Thursday, July 28, 2011
Going' to the Chapel!
Finally, Rick and I are going to get married! His divorce finally came through and we have set a date for September 15th! My mind is swimming with wedding details and my heart is all a flutter!
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
NFP Awareness Week
Did you know that there is a week dedicated to Natural Family Planning Awareness? I didn't until just a few days ago when I ran into an article on Catholic.org about a woman describing her reasons she practices NFP and how it has impacted her life. Since I am rather passionate about the subject I have decided to contribute to the cause and write about why I practice NFP.
A few weeks ago I commented on a very disturbing statistic I came across: 72% of Catholic women currently use some type of hormonal birth control, despite the Catholic Church's teachings, and 90% of Catholic women used it at some point in their life. I was one of the 90%. I originally went on birth control when I was 16 for medical purposes. I suffered from debilitating primary desmenaria, which made my menstral cycles incredibly painful. Then, when I became sexually active at the age of 21 I continued to use it for contraceptive purposes.
I converted to the Catholic Church when I was 13. Even though I considered myself to be very devout, I did not agree with the Church's teachings about birth control. I did not see anything wrong with it and I thought it was just a male dominated hierarchy who did not fully understand women. I remember my senior year of Catholic high school, we had our priest teach a series of classes on marriage and he spoke about NFP. At the age of 17 I was saying to myself, what does a male priest know about a woman's body? I basically dismissed his concepts.
Then, my last year of college, I fell away from the Church and practiced Wicca. I viewed sex as something that was given to us by the gods for pleasure and to connect with another human being. This is a rather superficial view about sex, but I believed it for a good five years.
When my fiance and I moved to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, Saint Peter's Roman Catholic Church was only a thirty second walk where I lived. It got to the point I had no excuse for not returning to church. I started to trek up the hill on Sunday mornings and eventually my fiance started to follow me. He was born and baptized Catholic but stopped attending Mass at the age of 10.
After going through a full spiritual crisis, I started to open my heart to Christ and His Church. With the help of my parish Deacon and a lot of prayer, I began to pull myself out of the spiritual darkness and research church teachings on a variety of topics. I read a number of articles on NFP and a number of books on the topic and it all started to make sense.
Marriage is a covenant between a man, a woman, and God. The physical act of love is a part of the covenant, where two become one. The physical act of the covenant is supposed to be love giving and life giving. Hormonal contraceptives artificially deny the life-giving aspect of that covenant therefore degrading the act and making it for something that is for pleasure only. But there are people who argue that NFP is just mental contraception. My argument back is, that if God wants us to get pregnant every time we had sex women would be at peak fertility all of the time. Most women have a 'peak' period once a month at time of ovulation. God gave us something natural to work with in planning our families!
This is my fifth month of practicing NFP. I have noticed that I don't have as many migraines as I used to. I can't see how pumping hormones into your body is a good thing, unless you have some type of medical condition. I have a friend who was on the pill for a short time and now has a hormonal imbalance because of it. She battles with facial hair and is now having a difficult time conceiving.
I practice NFP because it is the right thing to do both physically and morally.
A few weeks ago I commented on a very disturbing statistic I came across: 72% of Catholic women currently use some type of hormonal birth control, despite the Catholic Church's teachings, and 90% of Catholic women used it at some point in their life. I was one of the 90%. I originally went on birth control when I was 16 for medical purposes. I suffered from debilitating primary desmenaria, which made my menstral cycles incredibly painful. Then, when I became sexually active at the age of 21 I continued to use it for contraceptive purposes.
I converted to the Catholic Church when I was 13. Even though I considered myself to be very devout, I did not agree with the Church's teachings about birth control. I did not see anything wrong with it and I thought it was just a male dominated hierarchy who did not fully understand women. I remember my senior year of Catholic high school, we had our priest teach a series of classes on marriage and he spoke about NFP. At the age of 17 I was saying to myself, what does a male priest know about a woman's body? I basically dismissed his concepts.
Then, my last year of college, I fell away from the Church and practiced Wicca. I viewed sex as something that was given to us by the gods for pleasure and to connect with another human being. This is a rather superficial view about sex, but I believed it for a good five years.
When my fiance and I moved to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, Saint Peter's Roman Catholic Church was only a thirty second walk where I lived. It got to the point I had no excuse for not returning to church. I started to trek up the hill on Sunday mornings and eventually my fiance started to follow me. He was born and baptized Catholic but stopped attending Mass at the age of 10.
After going through a full spiritual crisis, I started to open my heart to Christ and His Church. With the help of my parish Deacon and a lot of prayer, I began to pull myself out of the spiritual darkness and research church teachings on a variety of topics. I read a number of articles on NFP and a number of books on the topic and it all started to make sense.
Marriage is a covenant between a man, a woman, and God. The physical act of love is a part of the covenant, where two become one. The physical act of the covenant is supposed to be love giving and life giving. Hormonal contraceptives artificially deny the life-giving aspect of that covenant therefore degrading the act and making it for something that is for pleasure only. But there are people who argue that NFP is just mental contraception. My argument back is, that if God wants us to get pregnant every time we had sex women would be at peak fertility all of the time. Most women have a 'peak' period once a month at time of ovulation. God gave us something natural to work with in planning our families!
This is my fifth month of practicing NFP. I have noticed that I don't have as many migraines as I used to. I can't see how pumping hormones into your body is a good thing, unless you have some type of medical condition. I have a friend who was on the pill for a short time and now has a hormonal imbalance because of it. She battles with facial hair and is now having a difficult time conceiving.
I practice NFP because it is the right thing to do both physically and morally.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Pancake Breakfast!!!
There is nothing I love more than going to the pancake breakfast at my church, which is put on by the Knights of Columbus once a month. My fiance is a member of the KoC and he helps out at every breakfast. I will typically arrive to the church before he does so that I can relax for a few minutes and how some coffee before heading up stairs for the 11am Mass.
Typically, the social hall does not have a lot of people down there at 10am, but this morning it was full!! I had forgotten that there was a rather large group of youth getting ready to head down to Webster Springs, WV for some community service work. I'll admit, it was rather funny seeing our Deacon, who typically wears a collar, dressed in overalls and what looked to be a train engineer's hat. Webster Springs is one of the most poverty stricken places in West Virginia. This trip is one of the biggest events that the youth participate in every year.
Deacon knows that I have been feeling a little depressed lately, mainly due to the ongoing delays of my fiance's divorce therefore delaying our marriage. This last delay was a doozy and one of the most ridiculous things that I have ever heard in my life. Apparently, after weeks of the paperwork sitting in the system, his ex-wife has to sign an affidavit stating that Rick is not in the military and is not deployed overseas. Rick is 53 years old! The divorce papers stated what his occupation was and it did not state military! The lawyer swears that the divorce will be final by the end of this month, and that he himself will stand before the judge and get it done. I want with all of my heart to believe that, but this process was supposed to be done months ago and I have become so jaded that I don't think I will believe it until I see the finalized divorce papers in my hands. Deacon is a good man and he continues to try to give me hope and help me to see the eventual light at the end of the tunnel. He reinforced to me again today saying, "I have your file all ready to go, we'll get this done as soon as we can."
On a higher note I went to my first wedding dress fitting last week. Whenever we hear the word go, I'll at least have my wedding dress all set!
Ok, enough of my drama. On to a little bit of commentary here.
Have you heard about what is going on with Father Corapi? If you are following any type of Catholic news you probably have and it is one of the most confusing affairs that I have ever heard of. First off, I'll admit, I have never followed Father Corapi before and i only really know of him by name and by his reputation of being a rather charismatic speaker who has led many people back to the faith. From what i understand he has had a rather sketchy past and reconciled himself before God and heard the colling to the priesthood.
He joined the order of the Society of the Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, or SOLT as it is more commonly known as. He apparently had special permission to live outside of the community and earn his own living. He lived in Montana, or California, and lived a rather wealthy lifestyle, which is not something a priest is supposed to do, no matter how popular you are. He was accused by a female employee of his of having sexual relations and drug use. He also has over $1million in assets in his name.
After these accusations Father Corapi did something strange in my mind. He announces, on Ash Wednesday, that he is going to leave the priesthood and continue on under the moniker of the 'Black Sheep Dog'. He will also ignore the request of SOLT to return and live in the community as an inactive priest. His responses are full of anger and narcissism that show signs of his guilt, in my opinion. He claims that the reason he is leaving the priesthood is because he could not get a fair trial in this manner and he is just going to continue to evangelize as a lay person.
This is a rather dangerous announcement because it kinda shows that he plans on leading a cult of personality. He thinks that the people he has inspired by his books and lectures will continue to follow him even if he renounces his vows. Many of his followers are vociferously defending him, but there are many other who are shaking their heads in disbelief at the whole situation, myself included.
The church does not need this kind of notoriety. You have taken vows, how can you so easily shove them aside for your own pleasures?
Typically, the social hall does not have a lot of people down there at 10am, but this morning it was full!! I had forgotten that there was a rather large group of youth getting ready to head down to Webster Springs, WV for some community service work. I'll admit, it was rather funny seeing our Deacon, who typically wears a collar, dressed in overalls and what looked to be a train engineer's hat. Webster Springs is one of the most poverty stricken places in West Virginia. This trip is one of the biggest events that the youth participate in every year.
Deacon knows that I have been feeling a little depressed lately, mainly due to the ongoing delays of my fiance's divorce therefore delaying our marriage. This last delay was a doozy and one of the most ridiculous things that I have ever heard in my life. Apparently, after weeks of the paperwork sitting in the system, his ex-wife has to sign an affidavit stating that Rick is not in the military and is not deployed overseas. Rick is 53 years old! The divorce papers stated what his occupation was and it did not state military! The lawyer swears that the divorce will be final by the end of this month, and that he himself will stand before the judge and get it done. I want with all of my heart to believe that, but this process was supposed to be done months ago and I have become so jaded that I don't think I will believe it until I see the finalized divorce papers in my hands. Deacon is a good man and he continues to try to give me hope and help me to see the eventual light at the end of the tunnel. He reinforced to me again today saying, "I have your file all ready to go, we'll get this done as soon as we can."
On a higher note I went to my first wedding dress fitting last week. Whenever we hear the word go, I'll at least have my wedding dress all set!
Ok, enough of my drama. On to a little bit of commentary here.
Have you heard about what is going on with Father Corapi? If you are following any type of Catholic news you probably have and it is one of the most confusing affairs that I have ever heard of. First off, I'll admit, I have never followed Father Corapi before and i only really know of him by name and by his reputation of being a rather charismatic speaker who has led many people back to the faith. From what i understand he has had a rather sketchy past and reconciled himself before God and heard the colling to the priesthood.
He joined the order of the Society of the Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, or SOLT as it is more commonly known as. He apparently had special permission to live outside of the community and earn his own living. He lived in Montana, or California, and lived a rather wealthy lifestyle, which is not something a priest is supposed to do, no matter how popular you are. He was accused by a female employee of his of having sexual relations and drug use. He also has over $1million in assets in his name.
After these accusations Father Corapi did something strange in my mind. He announces, on Ash Wednesday, that he is going to leave the priesthood and continue on under the moniker of the 'Black Sheep Dog'. He will also ignore the request of SOLT to return and live in the community as an inactive priest. His responses are full of anger and narcissism that show signs of his guilt, in my opinion. He claims that the reason he is leaving the priesthood is because he could not get a fair trial in this manner and he is just going to continue to evangelize as a lay person.
This is a rather dangerous announcement because it kinda shows that he plans on leading a cult of personality. He thinks that the people he has inspired by his books and lectures will continue to follow him even if he renounces his vows. Many of his followers are vociferously defending him, but there are many other who are shaking their heads in disbelief at the whole situation, myself included.
The church does not need this kind of notoriety. You have taken vows, how can you so easily shove them aside for your own pleasures?
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Love
I love God! There is absolutely no doubt about that, and I thank Him for all the blessings that I have. I just continue to pray for the end to the darkness around my soul. I get brief moments of light, but then it seems to go straight back into the darkness. I do believe that Christ watches over me and I know that His hand is on my shoulder guiding me through this. I just wish that the light at the end of the tunnel would grow brighter.
Dear God, please let there be an end to this and help me to feel the love that I know You have for me.
Dear God, please let there be an end to this and help me to feel the love that I know You have for me.
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