Cardinal Wuerl promulgated a Pastoral Plan to implement Pope Francis’ post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia (AL), on Sunday March 4, 2018. The fourth section of the Pastoral Plan stresses the importance of parish life.
Today I want to present some thoughts for accompanying engaged couples that are presented in this section of the pastoral plan.
Being engaged and planning a wedding is both exciting and overwhelming. Pope Francis offers practice advice for engaged couples: “Short-term preparations for marriage tend to be concentrated on invitations, clothes, the party, and any number of other details that tend to drain not only the budget but energy and joy as well. The spouses come to the wedding ceremony exhausted and harried, rather than focused and ready for the great step that they are about to take, … Here let me say a word to fiancés. Have the courage to be different. Don’t let yourselves get swallowed up by a society of consumption and empty appearances” (AL, 212). The period of engagement is not only a time to prepare for a wedding day but for a lifetime of marriage.
Engaged couples tell us that for them it is or was a great help to discuss together how they can begin to put into practice the qualities they want to live out as a married couple. Other ways that they suggest might help couples deepen their wedding planning process include:
· Reaching out to your local parish about wedding dates when the church is available, before you book a reception venue;
· Attending Mass and praying together, to establish a spiritual bond that will endure;
· Remembering that you are planning a life-long marriage, not simply a one-day wedding! Invest time in the busy months leading up to the wedding day to read a book together about marriage and take part in Catholic marriage preparation that will help prepare you for a lifetime of happiness.
· Finding a married couple you look up to and ask to meet them for dinner to talk with them and learn from their experience. If you don’t have one, you should ask your priest for someone to recommend;
· Starting your marriage off by being generous. Make a donation to the poor as part of your wedding budget or in lieu of party favors; and
· Learning more about Natural Family Planning including fertility, intimacy, and planning for children.
Let me close my remarks today by asking engaged couples if they have considered learning about Natural Family Planning (NFP)? NFP is a morally sound and highly effective method for couples to manage their fertility in a way that respects God and each other. Instead of wrestling with their fertility or working against it, couples are trained to understand, and then cooperate with, their naturally occurring fertility signals in order to make informed and prayerful decisions regarding the growth of their family.
NFP is a modern, scientifically proven method that seeks to identify the naturally occurring changes a woman’s body goes through during the window of her fertility in each cycle. Based on their observations, couples are empowered to act accordingly, either to seek pregnancy or to avoid it for the time being.
Couples who incorporate NFP into their lives experience many benefits not limited to the following:
· Better communication between spouses
· Increased respect for each other
· Peace of mind, heart, and body
· Increased awe and wonder at the potential of fertility
· A deeper appreciation for children
Some other benefits of Natural Family Planning are:
· It is extremely effective.
· It is green. It is all natural, completely safe and there are no harmful side effects.
· It is virtually free and very easy to learn and practice.
· It is useful throughout a woman’s reproductive years including breastfeeding, peri-menopause, post-partum.
· It is custom tailored to each woman’s cycle, regular or irregular.
For more information on NFP, please check out the Archdiocese of Washington website, from which I have drawn the information that I have presented here.