Here I am just returned from a weekend retreat for Women; a silent retreat at that. While this was only my second "silent" retreat, I remember the first time I planned to attend, the 40 hour silence seemed like an awkward challenge, but it was also so appealing. How often as a working woman, wife and mother of 2 energetic boys do I get any silence for a any good length of time.
Well, it's 40 hours of silence with Christ. Now that makes it even better. This passed weekend's theme was on St.Paul the Apostle, keeping with our Holy Father's inspiration for all of us Catholics to get to know St. Paul.
Our Holy Father's inspiration is timely and wise. St. Paul was a truly convinced apostle and he is a great example for us.
The retreat master's relationship with Christ shined through all of his talks and we were blessed with the insights and inspirations that came through.
Well one of the inspirations for me, has led me to actually begin to post on this blog.
"If St. Paul were alive today, he would probably have a blog"
It's amazing that once we get to know Christ, and the Saints that are true examples for us, we realize that everything changes. I have often shared that I feel like a child in this new found relationship with Christ. An infant who soon realizes that when they cry out their parents actually come to console them and fill their need to be fed, changed, bathed, etc. This is what Christ does for me. He feeds me with his word and His body in the Eucharist at mass. He has changed my heart, my will and given me new hope through my conversion. He continues to purify me through reconciliation. As any good parent He also showers me with love, laughter, joy and encouragement to take on new challenges.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Our Testimony: Church Teaching Changed our lives
Our conversion story really starts 10 years into our marriage. While Dave and I were both raised in Catholic families, we really had a vague understanding of what it meant to be Catholic. We attended mass on most Sundays, prayed occasionally, mostly in time of struggle and went to confession once or twice a year. (Lent and Advent) We were truly following the minimum precepts of the Catholic faith.
Our change of heart happened when we learned the Church’s teaching on openness to life which comes from God’s plan for marriage and family.
We did not always follow the Church’s teaching. We obviously had our share in the responsibility in the decisions we made, but part of the reason we made the choices we did was because we did not know, no one ever told us and if they tried too, we did not fully understand it. We thought we had a choice on how to plan our family. Of course we had a choice to follow God’s plan for marriage and family or to let sin into our marriage.
When we allowed sin into our marriage, our intimacy was hindered. At the time we didn’t know why things were going wrong, we just knew something was wrong. Our arguments became focused on how often, who initiates. I was feeling like an object for his pleasure, and spending intimate time with Dave was feeling like an additional chore to add to my list of things to do. Dave could not understand what I was going through, when I tried to communicate with him, Dave took it personally. As a result, we grew distant and then other parts of our marriage were affected to.
Once we put ourselves in a position to learn God’s plan for marriage and family, we felt like our eyes had been opened. We learned that God designed marriage for the good of man and woman and for the healthy future of society. God created the world and all the creatures in it. But he gave human beings a special dignity, knowledge, intellect and natural law. He loves us so much; he shares his creative powers with his creation. So that out of our love for each other, in the marital embrace we too, can create new life; we do the physical act and God implants the soul. It’s beautiful, how could we not want to be a part of this creation? We realized God’s plan was in line with our human nature, and that it was about love and trust. The conjugal act always has to be in balance that its purpose is for openness to life and unity. When we use contraception we take away the openness to life, which respects our full human nature, all because we want the focus to be solely on unity and enjoyment. Being able to create life is a precious gift, yet we want to squander it, trample on it, for the sake of physical enjoyment.
Looking back we can see the consequences of our choices. Those consequences were both spiritual and physical. Spiritually we had taken God out of the equation. By using contraception we were saying to God, “I believe in you, but I don’t trust you to know what is best for our family.” We paid a hefty price for this choice, unnecessary struggles in our marriage, unhealthy relationships and harmful habits that went against our marriage vow and disrespected our own dignity as human beings. Not to mention that I now know the “pill kills” How many spontaneous miscarriages/abortions did I have those 10 years – only God knows. I am so thankful God’s mercy is endless! Physically, well after 10 years of ingesting unnecessary hormones, my uterus has aged an extra year for every year that I was on the pill, at the age of 33 I am already showing signs of being pre-menopausal; I have increased risk of heart attacks and cancer, just to name a few. When Dave went in for a vasectomy, it took something away from our marriage bond, we were incomplete. Thanks to our conversion, he has since reversed the vasectomy and offered up the unnecessary risk he took undergoing the surgery and the pain in recovery for all the souls who are yet to come into the light of God’s endless mercy and love. We had a naturally good working reproductive system; we had 3 pregnancies, (one miscarriage, caused by the pill) and 2 beautiful boys. We tampered with our human nature, and now it’s not so perfect.
We would be overjoyed and blessed to welcome to new life into our family. We are praying to accept God’s will for us, as we have now put this aspect of our marriage back in God’s hands, where it should have been all along. Now our marriage has improved 10 fold, and we are being showered with God’s graces. We have a new found hope and joy in our suffering. We share our story with anyone who is willing to listen to it, in hopes that many more couples will learn without having to go through the same suffering we endured. It takes wisdom to learn to from other’s mistakes.
We recommend further reading and education in this area of God’s teaching. There is so much available to us within the Church’s 2000 years of experience.
God Bless!
Our change of heart happened when we learned the Church’s teaching on openness to life which comes from God’s plan for marriage and family.
We did not always follow the Church’s teaching. We obviously had our share in the responsibility in the decisions we made, but part of the reason we made the choices we did was because we did not know, no one ever told us and if they tried too, we did not fully understand it. We thought we had a choice on how to plan our family. Of course we had a choice to follow God’s plan for marriage and family or to let sin into our marriage.
When we allowed sin into our marriage, our intimacy was hindered. At the time we didn’t know why things were going wrong, we just knew something was wrong. Our arguments became focused on how often, who initiates. I was feeling like an object for his pleasure, and spending intimate time with Dave was feeling like an additional chore to add to my list of things to do. Dave could not understand what I was going through, when I tried to communicate with him, Dave took it personally. As a result, we grew distant and then other parts of our marriage were affected to.
Once we put ourselves in a position to learn God’s plan for marriage and family, we felt like our eyes had been opened. We learned that God designed marriage for the good of man and woman and for the healthy future of society. God created the world and all the creatures in it. But he gave human beings a special dignity, knowledge, intellect and natural law. He loves us so much; he shares his creative powers with his creation. So that out of our love for each other, in the marital embrace we too, can create new life; we do the physical act and God implants the soul. It’s beautiful, how could we not want to be a part of this creation? We realized God’s plan was in line with our human nature, and that it was about love and trust. The conjugal act always has to be in balance that its purpose is for openness to life and unity. When we use contraception we take away the openness to life, which respects our full human nature, all because we want the focus to be solely on unity and enjoyment. Being able to create life is a precious gift, yet we want to squander it, trample on it, for the sake of physical enjoyment.
Looking back we can see the consequences of our choices. Those consequences were both spiritual and physical. Spiritually we had taken God out of the equation. By using contraception we were saying to God, “I believe in you, but I don’t trust you to know what is best for our family.” We paid a hefty price for this choice, unnecessary struggles in our marriage, unhealthy relationships and harmful habits that went against our marriage vow and disrespected our own dignity as human beings. Not to mention that I now know the “pill kills” How many spontaneous miscarriages/abortions did I have those 10 years – only God knows. I am so thankful God’s mercy is endless! Physically, well after 10 years of ingesting unnecessary hormones, my uterus has aged an extra year for every year that I was on the pill, at the age of 33 I am already showing signs of being pre-menopausal; I have increased risk of heart attacks and cancer, just to name a few. When Dave went in for a vasectomy, it took something away from our marriage bond, we were incomplete. Thanks to our conversion, he has since reversed the vasectomy and offered up the unnecessary risk he took undergoing the surgery and the pain in recovery for all the souls who are yet to come into the light of God’s endless mercy and love. We had a naturally good working reproductive system; we had 3 pregnancies, (one miscarriage, caused by the pill) and 2 beautiful boys. We tampered with our human nature, and now it’s not so perfect.
We would be overjoyed and blessed to welcome to new life into our family. We are praying to accept God’s will for us, as we have now put this aspect of our marriage back in God’s hands, where it should have been all along. Now our marriage has improved 10 fold, and we are being showered with God’s graces. We have a new found hope and joy in our suffering. We share our story with anyone who is willing to listen to it, in hopes that many more couples will learn without having to go through the same suffering we endured. It takes wisdom to learn to from other’s mistakes.
We recommend further reading and education in this area of God’s teaching. There is so much available to us within the Church’s 2000 years of experience.
God Bless!
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