NFP courses in Diocese of Madison Sympto-Thermal Method: REGISTER HERE |
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“Love, Naturally!” is the theme of this year’s Natural Family Planning Awareness Week, a national educational campaign of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to celebrate God’s vision for marriage and promote the methods of Natural Family Planning.
Natural Family Planning (NFP) is a general title for ethical, natural, safe, and effective methods for both achieving and avoiding pregnancy in marriage.
NFP methods teach couples how to observe and interpret the wife’s signs of fertility and infertility. In the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, NFP methods “respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom” (CCC, no. 2370).
The dates of Natural Family Planning Awareness Week are July 21 to 27. These dates highlight the anniversary of the papal encyclical Humanae vitae (July 25), which articulates Catholic beliefs about human sexuality, marriage, conjugal love, and responsible parenthood.
Local observances
The Office of Marriage and Family in Diocese of Madison joins with the U.S. bishops in highlighting the benefits of NFP as moral methods to help married couples live God’s design for their marriages.
Local diocesan parishes will be celebrating this week through special bulletin announcements, homilies, and/or special bulletin inserts regarding NFP. Look for these in the upcoming weeks. Encourage your pastor to provide this information at your own parish.
Recently, an engaged couple completing a full course of NFP instruction remarked how empowering this information has been for her. Now the husband-to-be has a better understanding of the emotional ebbs and flows produced by her hormones, just by looking at where his fiancée is in her fertility cycles, while the young woman herself is overjoyed that she can see an improvement in her fertility cycles by enhancing her nutritional intake.
To learn more
Want to learn more about the methods of NFP offered in our diocese? See https://www.madisondio cese.org/nfp and check out a list of upcoming NFP courses at NFP classes & registration or call 608-821-3134 for more information. An updated NFP Course Schedule is also included with this article.
The Catholic Church invites all the faithful to embrace God’s plan for married love. Learn more about these beautiful teachings which support the use of NFP in marriage at: http://www.usccb.org/nfp/catholic-teaching
Please join the diocesan NFP team to spread the word about God’s design for married love and the gift of life as well as the methods of NFP! Contact us to get involved by calling 608-821-3134 or emailing [email protected]
Vicki Braun is the Natural Family Planning coordinator for the Diocese of Madison.