, having a romantic dinner of what was probably scrambled eggs with a not yet three year old and a one year old. After I put them to bed, I read one of C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower novels and drank a daiquiri (I got pretty good at making daiquiris that month).

After M got back to his hotel and called me up to recap the dinner, he informed me that he had been offered two more interviews. I just about cried, as I was at my wits end with the single parenting stuff, and I am pretty sure my mom friends were tired of me spending half the days at their houses. I made emergency calls to my parents and in-laws begging someone to come stay with me for the last interview. My wonderful mother-in-law took pity on me, and I rewarded her with our traditional Mardi Gras dinner of strawberry filled crepes, ice cream, and bacon.

Much to our relief, M received a job offer on February 17, when he was back home, so even though he was going to be gone for a few more interviews, we had the relief of knowing he would have a job.

______

And that is it. The rest of the St. Valentine’s days of our relationship probably involve either dinner at some restaurant or staying home with the kids. I can’t really recall.

As for the patron saint of lovers himself, I looked him up in our awesome hardcover Septuagesima volume of Dom Gueranger’s The Liturgical Year, and it turns out that whatever legends we have of him are not part of the liturgical tradition. We know that he was a priest “who suffered martyrdom towards the middle of the third century,” and that “the ravages of time have deprived us of the details of his life and sufferings.” However, we should look to his martyrdom as a model who encourages “us to spare no sacrifice which can restore us to, or increase within us, the grace of God.”

Where I Am Now

Our family altar on the day of the burial. We each brought a flower for the baby.

It has been five and a half weeks since we found out we lost our baby, almost four weeks since I passed the baby, and almost two weeks since we buried our little John Paul.

The burial was probably one of the sweetest things the Church has ever done for me. Did you know that there is a rite of burial for an unbaptized child? That is what Fr. M prayed with us at the cemetery. The children were quiet and attentive, and Father reminded us of what we have been all too aware of these days: when choosing to be open to having children, we are choosing to be open to suffering. All parents go through suffering and loss to some extent over their children, some more tragically than others, and many before they every thought they would. Suffering comes with loving others.

When M and I broke up after the first time we dated, I had just read The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis. This quotation from it was central to my understanding of love at the time:

“Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket–safe, dark, motionless, airless–it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable…The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

-C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

I think sometimes I fear having another child because I fear the suffering that comes with it, even pregnancy itself has its share of discomforts. And while I am still sorrowful from time to time about losing John Paul, I think now about the possibility of another pregnancy. It is hard not to worry about every little detail of possible future pregnancies. My co-writer at Truth and Charity wrote this sweet and realistic article about Choosing Hope while pregnant after losing babies. I know now is not the time to close myself from suffering, but I am being called to be even more generous to new life.

And then there is still the pain of our recent loss. I am pretty sure I need to have a good cry, but it has not happened since before the baby passed. In college I would have found my household sisters and asked them to pray over me until it happened. (Maybe I just need a phone call with my awesome friend C.) Further, I am still waiting for the completion of my post-miscarriage healing. When that occurs I know I will have a lot more peace about everything. I ask for your continued prayers, and am so thankful for the ones you have already offered.

And don’t worry too much about me, I am feeling particularly melancholic lately; just as long as I don’t stay here… 🙂

Natural Family Planning Needs a New Name

Family by Chris Sigmon. Used under Creative Commons.

I was sitting in my pro-life, NFP promoting doctor’s waiting room, leafing through a secular magazine. Ever since I started having children, I have always detested these magazines, but early pregnancy often leaves my brain in a fog and I could not read the book that I had brought. I was pulled out of the fog by a two-page advertisement for a new form of birth control.

Normally I just flip past those in disgust, but this one made a statement that embodied everything that is wrong with mainstream society’s view of the family. The image in the ad was a father and mother laying in their king size bed, looking seriously up at the camera. Between them were three small children, probably aged 1-6, laughing and oblivious of their parents’ intention to have no more children. “Your family is complete,” it stated in bold white letters under the family.

Then it gave the medical details of this irreversible birth control, including a list of dangerous side effects. But the details of it did not shake me; it was the belief that we can decide when our family is complete. That it is socially acceptable to see the gift of children as something so easily dismissed or controlled is one of the things that is wrong with the world. And this is the prominent mainstream mentality. Just do an internet search of “family is complete” and dozens of links to blogs and message boards come up where people evaluate how they “know.”

This idea is completely foreign to Church teaching, and to the way I was raised as a Catholic. Even after the birth of my parents’ fourth and last child, I always got the sense from them that they would welcome another child if that is what they discerned as right for our family. As a married adult, my parents’ understanding of openness to God’s will and use of charting still strikes me as a truly Catholic approach to having a family.

Last September I wrote about this same issue, criticizing the idea of being able to “plan” our families. This idea of a complete family is a consequence of the family planning mentality. The title of “Natural Family Planning” is not working. It is time to think of a new way to talk about charting cycles and using periodic abstinence when one has grave reasons to do so. It is too much like the mainstream mentality toward children. I am not sure what title would be the best, but recognizing the problem is the first step to solving it. The Creighton Model, calls it a “Fertility Care System.” Billings is the “Ovulation Method.” The Marquette Method and the Couple to Couple Leagues Sympto-Thermal Method both claim to be methods of NFP. Another part of the problem is that they are all often promoted as a form of “birth control.” We, as Catholics, need to stop using the language of “planning” and of “birth control.” Something like “Fertility Awareness” seems like appropriate language, though it leaves out the rational aspect of discerning God’s will.

In the Creighton Model (which I have been charting with for seven years), the pregnancy follow-up includes several questions about the couple’s intentions regarding the pregnancy. One of the questions is, “Was this baby planned?” It always strikes me as weird that I am being asked this question. Every time we have conceived a child, I realize the great gift of a new life coming into existence inside me. While we can hope each month for a new child, it is never something that we have planned. We can do everything we can to make it possible for a human to come into existence, but we can never plan this child into our family. We can look at the calendar and have an expected due date, but we cannot entirely plan or control when the baby will come out.

Most recently, we had a baby leave us much sooner than we had hoped. I lost a baby at 6 weeks pregnant, and I realized even more how our children are gifts to us, whom we can never plan or think we deserve. Before we were married, we talked about wanting ten children, looking at our ages, how much space we might have between children and at what age I would stop being fertile. We never planned on having ten, nor do we now, but we hope for one child at a time. There is nothing we plan until the child is conceived, and then we plan for the months after the child’s birth. Before a baby is on the way, we cannot plan at all. Even then, our plans are always tentative, since there are so many uncertainties when it comes to pregnancy.

But, from the language you hear in the parenting world, most people think otherwise. A friend told me about one of her Catholic friends questioning her about at what age does she want to stop have children. The questioner had the age of 32 in mind. My friend thought this idea was so strange, being 30 herself and having just a one year old to care for. We chatted about how we always imagined having children into our early 40s. But then, maybe one should be open to even later, if it is possible. It is anti-cultural, but it is not anti-life.

God calls married couples to have children, and each individual couples He calls to follow His plan for them, not their own plan. I do not know what God has in mind for my family, our little unborn baby who passed away was not something we had hoped for, but we are trusting in God’s plan for our family. And if you have not yet read, Bridget Green’s article about how Catholics maybe should think seriously about having large families, then read it. If you have read it, read it again. I responded to her piece, talking about it is important to use reason in our decisions about being open to children, but I want to emphasize now, how we are called to generous when choosing when to hope for children. I wonder more and more if what society really needs is a whole lot of Catholics trusting in God’s plan and giving up the concept of “family planning.”

Post # 201!

During a blogging hiatus. And this is definitely a mirror image phone “selfie”…

I meant to commemorate post #200, but I happened to miss it in the frenzy of last week. I was not expecting the crazy amount of traffic that my Truth and Charity post on young people trending to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (Traditional Latin Mass) it received, and I missed my 200th post. Well, I did post a silly thing on winter music, mostly in attempt to amuse myself in the midst of a blizzard.

I started this blog back in 2008 when I was in my second trimester with G. I had been married slightly longer than I had been pregnant, and out of college slightly longer than I had been married. A lot had happened and continued to happen as I learned how to balance kids and living. The blog was neglected for a large portion of my life in Buffalo, but towards the end of it I started writing more. Maybe I owe my deeper introspection to the move to St. Paul. When you have to restart life to some extent in a new place, it is nice to have a place to process it all. Due to my renewal of this blog, I was invited to write for Truth and Charity. I am deeply grateful to everyone at Truth and Charity for inviting me to write for them. It has been such a rewarding experience, and a challenge for me to expand my writing abilities.

I feel like that I can really call myself “a writer” now. I always wanted to be a writer. That was my plan before I discovered theology and philosophy. And since I did not make it past my masters degree before my vocation turned to wifehood and motherhood, blogging seemed the appropriate option. Thank you for all your support of my blogging. I am especially grateful to the “writer’s group” from freshmen year of college, who have always been my most faithful readers. The weekly group also happens to be where M and I had the chance to get to know each other through our love of writing.

On top of our love of writing, M and I have a love of reading. When I was discussing my article about the Pope’s understanding of young people becoming traditionalists, M mentioned this passage, which I will leave you with, from Brideshead Revisted by Evelyn Waugh:

So Rex was sent to Farm Street to Father Mowbray, a priest renowned for his triumphs with obdurate catechumans. After the third interview he came to tea with Lady Marchmain [Rex’s future mother-in-law] …
“Then again I asked him: ‘Supposing the Pope looked up and saw a cloud and said “It’s going to rain,” would that be bound to happen?’ ‘Oh, yes, Father.’ ‘But supposing it didn’t’ He thought a moment and said, ‘I suppose it would be sort of raining spiritually, only we were too sinful to see it.’
“Lady Marchmain, he doesn’t correspond to any degree of paganism known to the missionaries.”

Philosophy while parenting… kinda make you want another…

P.S. I am planning some updating on my blog design…I am not sure exactly the extent or when.

Martyrs and the Persecution of Priests

An altarpiece at the Shrine church.

If you get off I-90 in the middle of upstate New York near Auriesville and travel a few miles along a hilly rural road, you may find yourself at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Martyrs. The Shrine is the location of a church dedicated to the North American Martyrs, and it is in this location that the Jesuit priest St. Issac Jogues and his companions the Jesuit brother St. René Goupil and a layman St. John Lalande were martyred. Fifteen years after their death, St. Kateri Tekakwitha was born in 1656.

Looking out from the bluff, you can see the Mohawk River winding its way through the rolling countryside, and try to imagine the days when it was untamed wilderness and the Jesuit missionaries struggled to bring the Gospel to the people of this “new” land. The lived with great hostility and suffered many physical deprivations, but they did it out of love of God and the truth.

The Shrine also honors the North American martyrs of Canada, one of them being the priest St. Jean de Brebeuf , a missionary Jesuit to the Hurons who was captured by a group of Iroquis, brutally tortured, and martyred. During his time as a missionary he learned the Huron language and wrote this beautiful Huron Carol (translated into English by Jesse Edgar Middleton):

‘Twas in the moon of winter-time
When all the birds had fled,
That mighty Gitchi Manitou
Sent angel choirs instead;
Before their light the stars grew dim,
And wandering hunter heard the hymn:
“Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.”

Within a lodge of broken bark
The tender Babe was found,
A ragged robe of rabbit skin
Enwrapp’d His beauty round;
But as the hunter braves drew nigh,
The angel song rang loud and high…
“Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.”

The earliest moon of wintertime
Is not so round and fair
As was the ring of glory
On the helpless infant there.
The chiefs from far before him knelt
With gifts of fox and beaver pelt.
“Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.”

O children of the forest free,
O sons of Manitou,
The Holy Child of earth and heaven
Is born today for you.
Come kneel before the radiant Boy
Who brings you beauty, peace and joy.
“Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria.”

We need the beauty of the Christmas story today as much as ever. The little babe, God become Man, is greater for humanity than anyone could ever have imagined. And that is the message that the missionary priests brought to the first American people. During our modern time, where there are priests are failing to live up to their priestly vocations and so many accused of horrendous things, I think about the Jesuit missionary priests who gave their lives to convert people so hostile to Christianity. While they succeeded in teaching some about the truth, there were others who hated them for it.

The Church has never been a stranger to hatred, and will not be until the second coming. I would like to believe that all our priests are living pure, holy lives, and God knows the truth. As faithful Catholics, we must pray for our priests and for the Church to become more holy. We can turn to the North American martyrs and ask their intercession for all priests that they live out fully their vocation to priesthood and holiness.

And then there is the Infant Jesus, who was adored and wondered at on the first Christmas and who we still adore today. Christmas is a reminder of the simple beauty of an infant who is God, who grew up to establish the Church, who ordained the first priests. There is something about the Child Jesus, the Holy Infant, that can help one remember the first love they had of God, that can rejuvenate a tired priest, who faces the daily hostility of the secular media and the suspicions of people who do not understand the choice to be celibate.

As the Church, we need to stand strong behind our priests and bishops, pray for them, and especially that the truth be made clear. And for those who have sadly done the things of which they are accused, we need to pray for their conversion and repentance. No matter how hostile the world becomes towards the Church and her clergy, it will not change that God came to Earth and that “Jesus your King is born” and that we will have joy in Him.

We must remember those who were persecuted for their faith, have their heavenly reward, and that we are called to it as well. On this Feast of Stephen the first Christian martyr, we pray,

St. Stephen, pray for us.

Originally the at Truth and Charity…

The North American Martyrs.

There is Nothing Wrong with Weddings or Baby Showers

Photo by our lovely photographer, Jen Pagano.

I came across this article today. The author, Valerie Anderson, has an interesting point that marriage is more important than weddings and raising a child is more important than having a huge party with expensive gifts, which she makes at the end of the article. The rest of the article she spends complaining about the thousands of dollars she spent on being in seven weddings, only two of which the couple are still married. Then she talks about how people throw huge baby showers and emphasize having a baby, instead of graduation from school or a promotion. I agree with her that way too much money is spent on unnecessary things, but I disagree with the idea that the celebrations are a problem.

I was married right out of college, and my husband and I had very little in savings. We asked out parents to help us fund our wedding. Between both sides of the family we had a budget of $8000 (Anderson spent $15,000 on a wedding reception for 125 people). We had nearly 200 guests (we both have large extended families) and the $8000 covered everything: the church, the hall, the musicians, our photographer and printed pictures, the caterer, the two-buck chuck we served to drink, my $99 clearance rack dress, the tux rental, the flowers, and more. We did everything for a little as possible and still worked to make it nice. We used my parents minivan instead of a limo. I picked a reasonably priced dress for the bridesmaids, and my husband and I picked the lowest tux we could find for the groomsmen. Our friend guests carpooled and roomed together, saving as much money as they could. It was simple, it was maybe a little bit cheap, but I think that it was a beautiful and wonderful day for everyone who came.

For me, my wedding was not about “being a princess,” it was about entering into the Sacrament of Matrimony with my dearest love and best friend. It was about starting a life together, and hoping for children. It was about helping each other become saints. If that is not something to have a huge celebration for, I am not sure what is. We wanted our family and friends to celebrate with us, to pray for us, and to know that we wanted to share our life with them. That is what a wedding is about. Further, since we were fresh out of college, the wedding and the bridal showers provided us with the necessary material foundation for our life together. If it were not for my parent’s generosity, we would have slept on a $99 futon for many years before we bought a mattress for ourselves. A wedding celebration is the community’s way of supporting a young couple and helping them start their life together, and the great feast is the couple’s and their parents’ way of thanking everyone for their support. It is all very beautiful, if that is the way it is approached. As a potential bride, I was very skeptical of the over-commercialization of the wedding “industry”, and I think my husband and I navigated it very well for a beautiful and affordable celebration.

Six months after my wedding, my family threw me a baby shower. We were bringing a new human into the world, and that is something to celebrate! A new human life to add to the perfection of the universe! It is a bit hard for a post-partum mother to have a huge party right after delivery, so during pregnancy when the baby is nicely cared for in the womb is a great time. Plus, while there are a lot of unnecessary baby items in the world, new parents really do appreciate the support of friends and family in purchasing all the necessities of baby care. One of my showers was a cloth diaper shower. My third baby is wearing those very same diapers I received as a shower gift three years ago. That shower was not a waste. And, while I did not receive gifts for getting a job after college (which I left to be a mom) or throw a huge party when a blog post gets lots of hits, I am pretty sure that these things are not as major as the existence of a new human being.

The new life of a human has the same value, even when the mom is a teen mom. She might even need more support and aid than a married mom does. This paragraph from the article is probably the worst:

“I’ve been to a handful of these showers, and the unmistakable fact is that the guest list is mostly other teenage girls, all cooing and fawning over their corpulent friend or cousin, shrieking excitedly as they present her with the beautiful bassinet that they all pitched in for, ignoring the fact that the endeavor she is embarking on will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and stunt her career opportunities for the rest of her life, not to mention the devastating impact on her social life.”

Where are the adults in the life of the teenage girl, who needs their help more than ever? It is a great good that she is having a baby, even though it will “have devastating impact on her social life.” And there is nothing wrong with her friends supporting her in this; I would rather that than them take her to a clinic to have her child murdered. I am not sure really how this complaint about teenage baby showers fits into the marriage article to begin with, but clearly Anderson is seeing children as a burden and not a blessing. I think the movie Juno, where she gives her baby up for adoption, is a great example of how to act in the case of a teenage pregnancy, but, for those who are able, keeping and raising the child is beautiful as well.

I think that the complaint that Anderson makes should be about the over-commericalization of weddings and baby showers, not the things in themselves, but then that is easy for me to grasp since the value of thrift has been instilled in me my whole life.

The Right Baby at the Right Time

I have been thinking a lot lately about the personality and temperament of each of my children, and one of the things I have noticed is that each child’s temperament fit with the time of life that I had them in perfectly. It seems like God knew the kind of baby that I would need at each time and gave that child to me.

For example, F (9 months) is the most laid back baby I have had. She is happy to play alone for long stretches, and in fact gets upset sometimes when others interfere with her solo play. She was born right after we moved to a new city and then we decided to start house hunting when she was three months old. Things were supposed to slow down after we moved into our house this June, but with the leaky pipe and the long wait for repairs to be completed in the basement, things are still fairly high stress in our home. F is teaching me to be more like her with her laid back, patient, simple personality. She also goes to sleep really easily which is exactly what I need when there are so many other things making life stressful. A baby that sleeps makes it all a lot simpler to a busy mom.

Not the current baby… 🙂

L (2.5) was my baby at a time when life was fairly settled. I had established a good support system of friends in Buffalo and she fit right into our family life. She was a very high strung baby, but also very cheerful. She made life joyful, so her mood swings were not stressful but just taught me to attend to her based off of her personality and not panic when she screamed at the top of her lungs about small problems.

G (4), my first baby is more like me, and maybe that was best for me with my first baby when I knew nothing about taking care of babies. Our moods often fit and reflected each other, and with her I learned how to be a mom. I still am learning how to be a mom with her as we encounter all of our firsts. And with such a laid back baby sister, our first year of more serious preschool home schooling should be easier to tackle.

God really does provide in a growing family, giving the right baby at the right time.

God’s Providence and NFP

When I was a girl I remember going into my mom’s room with her and seeing a little notebook she had. She also kept a thermometer on her nightstand. She would show me her notebook and I would look at the numbers for each day and a line graph she made charting the ups and downs of the numbers. I really never knew what it was for, except that it was what a grown up woman did to monitor her body or something.

Flash forward to my third year of college. I was engaged, and my fiancé, Mark, and I decided that we should learn how to chart so that we could fulfill the Natural Family Planning class requirement in order to get married in my home diocese. We signed up for an introductory sessions for the Creighton Model Fertility Care System, and we learned there that there is much more to charting than the “family planning” hype surrounding NFP. With this system of charting we had about eight sessions with our own personal practitioner in the first year who personalized my charting to my unique signs but also fit them into the rules that the founder of the Creighton Model, Dr. Hilgers, laid out. It was really great to have someone to bring my questions to who knew my cycles history and kept me accountable for charting correctly. The thing about charting cycles is that it is important to be consistent and thorough, only then can a woman be truly following her cycles.

Because of the consistent charting of women, Dr. Hilgers and those in the Natural Procreative Technology field, have been able to find the cause of many abnormal conditions a woman may have, such as premenstral syndrom, infertility, repetitive miscarriage, ovarian cysts, endometriosis, postpartum depression, and more. Once the cause is pinpointed, then it can be treated. I never had had any of the health issues listed above, but we thought, why not use a method that can help me stay healthy, especially since we hoped that we would be blessed with many children.

After several months of charting, I discovered that there was a good chance that I would be fertile on my honeymoon, and Mark and I were excited about the possibility of having a baby right away in our marriage. We were engaged for 18 months and during that time Mark was applying for graduate school. We were blessed with an assistantship (which we decided was a living wage for a small family) and health insurance for Mark (as a student employee) and his dependants. Thankful for our blessings, we knew that when we were married we would be able to be totally open to the fruits or marriage. We contacted our practitioner to schedule a “pregnancy follow-up” about a month after our wedding. She used my careful charting to determine possible conception dates and project our due date, which is more accurate than a due date projected from the first day of a woman’s cycle. Our first daughter was born nine months and one day after our wedding.

Then we discovered the complication of charting and breastfeeding at the same time. Once again, we had our same practitioner to go over our charts (this time over the phone) and address any questions about charting to. I do not know how we would have understood anything about post-partum charting without her help. For example, you may have heard that breastfeeding suppresses ovulation, but you may not have heard that when the baby does any other sucking (i.e. bottle or pacifier), the mother does not produce as much of the hormone that suppresses ovulation and therefore her cycles are more likely to return sooner.

Two children later, I am still very pleased that we are charting and keeping a record of my health. If it were not for starting my post-partum charting 56 days after the birth of our third daughter, I do not think I would have gone for help with what became a diagnosed case of post-partum depression. The treatment was so simple; an injection of progesterone, which within hours changed my feeling of being mostly overwhelmed by three children under four to a feeling of being able to handle my daily life. If I had not been using a method of NFP where I had a practitioner to talk to and further a doctor who knew the system (which I am so blessed to have!), I may have just credited my feelings to lack of sleep, a long Minnesota winter, and what it is like to have three little kids. I began to enjoy being a mother, instead of feeling resentful and then guilty that I was unhappy with a life I had chosen and wanted.

Now I have heard some say that charting is not for everyone, that people use NFP in with a “contraceptive mentality,” and that the Church needs to define what it means for one to have a “iustae causae” (literal translation: just or fair cause) or a “seriis causis” (literal translation: serious or grave cause). The “just cause” phrase is found in Humanae Vitae 16 (in this translation it is “well-grounded reason”) and “grave cause” is found in HV 10. We know that the ends of marriage are the procreation of children and the unity of the husband and wife, and that the end of the marital act is procreation and union. We also know from Church Tradition summed up in the Catechism that we are to participate in Divine Providence (God’s ordering of all things):

To human beings God even gives the power of freely sharing in his providence by entrusting them with the responsibility of “subduing” the earth and having dominion over it. God thus enables men to be intelligent and free causes in order to complete the work of creation, to perfect its harmony for their own good and that of their neighbors.(CCC 307)

The ability given by science for a husband and wife to understand the wife’s fertility and her cycles gives them the opportunity to exercise the God-given power to have dominion over nature. They can use their reason to understand her cycles and exercise their will knowing all the circumstances of the family, taking into account it the physical and psychological health of the man or the woman as well as other external circumstances. I am not going to say all couples have an obligation to chart, but God is calling them to be aware of their circumstances and make reasonable choices about when they have children. I do not think this takes away from the ideas espoused in Gaudium et Spes quoted by my fellow Truth and Charity writers. I am including the quotation but also going back further in the paragraph originally cited:

Parents should regard as their proper mission the task of transmitting human life and educating those to whom it has been transmitted. They should realize that they are thereby cooperators with the love of God the Creator, and are, so to speak, the interpreters of that love. Thus they will fulfill their task with human and Christian responsibility, and, with docile reverence toward God, will make decisions by common counsel and effort. Let them thoughtfully take into account both their own welfare and that of their children, those already born and those which the future may bring. For this accounting they need to reckon with both the material and the spiritual conditions of the times as well as of their state in life. Finally, they should consult the interests of the family group, of temporal society, and of the Church herself. The parents themselves and no one else should ultimately make this judgment in the sight of God. […]
Thus, trusting in divine Providence and refining the spirit of sacrifice, married Christians glorify the Creator and strive toward fulfillment in Christ when with a generous human and Christian sense of responsibility they acquit themselves of the duty to procreate. Among the couples who fulfill their God-given task in this way, those merit special mention who with a gallant heart and with wise and common deliberation, undertake to bring up suitably even a relatively large family.(GS 50)

We need to remember that God gave us all different strengths and different circumstances in which to serve Him, and the bringing about of a new human is a very important matter. Every child is caused by God and in virtue of divine Providence; the parents provide the matter and God the soul. This is a serious thing, and couples should be reasonable when considering becoming co-creators with God. This, I think, is why for every couple what is considered to be a grave or just cause to have recourse to infertile times is different. And this is why I think the Church is not going to define this more precisely. When a couple is truly open to God’s plan for them, they may feel they need to postpone being open to another child for a time, or they may feel that they will be able to accept another child at any time. This is between each couple and God.

For some parents, they may not be able to handle “a relatively large family” due to health or other just or grave reasons. They have discerned between them and God that another child would not be prudent at that time. We do not know that in their hearts they will happily accept another child, if God were to bless them with one, but knowing their current circumstances they feel that should not purposefully do so. Other parents have the ability to handle many children and home school them, even children born very close together. Those who do not do so should not feel like they are inadequate; they just have different abilities and means. Some families can afford to send their children to the very best of Catholic schools, and some cannot. Couples who have a lot of support in childcare from their families have different circumstances than those who live far away from their relatives.

We never can know fully another family’s circumstances or what they believe to be God’s will for them, but we can pray that all couples are open to God’s will for them and are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to trust in God’s providence.

___________________

One last point of interest: In my research for this post I found the Magisterium’s first statement about a couple using infertile times to avoid conception of a child in the Enchiridion Symbolorum compiled by Heinrich Denzinger. Here is the English translation in the latest edition by Ignatius Press:

3148: Response of the Sacred Penitentiary, June 16, 1880:
Question: Is it permitted to have marital union only on those days when conception is more difficult?
Response: Spouses who use this above-mentioned method need not be troubled, and the confessor can, though with caution, suggest the idea in question to those spouses whom he has sought in vain to lead by some other means away from the detestable crime of onanism.

Originally posted on Truth and Charity.

P.S. You also could check out if you have not yet My Tribute to my NFP practioner (who is not an iPod App).

Missing My Brother

I have a confession to make: ever since I went to college 10 hours away from home, I have regretted leaving my little brother to pursue my studies. I think that changing my relationships with people to pursue new places and opportunities has always been a source of regret in my life, but the person that I feel it affected the most was my little brother.

He was starting high school the Fall I started college, and our age gap of 3.5 years may seem like a lot, it was so natural for us to have a close friendship. When we were little, we always played together. Being the third and fourth (and two youngest) kids in our family put us together a lot. We spent hours in the summer days building legos, playing cars, trains, and playing with the younger neighborhood kids outside. When our sisters had soccer games in the Autumn, we would explore whatever park we were at. My older sisters had their own friends and their own sleepovers. I was always booted from the room we shared to spend the sleepovers in my brother’s room. One sleepover we put the old bunk-bed back together and I spent several months sleeping on the top bunk and chatting with my brother until we fell asleep at night. On family road trips we always shared the middle bench seat and often a set of headphones to listen to all of our favorite songs. We had all the same favorite TV shows, so that precious 30 minutes of television we were allowed was often spent together. And we also both are baseball fans; I was always thrilled to watch his games (since my baseball skills were limited) and we would catch as many pro games on TV and in person as we could.

Thinking back I wonder if things started changing when I started middle school. I think he must have realized that I was going to leave him someday, when he saw me making phone calls to boys. He ran around the neighborhood shouting, “Susanna likes _______!” Which is a crushing sort of thing to do to a middle school girl. But then we remained close even when I was in high school attending various youth groups; I was even really excited for the time when he would be old enough to also be in my youth groups. I never formally dated anyone in high school and I think that made him happy. Both of our other sisters had dated some. He asked me to be his Confirmation sponsor my Junior year of high school (Confirmations are in middle school in the Archdiocese of St. Louis), and I accepted. I was honored, and knew that I had an even greater responsibility to him than that of his sister.

Then I chose to go to college 10 hours away. All summer before I left, he told me that he just knew that I was going to meet a man at college and move away forever. I did. I came home from college that first summer dating M. My brother was pretty annoyed at me; he told me that I was too young to be dating and discerning marriage with someone. Then M and I broke up and my brother told me that it served me right. Perhaps I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to notice that my brother had missed me and maybe wanted to spend time with me when I was not mourning and moping about my heart. I am sorry I was such a jerk that summer. Though we did have a phone conversation while I was in Austria that Fall semester where he apologized to me for being mad at me for dating; you see he had a crush and ended up dating her.

By the time I got back from studying abroad, I was dating M again. Then I spent half of my break with M visiting our house or me visiting his in Michigan. Then I stayed all summer in Steubenville, and then again the next summer. The longest I spent at home between my first summer of college break and my wedding was the four weeks before my wedding, and by then he already knew that he had lost me.

He claims that he does not do well keeping in touch especially through the phone, and honestly our best conversations since I was married have been during in person visits. And I cherish any contact he has with me, be it a text, a rare phone call, or the in person visits. I hoped that one day we might end up back in St. Louis and I would see more of my family, but that has not happened. For now, I must be content being hundreds of miles away.

You see the thing about my brother is that he is so lovable; he is funny, intelligent, and caring. He knows how to treat a lady (he better with three older sisters!). He has his strong Catholic faith. He works through his weaknesses. He does not need me to be there in person to be who God created him to be, but he does need me as a loving sister who prays for him daily. And that I do, and maybe one day I will be able to stop regretting leaving our family home when he was just fourteen. Because if we both get to Heaven, then we can be together forever.

A Young Married Woman’s Thoughts on Vocational Discernment

When I think about vocations and discernment, I always remember my time studying in abroad in college. The campus is in a small little town in the smaller mountains of Austria. It was a beautiful semester with great friends and a retreat from the real world as we knew it. Though I suppose all of college is like that, especially at Franciscan University of Steubenville.

That fall semester in Austria was crucial to my relationship with, my now husband, Mark. I have been thinking about what it was like that semester not knowing what was going to happen with him. We had met the year before within the first weeks of college, and for me there was a pretty early attraction. There was also the complication of him planning on being a priest. The idea of getting married had never really entered his mind, and everyone expected him to be a priest. People still asked his mother a couple of years after our marriage if he was a priest yet, having not heard the other developments of marriage and children in his life.

By the Spring semester of our freshmen year, our mutual attraction was pretty clear. We were in the same group of friends which spent a lot of time together, eating meals, having prayer meetings, watching movies, and even doing homework. When things finally got to the point of needing to be discussed, it was all clear to everyone that there was something going on between us. The only catch was that he was in the pre-theologate program, which is for men discerning the priesthood.

Coincidentally, things came to a head on the Feast of St. Valentine. We discussed our mutual attraction and decided to put some space between us in our relationship, which meant that within our group of friends we tried to not talk to each other and separately pray about our friendship. He was the one who had to decide the most. I was not dating other men and was feeling ready to have a discerning relationship with Mark as long as he was ready himself. He, on the other hand, would have to make the major decision of leaving his priestly formation program to discern if we were meant to be together. He ended up leaving the program a week later and then we started dating the next day, both at the young age of 18.

Looking back I can see how we rushed into the relationship, but it seemed the right thing to do at the time. When the summer break came, however, Mark was not so sure anymore if our relationship was the right thing for him. He felt the need to really make a decision about his call to the priesthood, or at least be at peace with not pursuing the priesthood so that we could pursue a possible future together. When he broke up with me that summer, I decided to pray again about being a religious sister.

I had thought about it on and off for all of high school and throughout my first year of college until I began dating Mark. Being the bride of Christ is an attractive vocation for a young woman seeking to live a holy life, but it never seemed quite right for me. Further, there was not one order in particular that I wanted to look into, which is essential for becoming a sister.

There were some really great sisters that I know in high school, and it was to one of them that I talked about the vocation to religious life. I remember the conversation I had with her, while my heart was aching for Mark, about what being a sister entailed. As we spoke I realized in my heart that I could not let go of hope that Mark would decide to date me again. It was not some great revelation from God that I should not be a sister, it was the person of Mark, whom I cared for and felt drawn to that made me realize that I could not pursue the vocation of religious life.

Then we both went to Austria. We had three day weekends for traveling, and being in the same group of friends, we often were in the same traveling group. The campus was so small and the classes so limited that we had most of our classes together. Mark and I could not avoid each other very easily, and honestly we did not want to. He spent most of the semester trying to decide if he should date me again or not. When you expect to become a priest and everyone else you know has been expecting it for years, it is hard to decide otherwise. He prayed a lot; I prayed a lot.

I spent the whole semester trying to give him the space he needed in such tight quarters as that small Austrian campus. His parents came to visit during that semester and he opened up to them about his discernment. He now describes his discernment that semester as realizing that vocation is more specific than one call or another, but it is to a specific person or in the case of religious life to a particular diocese or order. He could not know that he was called to be married until the person he was to marry was before him, discerning with him.

In the fall semester in Austria there was a Thanksgiving “Ball” where everyone dressed up in traditional Austrian clothes and learned the traditional dances. Mark asked me to go with him, and for the first time it felt like we had chosen something right for our relationship. He had come to the point of being ready to pursue our relationship further. He felt a freedom he had not felt before to discern our future together, and he realized deep down inside that if we did date again that we were going to get married. The ball was a lot of fun, though nothing became official that evening. We were still “just friends.” Two days later he asked me to take a walk with him after noon Mass and on that walk he asked me to date him again.

A year later we decided to get married, and 18 months after our engagement began we were married, 10 days before my 22nd birthday.

I know that this story may not seem relevant to those discerning vocation who are older and not in college anymore, but I think what M and I discovered about our own vocations can be helpful for those thinking about their own. Whatever God has in store for you, He will be specific about it eventually. We are not called to broad sweeping ideas or vocations, we are called to do specific things. We are called to relationships with specific people, to specific groups of people, in specific places. And that is what we should discern when we discern our vocation. Our vocations are part of us, and God calls us to be the best us. When we discern our call, it will be an organic decision, developing beautifully in our lives.