John Garvey Brings It On.

John Garvey, president of The Catholic University of America, posted a clear and moving explanation of CUA's decision to bring the HHS mandate to court. Alma mater, I salute you.

Particularly poignant is his commentary on Eleazar of Maccabee fame (if your family is unfamiliar with the Books of Maccabees, now is a good time to read them aloud!):

"A wonderful story in the second book of Maccabees describes the martyrdom of the old scribe Eleazar. It occurred during the Hellenizing campaign of Antiochus Epiphanes. He forced the Jews "to forsake the laws of their fathers and cease to live by the laws of God." 


Eleazar was ordered on pain of death to eat pork. He refused. The men in charge of the sacrifice, who had known him for a long time, took him aside and offered to spare him if he would just eat something that looked like pork. "Such pretense is not worthy of our time of life," he said, "lest many of the young should suppose that Eleazar in his 90th year has gone over to an alien religion[.]" And so they killed him."

The point, Garvey says, is twofold: First, God's law is higher than the law of the state, and it is "cruel" for any government to force its citizens to choose between their beliefs and their freedom. Second, Eleazar is a witness to the communal aspect of our Catholic praxis. Whatever we do, "the young" --and I would add, those who have rejected the Faith-- are watching. Even the appearance of compromise in matters of morals is a grave sin against the spirit of the law.

Garvey also mentions the much-touted reality that a majority of Roman Catholics do not practice the Church's teaching on fertility and sex. While this is a tragedy and symptom of our human failure, however, it hardly changes the truth. Truth does not shift and change with societal norms: rather, practice seeks to conform to truth, goodness, and beauty. That's why the True, the Good, and the Beautiful are called transcendentals. They transcend the changing and shifting man-made laws.

Garvey's essay is brief, but forceful. It is a great example of the unapologetic, but nevertheless sympathetic, approach we all need to be ready to take toward the world. He does not dismiss objections. He does not call names. He doesn't even mention the leaders in government behind this mandate. He simply states who he is, what he believes, and what he must do.

Bravo.

Coffee and groaning.

This kid rocks: Go over to Bad Catholic with your cup of coffee this morning, and check out "Christopher Hitchens and Groaning During Sex."

"This is my response to Christopher Hitchens: If the tastes of infinity available to us on earth — art, love, sex, and all the rest — are best unveiled through ritual and repetition, I can only conclude that the Ultimate Infinity we call Heaven will be unveiled and enjoyed through an Ultimate Ritual — and that we will pant for it."

Oh, and don't forget to say a prayer for Christopher Hitchens.

While we're sharing links... did you know you can download the Magnificat's Holy Week booklet for free? Check out this powerful collection of the prayers and liturgical readings of the Church for the next (Holy and Great) days.

Misogynist? NOT.

Let it not be said that St. Augustine was a misogynist. He thought very seriously about the place in creation of human reproduction--of the male and the female and their particular beauty. Contrary to some contemporaries--mostly Manichees--he saw the female form as a cause of rejoicing.

Now, you may read the following excerpt to your village women's studies professor. She might react vehemently, "That's just so weird and sick--who cares about reproductive organs in heaven? Some sicko, that's who. Some white guy obsessed with sex and keeping women in their place."

Ignore her. Augustine was African.

Another possible interpretation of Augustine's thoughts on women is this: Augustine thought seriously enough about male and female reproductive organs to wonder. In his wonder, he could imagine with great reverence what God could have meant when He made us male and female. Far from being perverted, Augustine was able to extract his thoughts from lust for breasts and thighs and hips in order to simply regard them as gifts. I see lots of "free women" exposing female body parts, but I sure don't see much reverence. The female body in pop culture isn't taken seriously enough to make the question, what about eternity?, even make sense.

And, when our treatment of our bodies kills all imagination and wonder, when the questions become nonsense, then we have lost our childlike joy and innocence. In a world without questions, we are old and dry and impotent.

But Augustine, that dead "white" guy, is alive, virile, and exciting. His wonder is contagious: here he is on the female body and eternity.

"Because of these sayings, 'Until we reach the perfection of manhood, the stature of the full maturity of Christ,' and 'Being shaped into the likeness of God Son', some people suppose that women will not keep their sex at the resurrection; but, they say, they will all rise again as men, since God made man out of clay, and woman out of man. For my part, I feel that theirs is the more sensible opinion who have no doubt that there will be both sexes in the resurrection. For in that life there will be no sexual lust, which is the cause of shame. For the first human beings, before their sin, 'were naked, the man and the woman, and they were not ashamed.'

"Thus while all defects will be removed from those bodies, their essential nature will be preserved. Now a woman's sex is not a defect; it is natural. And in the resurrection it will be free of the necessity of intercourse and childbirth. However, the female organs will not subserve their former use; they will be part of a new beauty, which will not excite the lust of the beholder--there will be no lust in that life--but will arouse the praises of God for his wisdom and compassion, in that he not only created out of nothing but freed from corruption that which he had created."

~City of God,XXII.17

Thinking feminine.

The masculine and feminine.

A two-hour survey of evening activities:

1. the newscasts ("HHS Saves Women's Health!" "Same-Sex Marriage Approved in ______!"),

2. channel-surfing (have you seen "How I Met Your Mother"? "The Bachelor"? even "The Voice"),

3. and even giving up and going for a walk (bumper sticker: "Abortion is Healthcare. Healthcare is Good.").

The overwhelming message is this: the categories "masculine" and "feminine" no longer need apply. They are inessential, simply describing certain behaviors of either sex that remind us of the fact that, "Oh! Men and women used to be different."

The only real difference is that now we know that men are much more stupid than women. See any five-minute commercial break on television.

See? Dumb, fun-loving men. Responsible, calm, in-charge women.

We've come so far.

A friend recently shared a paper on the loss of the feminine in post-Nietzschean societies. His ideas (the friend's) bear much more in-depth treatment, but for the moment I was struck by a few passages from Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil.

Now, Nietzsche was no modern feminist: he believed that in order to escape the Judeo-Christian slave morality, women must once more be seen solely as the bearers of offspring--a role entirely unmasculine, but also entirely isolated from the masculine. The man must dominate the woman in order to use her as a woman.

But he had a unique insight into the tragedy of modern women: "[The modern woman defeminizes herself] so as to imitate all the stupidities from which ... European manliness suffers." (BGE, 239)

How. True.

Let's think of all the popular female complaints about men.

1. They are so stupid (see commercial), that they think they still run the world.

2. All they want is sex (see sitcoms).

3. They never think about children.

4. They fear commitment.

5. They are either hairy and unsanitary or uber-clean metro-sexuals (laser hair removal!).

6. If they're nice, they're gay. (How many times have you heard that line?)

Now let's think of the popular image of independent modern women.

1. They are so smart and accomplished that they dominate everything they attempt--and so well, too, that the stupid men don't know who's really in charge.

2. They have uncontrollable sexual urges. If they cannot fulfill these urges without "being punished by a baby," then Something Bad will happen.

3. They never think about children (see #2).

4. They seek out long-term commitments to anyone but the men in their lives.

5. They are either unsanitary and dressed for bed or sanitary and dressed to kill. They are always hairless.

6. They are really nice and friendly to everyone who agrees with them.

Now, this is harsh. And these are stereotypes. But take a close look: the stereotypical view of men is in strange parallel to the image held up for women.

Masculine: stupid aggressor.

Feminine: smart aggressor.

Together: it's war.

But is there any alternative? Nietzsche solves the problem with a classic domination scheme: If men were more classically masculine and women were more classically feminine, then the war would be won. By men. Domination-subordination.

This could be what the secular feminists rage against. They think they're raging against the Church. They're actually raging against the Father of Nihilism.

There is another way: John Paul II in Mulieris Dignitatem suggests that, because the male-female differences are a way in which the human person--the communion of human persons--is the image of God, they are not originally at war.

The man and woman can exist, not only together, but also "mutually 'one for the other.' (MD, 7)

Try a new list. While these traits should be present in every human person, they exist more intensely in each sex.

Masculine:

1. creating

2. proclaiming

3. saving

4. striving

Feminine:

1. gestating (spiritually and biologically!)

2. listening

3. praising

4. waiting.

The Church notes--in a redeemed echo of the "stupid man" commercials--that every Christian must in a sense become feminine. We are all listening to the Word, gestating the Word in our hearts, praising the Word, and waiting for the Word to come to us.

The honor due to the truly feminine.

Nietzsche knew women had lost something in the modern era. He just had no idea how tragic that loss was. Or how glorious would be its recovery.

Guest Post: "Government Pork," by K. Fabian

This parable originally appeared here. I'm interested to hear how y'all think it fits (or does not fit) the current argument over the HHS Mandate. Please comment! And if you're looking for another letter of petition to sign opposing the mandate "compromise," here is a link to the StopHHS website.

Government Pork.

Once there was a wonderful town full of people who loved to eat, and many wonderful and varied restaurants that served excellent food: Italian and French, Japanese and Mongolian, Middle Eastern and even a kosher delicatessen. Not everyone liked every restaurant, of course, and some people even thought particular restaurants were odd, but they appreciated the variety available to all.

There were also a lot of pig farmers, and people enjoyed the fresh pork. One year, they had a mayor who loved fresh pork. He thought it was the right of everyone in the town to have pork at any meal they wanted. “Why,” he’d say,” if there was only one meal I could give my kids, it’d be pork chops!” Of course, lots of the people loved pork as well, and they applauded his enthusiasm.

One day he sat in his office, thinking about how much he and others liked pork, and he decided that every restaurant should serve pork and wine, at every meal. Oh, maybe not every individual would want to eat pork, but they deserved the right to have it on their plate! Otherwise, they didn’t really have a choice, right? And so, he set out a decree that all restaurants would serve some form of pork in every meal.

Well, the delicatessen and the Middle Eastern restaurant were upset by this. They couldn’t serve pork—it was against their religions. So they went to the Mayor and asked to be excused from this rule. “After all,” they said, “people know we never serve pork.”

“But you should. People have the right to pork. Some of your customers eat pork. Even some of your employees enjoy a good ham!”

“And if they wish to, they may–but not in our restaurants,” the owners said. “It’s against the kind of restaurants we are to serve pork. And we have customers who do not want pork, who would be offended and do not want to pay for pork.”

“Well, I’m offended that you won’t serve it—and I’m sure other pork lovers agree that your attitude is most disagreeable.”

“Our customers and our employees know where we stand, and they continue to frequent our restaurants and work for us. We serve them well, but we do not serve them pork. We have the right to our own menus. We should not be forced.”

But the mayor stood firm. “No,” he said. “Everyone has the right to have pork, and it’s my duty to make sure it’s always available, whether you agree or not. It’s healthier than beef anyway. If you don’t like it, you can pay a fine and stop serving food—or you can close down.”

The restaurant managers refused to change their menus. Many people stood by them—because they, too, would not eat pork and didn’t want to pay for it; or because they agreed that restaurants should choose their own menus; or because they didn’t like the mayor telling people how to run their own businesses. The movie theaters stood by him, because they were afraid if the Mayor could change menus, he might also start dictating what shows would be played.

The pork lovers, however, were incensed. How dare the restaurants not give them pork if they wanted it?

“I can’t eat beef; what should I do then?” one demanded. “Do you just want to send me away to starve?”

“We have other dishes,” they said. “Our menu and service would be no different than before. We can feed you many things; just not pork.”

Nonetheless, the press, too, said that the two restaurants would rather let people starve rather than eat pork.

Despite the outcry of the pork lovers, more and more people said, “Let them choose their own menu!”

So the Mayor called the restaurant owners into his office. He had a compromise, he said.

“I won’t make you buy pork. You don’t have to prepare it, or touch it. Instead, all restaurant suppliers will have to supply pork to every restaurant, free of charge, and for those that don’t want to serve the pork, suppliers will cook it and put it on every plate themselves. You just look the other way.”

“But there would still be pork in our restaurant!” the owners cried. “Besides, they will increase the price of meat to cover their new expenses.”

“Oh, they wouldn’t do that. I’d tell them not to. Besides, the point is you wouldn’t be actually serving pork. See how well that works? Everyone gets pork and you can say you never provided it. And if your patrons don’t want to eat it, they don’t have to; it’s enough that it’s there for them.”

So, problem solved?

—-

(“Hold on!” one restaurant supplier said. “I’m Jewish!”)

Brother's Keeper: In Defense of Caring.

Rarely does Facebook's format serve the interests of human discourse. Facebook is for letting the world know what you ate for breakfast, keeping in touch with old friends, sharing thought-provoking articles (where something resembling discourse can happen), and--primarily--for "saying the good things that men need to hear." Encouragement. Camaraderie.

Once in a while, a question appears in a status that demands more respect than the FB can give. For example, here is a good question, although it was probably intended rhetorically. It appeared in the status of a friend (what does it mean?):

Here it is, paraphrased:

"Why do people care? So what if your next door neighbor takes birth control ...? Who cares if the guy down the street holds the hand of another man when they take their morning stroll? Who cares if some woman has sex with multiple men? How do their choices affect you?"

It's a good question and a common question. I'm going to take a blind shot and assume that it's a common reaction to traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs. Why do I care whether the gay couple down the street just adopted two children? Why do I refuse to call a legal partnership "marriage"? Why can't I just do my thing in my house and leave the rest of the world alone? I assume that I should also refrain from teaching my children to believe what I believe--because then they, too, would care about other people's private lives.

It's a good question--don't dismiss it! The answer you give could destroy or cement your dearest friendships and family relationships.

Given the recent, state-sponsored, all-out attack on the religious freedom of Roman Catholics, Orthodox Jews, and some Protestant groups, my first reaction was, "I don't care. But if I leave y'all alone, will you just the heck leave the Church's schools and hospitals alone?" I know the answer: no. We won't be left alone, because what we believe is offensive and freakish--and we believe that we should care.

But that was a bad answer to an honest question.

Here is the good answer.

First, let's define what we mean by "care." "Care" is not "morbid curiosity." My friend is absolutely right: It is twisted for anyone to investigate and watch (MTV?) what goes on in someone else bedroom. I can mask the ugliest, nosiest prying under the veneer of "Christian charity" (you know, you want to know so you can pray for her!). But just "wanting to know so I can be entertained by my own disgust" is ugly and wrong. And, no, in that sense we should not care.

I also do not care in the sense that I want to impose my convictions on the minds of my fellow citizens. Because, you see, dear friend, the heart of my conviction is a free and total submission to the Triune God. The very idea that "caring" for another human being involves imposition of certain behaviors, or even judgement of the state of another's soul, is nonsensical to the Catholic heart. The Church never "cares" by imposing. In that sense, you are alone. Only you can impose the form of the Cross on your heart.

But there's something equally perverse in saying, "Just leave me alone, I'll leave you alone, and we'll all do whatever the F*** we want as long as we don't hurt anybody (or don't get caught hurting anyone)."

That is because no man is an island.

I will always "care" in the sense that I will forever propose to every man I meet that vision of a life lived in conformity to the Cross and in hope of the resurrection. That is the sense of caring that the Church demands of her children:

"No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were... any man's death diminishes me." ~John Donne

Human beings are weak, dependent creatures. We need to care and be cared for by other human beings. Every human act--hidden or plain--affects the happiness of every other human being. (In fact, is that not why the idea that someone is "imposing" her morality on her neighbor so repelling? We know that to judge someone else is not to care, but to kill.)

Ignoring each other, not caring, this is inhuman.

We hear in Schindler's List that, "If you save one man, you save the whole world (the original is in the much more poetic Talmud)."

A human being should care what his neighbor does, because his neighbor is as himself. I am man. She is man. He is man. The whole of what is good and worthy and beautiful lives or dies in the life of a single human being.

Now, I know very well that this view carries no resonance with most of the world I live in. If there is no heaven, if God has no mercy, if there is no hope of happiness in this world, if Christ did not come... then no one should care. In fact, no one will care about the woman down the street who takes birth control and sells Marie Osmond. No one will care to ask her over for lunch. No one will care to bring her a meal when she's sick. No one cares after she dies (except for the annoying sense of grief that afflicts the living--the dead don't care, anyway).

But if God did make us, he made us to be together. In this month's Touchstone, Anthony Esolen provides a much more profound defense of caring. Read the whole thing, but here's the heart:

'In other words, the good of a man is the good of man, and the good of man is the good of a man;and both find their fulfillment in God. This is not an equation to be solved, but a mystery of love to be lived. The man who understands it does not say, “My good is in its essence inferior to the good of a million others taken together,” nor, “My good is my own, and I will pursue it, and let the other millions pursue theirs.” Human society is a whole, says Maritain, made up of wholes, and the wholes are persons, meant for the joy of love. That means that we can never purchase our good at the price of another person; his good is mine.

But we may, for the good of others, engage in heroic acts of love: “And when the person sacrifices to the common good of the city that which is dearest to it, suffers torture and gives its life for the city, in these very acts because it wills what is good and acts in accordance with justice, it still loves its own soul, in accordance with the order of charity, more than the city and the common good of the city,” just as the hermit, who, “seeming to forget the city,” contemplates beauty and truth, and in so doing, “still serves the common good of the city and in an eminent fashion.”

How does my neighbor's sexual behavior affect my life, today, right now? I don't suppose "breaking my heart" counts. The truth is, I don't think we can claim to know how any one, isolated human act affects the lives of human beings--now, in the past, or in the future. We're too small.

But we can know THAT every action affects every human being who ever existed or will exist. I know that what Margaret Sanger--even though she never imagined that I, Erika, would exist--believed 100 years ago changed forever the world in which I live every day. I know what St. Peter did on Good Friday before dawn changed forever how I can hope in mercy--even though he lived worlds and ages away. I know that what the Russian Tsar did to a little village in Lithuania in 1904 frightened my grandparents into leaving, and that means that I exist (thank you, Russian Tsar?). I know that because my parents cared about what I chose to do with my body, I became a woman who could marry Todd and have three beautiful girls. We cannot know that immense good, or evil, our choices bring to other human beings.

But we know with certainty: No man in an island.

Ghost sex.

That Bad Catholic has written a fabulous post on "How Descartes Ruined Sex." It's pithy, it's simplified, and it's hilarious (you laugh or you cry).

I was a bit miffed because he's made my latest idea, "Descartes' Bad Sex," moot. But that's just vanity. This, however, is just dead-on:

"Biology and anatomy are a bit brusque with this issue: Sex is the reproductive act, all else is imitation. In fact, if one must qualify sex as to its location, use mechanical devices to have it, or otherwise separate its form from its function, then it is specifically defined as being ‘not sex’."

He doesn't quite explain the leap here:

"But notice what its advocates use in its defense, or in the defense of any other exotic form of foreplay being ‘sex’ itself. They will, in one way or another, split the body and the soul. They must. It’s impossible to argue that parts of the body besides the genitalia were meant for reproduction, so they will move on to “sex is what the partners make of it,” or something of the sort. What your body is doing isn’t important, whether it be anal sex, oral sex — whatever. You can have sex without sex. The union of the sexual act can be achieved without the true, natural union of your body. You can have the soul without the body."

I think what he's arguing at the very end is this: The "soul" of sex is that union of two persons, the "body" is the physical act of reproduction (or the simultaneous use of the reproductive organs--yes, they're physical organs. But the world of the flesh (as in, sarx) tries to divorce the union of the reproductive organs--which normally leads to reproduction--from the union of the whole persons. They try to have the soul of sex without the body.

And it's all Descartes fault?

No. But he sure did help the whole durned thing to collapse.

It ain't poetry, but it's close.

Regarding the outright disdain layered upon parents of large families, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach tells it like it is.

“Why are people impressed that Jay Leno owns 20 motorcycles, but disgusted that some religious families choose to have 10 children?

Let’s not finesse the response. We all know why. A world that has lost its innocence has trouble appreciating beings who are innocent. A world that has become selfish has soured to the idea of leading a life of selflessness. A world that has become grossly materialistic is turned off to the idea of more dependents who consume resources. And a world that mistakenly believes that freedom means a lack of responsibility is opposed to the idea of needy creatures who ‘tie you down...’

By just looking at my children, I become more innocent. By loving them, I become more noble. By spending my money on them rather than myself, I find transcendence. And by being a father and liberating all of the love in my heart, my spirit soars free."

Amen to that.

Let it all hang out!

Head on over to Catholic Exchange today for my article (post?) on abstinence in marriage. This is a sort of combination of my two previous posts here and here, with some added twists thanks to y'all's profound commentary.

Abstinence and marriage, Part II: Bueno!

I've read some exquisitely thoughtful and transparent comments from yesterday's post, Abstinence and marriage: ¿Que pasa? The only worthy response would be to continue with a few more thoughts.

Jen wrote that she finds an inherent difference between priestly (or monastic) celibacy and periodic (or permanent) abstinence in marriage. I think she's right on this: Celibates (priests and religious) have freely vowed not only to live a life without sexual intercourse but also detached from the particular, one-on-one friendship that the marriage vows demand. Very few men and women get married expecting years and years of sexual abstinence. One anonymous commentator wrote that "the single person and the religious are both called to live chastity for many years. What makes it possible for them is fidelity to the spiritual life and the life of prayer. What is four weeks in comparison?

My response would be that four weeks living in the same, close quarters after years of a shared bed, shared sleeplessness, shared affection, and shared tears can make the shift from "sexual active married couple" to "sexless married couple" very different from life in a cell or large, lonely rectory. I'm not denigrating either sacrifice, I just think it might seem callous to compare (much like comparing the struggle of an infertile couple to my struggle).

The same anonymous commentator makes, however, an excellent point about the nature of human life: The great equalizer for all vocations and states of life is the call to sacrificial love. It's a difficult teaching, but, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."

Anonymous: "My recommendations to you aren't rocket science— daily Mass, weekly confession, weekly adoration, weekly fasting. Fasting, in particular is key to taming one's desire to engage in the marital act. I know that this sacrifice isn't easy— but it's part of what the marital vocation calls on you to do— but in a marriage— every step of the way is paved by sacrifice..."

April puts a positive slant on it: "God is making us into saints and THAT is beautiful. That is life-giving." She's put her finger on a truth we hold dear: All suffering can give life. It is all able to bear fruit.

I was listening to Abbot Tryphon this afternoon. He said, "When we are free, there are no battles. Life is a constant battle with the material world." As we battle in our desire to have it all--sex, health, avoid pregnancy, achieve pregnancy, Brownie Sundaes, a slim figure, plenty of sleep, completion of all projects--we inevitably feel the pull of the "flesh" (as in, the things that are transitory) to compromise. "If I just used a Pill, I could have sex and avoid pregnancy." "If I just made myself throw it all back up, I could eat Brownie Sundaes and be slim!" The killer argument comes from the psychologist: "You will go crazy if you don't have it all!"

But new life is not born of these compromises. It is born of becoming free of the desire to compromise. I think anonymous #2 gives good suggestions for training our souls and bodies to become free: fasting, prayer, the sacraments. It is only if we live in the very life of Christ himself that we can be free as he is free.

The Abbot also said that--as he was feeling miserable one day in all his accumulated wealth--he realized suddenly that this life was given him only as a time to prepare for eternity. The married life is only a sign of that real life: eternal consummation of our union with God. It is a means, not an end, to bring us to our true end.

In a sacramental and faithful marriage, abstinence is going to happen. For various reasons--voluntarily or involuntarily--we cannot always come together physically. Another friend pointed out to me the many examples of saints and blesseds who have chosen abstinence within their marriages either permanently or for a short period of time. We can join secular culture and psychoanalyze these men and women to pieces, or blame the Church for bashing sex in honoring them, or we can assume the best: They were seeking freedom, total freedom for the things of God. Their joy and final victory doesn't denigrate large families or sexually active marriages: It uplifts "those who are bowed down" under a battle they did not originally anticipate.

I am grateful for your company and witness.

Image Source: Blessed Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi and Blessed Maria Corsini

Abstinence and marriage: Que pasa?

A friend and I were ruminating under the hurricane about the meaning and role of sexual abstinence in marriage. She is a pre-Cana NFP coach and noted that, "We just don't seem to be preparing couples for the reality of abstinence: It's going to happen." We also noted frustrations with the tendency to present NFP as the Catholic birth-control (it's not!): Safe! Effective! Simple! Morally Upright!

Since the good Lord has seen fit to grant unto me some serious reasons for postponing pregnancy right now (oh, that's a whole 'nother discussion), I've been discovering the realities of prolonged periods of abstinence and what they mean for our particular marriage. The old NFP courses I took long ago (nine years!) warned, "Couples may need to abstain from the conjugal embrace for up to two weeks in order to guarantee avoidance of pregnancy."

Try three or four weeks. This is sacrificial.

And that's three or four weeks of feeling deep sadness (we would love more children--they're so different and irreplaceable); guilt ("Are you having any more?" "Look at the Martins! They have seven! What a good, Catholic family!"); and frustration. We sometimes feel fruitless, when our deepest convictions tell us that marriage is intended by God to be fruitful.

But I do not believe that, simply because pregnancy is not currently an option (again, a whole 'nother subject, so just trust me on this one), we have to cease being fertile or sexual or, in the combination of the two, fruitful.

The question is, just... how?

What new ways of bearing new life are there for us? What does this time of abstinence mean for us? How will it build up our life together? Because, you know, the trendy answer is, "Sexless marriage!? You're dooommmmmmed!"

No, we are not. Fidelity means life.

I've only just started mulling this over. The first fruit of abstinence was obvious: Sacrifice! Offer it up for the world! Well, that only goes so far. Anyone who has suffered chronic pain knows that sometimes "Offer it up, and the holy souls will get to heaven" is no justification and little comfort.

Look! Joseph is offering it up for holy souls while beating a fig tree to ward off temptation!

Please leave comments here, because there are more women out there who have lived this vocation for much longer than I. I'm looking for opportunities and joys that come from a life of abstinence together: What are the positive ways in which abstinence affects your marriage, your children, your friends, and the Church? What could we tell young couples who are about to set out on a difficult life, sacramental marriage, to encourage them that this is a beautiful and holy life?

I think of another kind of difficult life: the religious vocation.

The most convincing argument for entering an order and taking on the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience is surely the joy of those already living it: men and women have been very happy, have found the strength to sacrifice everything the world holds in value, and have--through their vows--been gentled and molded into the image of Christ. In spite of all the very wicked priests and religious, the fact remains that many have become very good through this way of life. The religious life, therefore, bears great fruit in spite of the fact that it is an odd way to flourish as a human being. It is not un-natural, but it is surely supra-natural.

I think the same thing might be said of a marriage that is periodically sexless for long periods of time: the only way I will ever convince myself or anyone else that this is a holy and happy life is if I myself become holy and happy through fidelity to my vows, both my marriage vows and my baptismal vows.

Check back in when I've completed my course and run my race. I have great hope that you will be convinced, by the grace of the Father. Ora pro nobis. But also, please add your encouragement:

What are the fruits and peculiar marks you have seen in marriage during the hard times?

Favorite NFP and posts:

Yes! Every sperm is sacred.

Do I want more kids?

Is 'planned' a dirty word?

Hideous Kinky: Contra contraception.

Yet another tragic chapter in our political landscape, and this one is a hot ticket: I haven't seen so many ignorant ridicules of the Catholic faith on Facebook since, well, since two weeks ago. The Philosopher Mom hasn't had a political commentary in a while, and I thought it was time to give it a go.

As I scratched my head and tried to think charitably about Washington's debt ceiling wrangles, the Obama's Health and Human Services yesterday announced mandatory copay-free contraceptive drugs and counseling for all new healthcare plans:

"The Affordable Care Act helps stop health problems before they start," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement announcing the guidelines. "These historic guidelines are based on science and existing literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need."

Oooh! Preventive care! That sounds great: women will now have free access to preventing the Fate Worse Than Death, pregnancy.

But wait, Philosopher Mom, Sibelius promises that these guidelines are historic, because they are based on (1) science! and (2) literature! (by which she means scientific literature). New benefits will include:

• Well-woman visits (Great!)

• Screening for gestational diabetes (Good!)

• Human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing for women 30 years and older (Wonderful!)

• Counseling for sexually transmitted infections (I'm still on board.)

• Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening and counseling (Yes.)

• Breastfeeding support, supplies and counseling (Breast is best!)

• Domestic violence screening and counseling (Yes. Absolutely.)

• FDA-approved contraception methods and contraceptive counseling (Wha...)

Everything sounds good: Preventive care for STD's, HIV, HPV, and domestic violence. Breastfeeding is one of the best preventive measures against obesity, so science tells me.

But that third-to-last item doesn't fit in this list. Contraception is intended to prevent one thing, and one thing only: pregnancy. The assumption that pregnancy is a condition requiring prevention is barbaric, to say the least. The further assumption that it is in the state's interest to protect its citizens from pregnancy is totalitarian. These are philosophical objections, but medical appeals can also be made: even when approved by the FDA, the side-effects of some of the most common forms of hormonal birth control are, at best, sketchy.

Put philosophy and medicine aside, however. These measures are hardly a surprise, but are only a predictable symptom of our culture's general attitude toward female fertility (where are the calls for co-pay free vasectomies?).

The new guidelines are especially disturbing in their disregard for the public role played by religious institutions and devoutly religious members of society. The bottom line is here: “[U]nder the new rule, our [Catholic] institutions would be free to act in accord with Catholic teaching on life and procreation only if they were to stop hiring and serving non-Catholics,” says Cardinal Daniel DiNardo.

That is, in order to decline to provide contraceptives, an institution must prove that it (a) exists primarily to prosletyze; (b) employs primarily Catholics; and (c) serves only Catholics. While I have no illusions that most Catholic institutions will close en masse, the thought of even one such hospital or home for women being forced to turn out all non-Catholics is a tragic thought. Whether you ascribe to the Church's teaching on contraception or not, there is no doubt that these guidelines purposefully quarantine the Catholic (and Orthodox Jewish and devout Muslim) conscience. And that is a cause for concern to every American, fertile or infertile, sterilized or unsterilized.

But there is hope.

Because this has happened before. And we have the witness of those who stood firm in their conscience, without threat and without insult to their persecutors. They were mocked and misunderstood, by their co-workers and their families. But they remained faithful. They were more than faithful to a tenent: they allowed their hearts to break out of love for their country, their city, their friends. They did not condemn, but allowed themselves to be condemned by the world.

I will learn to love and to forgive. I will beg for the mercy of Christ. Because if I cannot love Kathleen Sebelius or Barack Obama, then my fidelity to any moral teaching is worthless.