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MicheleQ
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I hope I am posting this in the right place. I have never started a topic before, just responded to one.
I am currently preparing a talk for RCIA on the last seven commandments. As part of my talk I will be expounding on the Church's teaching on contraception, family planning etc.
I have read a lot on this subject over the years but have up to this point never read the book Covenanted Happiness by Msgr. Cormac Burke. A friend recommended it to me long ago but for one reason or the other I had never read it. Just a few weeks ago I ordered it used on Amazon and began reading it. I can't recommend it highly enough!
Msgr. Burke beautifully and clearly articulates Church teaching on the issues of marriaged love, family planning and all that surrounds it.
What I especially like about this book is the way he support s large families and makes quite a case for them in regards to Church teaching about "responsible parenthood".
I am thrilled to have found such a useful resource. I hope to be able to send some excerpts here to share and discuss but as I am in the middle of many other things at the moment I don't know if that is realistic. But if anyone has thoughrs to share I'd really love to hear them. As I prepare this talk I really want to focus on the positive aspects of Church teaching and the blessing of a large family (written as I type one handed with a fussy 18 month old blessing on my lap  ).
God bless!
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Michele Quigley
wife to my prince charming and mom of 10 in Lancaster County, PA USA
http://michelequigley.com
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Bridget
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Oh please post exerts from it! It has been on my wish list for a while. He seems to be one of the few theologians who strongly supports large families.
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Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
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BrendaPeter
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Hi Michelle,
I read "Covenanted Happiness" over 2 years ago as part of a women's apostolate that I'm a part of and I remember it as being EXCELLENT. Unfortunately, I don't remember the all the details, but I wanted to 2nd your recommendation.
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Brenda (mom to 6)
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MicheleQ
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Bridget wrote:
| Oh please post exerts from it! It has been on my wish list for a while. He seems to be one of the few theologians who strongly supports large families. |
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Not only does he support large families but he makes quite a case for them from Church teaching AND shows how the prevailing message of NFP as necessary for every couple is NOT all it's cracked up to be.
If I can get the text recognition software to work I'll post some excerpts, but if I have to type them in by hand it might take me a while. 
God bless!
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Michele Quigley
wife to my prince charming and mom of 10 in Lancaster County, PA USA
http://michelequigley.com
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JennGM
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Michele,
I second your recommendation.  I read that book while on a pre-wedding retreat. I read the first edition, then reread the second edition, which was even better. IMHO, I think it's the best marriage book out there! 
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Jennifer G. Miller
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I have read parts of Covanented Happiness, but my dh has read all of it. He loved it so much, he even tracked down Msgr. Burke's email address to ask a question! I really liked the part of the book where he compares two families. One family had 2 children, several TVs and VCRs, 2 cars, a big house in a nice neighborhood, and sent their kids to the best private school. The other family had 5 kids, 1 car, 1 TV and VCR, a smaller house in a not-as-nice neighborhood, and sent their children to a not-as-prestigious school. (not sure if this is exactly right, but you get the general idea). He asks the students he is teaching, "Which family has the better standard of living?" The students at first answer, "The first family." He asks the question again, and again the students give the same response. He asks the question again, and this time, after thinking about it for a bit, someone answers that you could consider the children as part of the standard of living.
I had the thought recently that many people in the US judge how wealthy a person is by how much disposable income he has. At times, I start thinking this way too, feeling "poor" because I don't have much money to spend on things that I want. But I do have enough to pay the bills, keep food on the table, clothe my family, and buy the materials and books we need for homeschooling. This is certainly not being poor! We have enough money to meet our needs, usually with a little left over for discretionary spending. I guess we might have more disposable income if we didn't have children, but the fact that we're spending our money on caring for our children instead of catering to our wants does not mean we are less wealthy than a family who makes the same amount of money, but is able to spend more of it on themselves. I think Msgr. Burke illustrates that point beautifully in his comparison of the two families in his book.
Dawn
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MicheleQ
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Excerpted from Ch. 4 FAMILY PLANNING AND MARRIED FULFILLMENT
Forty-some years ago, large families were a frequent and typically Catholic phenomenon. Today, in the developed world, they tend to be a rarity, also among Catholics. The swing to the small-size family began in the sixties and has intensified ever since. Three main explanations would seem to stand out: the demographic scare, or the "population bomb"; the "I generation," with its emphasis on self-fulfillment, especially through work; and the consumer mentality, as shown in a preference for material values.
The defusing of the population bomb, at least in advanced countries, is scarcely being given the comment it deserves. Around the time of the Second Vatican Council, family planning was often presented in terms of urgent social responsibility. Population growth was everywhere seen as a threat to prosperity or even survival. Whatever the situation in the Third World, the force of the demographic argument has not only been lost in Western countries, it has been totally reversed. Dwindling and aging populations are now the prospect facing almost all the developed countries, which show strong evidence of being technologically developed societies in rapid human decline.
Thirty years of emphasis on self-fulfillment or on material comfort, have been accompanied by an equal emphasis on family limitation. Children (one or two per family, at the most) have come to be regarded as "optional extras" for the life of a couple, not as the natural fulfillment of their married aspirations. Job, status, social life, gadgets, vacations, ease, and comfort are commonly seen as offering more happiness and self-fulfillment than do children. If one is to judge from the growing number of broken homes, fewer children per family has not led to increased marriage stability, fulfillment, or happiness. Nevertheless, Catholic couples too have been deeply affected by the family-planning mentality, to the extent that a "planned" family is now often presented as a norm in premarriage instruction. The consequence is that most, if not all, of our young people marrying today regard family planning as a normal part of marriage, and many, for whom it was never designed, are experiencing its effects on their married life.
All of this implies a radical change in outlook that has taken place in less than a generation. It is a relatively short period of time and yet, I think, long enough to warrant the drawing of some conclusions.
Married love and children
It is worth recalling that Church teaching on family planning hinges on two essential principles or requirements: it must be carried out through natural methods, and there must be serious reasons to justify it.
This second requirement, that family planning must respond to serious reasons (confirmed by Humanae vitae, nos. 10, 16), appears once again in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood" (no. 2368). Nevertheless, it has been questioned or ignored in recent years as if it represented a dated norm derived from an institutional view of marriage that takes no account of modem personalist insights and the legitimate aspirations of married love. A very different conclusion emerges from a due consideration of the Vatican II teaching that children are the natural fruit of conjugal love and the most important factor underlying their parents' fulfillment and happiness. "Marriage and married love," says Gaudium et spes(no. 50), "are by nature ordered to the procreation and education of children. Indeed children are the supreme gift of marriage and greatly contribute to the good of the parents themselves" (emphasis added).
What Vatican II is saying is that married love finds strength in the natural support represented by children. Without that support, it can collapse. If two people remain at the stage of looking into each other's eyes, the defects that little by little they will discover there can eventually come to appear intolerable. If they gradually learn to look out together at their children, they will still discover each other's defects but will have less time or reason to think them intolerable. They cannot, however, look out together at what is not there. A married couple can stare the love out of each other's eyes. If married love is to grow, it has to contemplate, and be contemplated by, other eyes - many pairs of eyes born of that very love.
Married love remains frustrated, in what should be the normal pattern of its growth, if it does not issue in this natural fruit. (Couples to whom God does not send children remain a case apart that we do not consider here.) The Catechism, having said that "married love tends naturally to be fruitful," adds: "A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment" (no. 2366). Material possessions, or an easy life together, do not fulfill the aspirations of married love (love is ready for sacrifice and grows through it), nor are they a condition for its maintenance and growth. Children normally are that fulfillment.
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Michele Quigley
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Elizabeth
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Michele,
Can't sit here long enough to comment in any substantive fashion, but I am SO glad you took the time to post excerpts and to bring the book to our attention. .
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Bridget
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This is exciting to read. I love good Catholic writing. It gives me the language to express difficult topics in a beautiful way!
It is hard to explain how married love can grow, from the challenges of many children, to a young couple just starting out or even to an older couple who has not had this openness. Indeed, the openness may be key here, rather than the actual numbers of children. The openness is up to us, the number is up to God.
How can you explain that when you look at each other, in the midst of chaos and just break out laughing together, that builds another layer of trust and love.
How can you explain the abandoned joy you share of a unique new baby … who looks just like the whole bunch at home. In fact the appreciation for each baby and each other seems to deepen with every child.
The work load is heavy. How do you explain that when we both are diligent in our respective roles as husband and wife, and support each other in those roles, that it all comes together. (Not always pretty but it works. )
We are working together for a far greater purpose than our own fulfillment. We're essentially fighting for souls. Sometimes we fight valiantly together and sometimes we just muddle through. But it is sanctifying.
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Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
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MicheleQ
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jenngm67 wrote:
| I read that book while on a pre-wedding retreat. I read the first edition, then reread the second edition, which was even better. IMHO, I think it's the best marriage book out there! |
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I agree Jenn! It covers everything and explains it in clear and understandable terms. I can't help but wonder why it is we haven't heard more about this book as it's been out for a while now.
Dawnie wrote:
| I really liked the part of the book where he compares two families. |
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Dawn, I liked this a lot too. In fact I am going to use it as an illustration in my talk.
Bridget wrote:
| How can you explain that when you look at each other, in the midst of chaos and just break out laughing together, that builds another layer of trust and love. ... How can you explain the abandoned joy you share of a unique new baby - who looks just like the whole bunch at home. |
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Well Bridget I think you explained it very well and quite beautifully at that!
I was reading parts of this book to dh the other night before bed. He laughed and said "Who has the energy to be mad at one another?" "I just want to go to sleep!"  I agree!
I'll post more quotes later to tease you all.
God bless!
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Michele Quigley
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teachingmyown
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Well, this book has been sitting on my shelf for at least a year!  Guess it is time to dust it off (if I can find it now that my shelves have all moved) and read it.
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Molly
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jdostalik
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Michele,
Well, another book is in my amazon cart waiting to be purchased.
Enjoying this conversation immensely. Thank you, Michele!
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Jennifer in TX
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gwendyt
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I'm anxious to read more excerpts, as I am really on the lookout for good books in this area. I'm leading a FAMILIA year one group of 11 ladies right now, and we just had a terribly intense meeting over this subject. The tension had been building for months and finally broke. The group is split about 50/50 - those who have been trying to be faithful to church teaching in their marriages (although weren't always there!) and those who are hearing all about God's plan for marrriage in depth for the first time. I cannot believe how terribly difficult some people are finding this - they truly are just not okay with much of it. I have to be honest- reading the chap. 4 excerpt would not have a good effect on them (sad - I know), BUT comments like Bridget's would hit home I think and be a great starting point for open discussion w/them. So, I thought maybe sharing these comments might help Michelle with her approach to her
presentation, and to get Bridget to start compiling her thoughts into a book????
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Wendy
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MicheleQ
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Wendy,
This isn't the first time I have given this talk, though it has been a few years. In my experience the message is more readily accepted by people in RCIA who aren't Catholic yet, than it is by Catholics who haven't heard it. Most people in RCIA have at least a vague idea that the Church doesn't allow birth control so they are expecting to hear why, but Catholics who have been taught incorrectly and think using BC is OK are much harder to deal with!
But that's not really what struck me about this book. Rather it was the way that Msgr. Burke writes about the negative effects of family planning even in the form of NFP. It surprised me because it's rare. The message of today seems to be that NFP is such a wonderful thing that ALL couples should know and practice. But so often those purporting this idea ignore the "serious reasons" factor and fail to note that "responsible parenthood" as the Church presents it DOES include trust in Divine providence and generosity in having children.
I hope I'm making myself clear. I'm not saying NFP isn't valuable but I tired of seeing it being presented as something couples MUST do.  Church teaching doesn't support that and Msgr. Burke does a great job of explaining why.
I hope to be able to post more quotes from the book but I am rather swamped at the moment with trying to finish a project that is now past its deadline.
God bless!
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Michele Quigley
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http://michelequigley.com
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MicheleQ
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OK I can't seem to sleep anyway so I've scanned in more.
Sacrifice and married love
The Second Vatican Council dwells on how parents with many children especially need to practice generosity and courage: "Whenever Christian spouses in a spirit of sacrifice and trust in divine providence carry out their mission of procreating with generous human and Christian responsibility, they glorify the Creator and perfect themselves in Christ. Among the married couples who thus fulfill their God-given mission, special mention should be made of those who after prudent reflection and common decision courageously undertake the proper upbringing of a large family" (Gaudium et spes, no. 50). These qualities are powerfully developed in spouses by their shared efforts to bring up a large family, and these efforts create an ongoing situation that favors a deepening of the regard and admiration they have for one another. Nothing, in fact, unites so much as sacrifice generously shared. As John Paul II teaches in Familiaris consortio (no. 34), "Sacrifice cannot be removed from family life, but must in fact be wholeheartedly accepted if the love between husband and wife is to be deepened and become a source of intimate joy."
Spouses need to improve in life-to rise above their present worth-if they are to retain their partner's love. It is good therefore-it is essential-that each spouse sacrifices himself or herself for the other. But it is doubtful if any husband and wife, on their own, can inspire each other indefinitely to generosity and self-sacrifice. Children can and do draw from parents a degree of sacrifice to which neither parent alone could probably inspire the other. It is for the sake of their children that parents most easily rise above themselves. Parental love is the most naturally disinterested kind of love. In this way, as they sacrifice themselves for their children, each parent actually improves and becomes--in his or her partner's eyes also--truly a more loveable person. "For the sake of their children, spouses rise above themselves, and above a limited view of their own happiness. Moral stature is acquired only if one rises above oneself. Children, above all, are what spur a couple on to moral greatness."
That is why family limitation is not properly described as a right and is wrongly thought of as a privilege. It is basically a privation. It is meant for exceptional cases, for those couples who are obliged by serious reasons-by some powerful and overriding factor-to deprive themselves of the fulfilling joy and the enriching value of children. A couple who, in the absence of such an overriding factor, choose not to have more children, are starving their conjugal love of its natural fruit and stunting its growth. They are lessening their mutual preparedness for sacrifice and in that way undermining the mutual esteem that can bind them together.
Open-to-life ______ relations are the normal expression of married affection and alone. fulfill the conjugal instinct. To encourage people, without serious reason, to abstain from such relations is to place an unnecessary and unjustified strain on the solidity of their married life. The conjugal instinct, which draws people to marry, is not a mere ______ instinct, nor is it satisfied simply through the companionship and love of a spouse. It looks to the fruit of that love. In other words, people are naturally drawn to marriage by a deep desire for fatherhood or motherhood. It is not at all difficult, in premarriage instruction, to help couples understand that having children is not opposed to self-realization but is rather one of the basic natural expressions of the human desire to fulfill oneself. Are we not in danger today of downgrading the privilege and the personalist dimension of parenthood? It seems to me that the way family planning has at times been presented to our Catholic people in recent decades has not always accurately reflected the married personalism of Vatican II. Many programs for family planning have taken almost no account of the "serious reasons" needed to justify it and (at a deeper level) have seemed oblivious of the aspect of privation that it involves. Rather than being presented as an extraordinary recourse for couples in special difficulties, family planning has been presented as a norm and even-one gets the impression-as a formula for happiness and as some sort of ideal for Catholic married life. This approach results in the impoverishment of the Christian vision of marriage and of the fulfillment that marriage promises.
It would be a grave mistake to push family planning in cases where it is not called for, or where there is in fact downright resistance to it. People react to such pressure... (he gives an example here but I have omitted it for space)
I am obviously not questioning the value of natural family planning or the importance of providing proper instruction about it to those whose marriage situation is such that they really need it. But I do suggest that any campaign to present it indiscriminately as a normal thing for couples can only have the effect of stunting the natural growth of marital love and of setting up obstacles to generosity, to the basis for mutual esteem, and to married happiness.
Covenanted Happiness by Cormac Burke pp. 52-54 Ch. 4 "Family-Planning"
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Michele Quigley
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jdostalik
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I REALLY love how Msgr. Burke explains the Church's teaching on family planning. His use of the word "privation" to explain the results of limiting your family size (even for grave reasons) and the quote below are a brilliant explanation of the Church's teaching:
"That is why family limitation is not properly described as a right and is wrongly thought of as a privilege. It is basically a privation. It is meant for exceptional cases, for those couples who are obliged by serious reasons-by some powerful and overriding factor-to deprive themselves of the fulfilling joy and the enriching value of children. A couple who, in the absence of such an overriding factor, choose not to have more children, are starving their conjugal love of its natural fruit and stunting its growth. They are lessening their mutual preparedness for sacrifice and in that way undermining the mutual esteem that can bind them together."
WOW!!!!
Can't wait for my copy to get here; this is a great book to share, I can't wait to read it and share it with some friends, thanks Michele!
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Jennifer in TX
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Bridget
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MicheleQ wrote:
Many programs for family planning have taken almost no account of the "serious reasons" needed to justify it and (at a deeper level) have seemed oblivious of the aspect of privation that it involves. Rather than being presented as an extraordinary recourse for couples in special difficulties, family planning has been presented as a norm and even-one gets the impression-as a formula for happiness and as some sort of ideal for Catholic married life.
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I realize this is just one instance, but it exemplifies this problem. When my sister and brother in law were engaged and taking the NFP classes, they came to talk to us, discouraged. They wanted to be open to life but thought that the Church REQUIRED them to practice NFP. This was after 2 classes.
I'm sure there are NFP instructors here and I am sure all NFP classes are NOT taught with this mind set . I'm assume many instructors are sensitive to teaching the need for "grave" or "just" reasons to use it.
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Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
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gwendyt
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In response to Michelle's reply to me above, I agree - your audience probably is more receptive. In fact, some of these ladies are actually mad that they were not taught all this either in their high school Rel. ed. and/or marriage prep especially...to which I wholeheartedly agree. BUT, based on the proper view and use of NFP, would it be valuable therefore to have older teens or couples in marriage prep required to learn NFP(as some dioceses do)? OR would it be better if it was offered after marriage, presenting it more just for those have "just reasons"? I feel like CCL (while it is great resource) sometimes takes the attitude like was mentioned...that everyone should know NFP and that it is great to use across the board. Just curious to know thoughts on this.
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Wendy
Married to DH Joe 18 yrs., 8 beautiful children - 2 girls, 6 boys (14,12,9,7,5,3,1,newbie born 3/1/2010)
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Bridget
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gwendyt wrote:
| OR would it be better if it was offered after marriage, presenting it more just for those have "just reasons"? I feel like CCL (while it is great resource) sometimes takes the attitude like was mentioned...that everyone should know NFP and that it is great to use across the board. Just curious to know thoughts on this. |
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The ideal would be that if a couple is prepared for marriage, then they should be prepared for children. Hence no need for NFP as part of marriage prep. It's not rocket science. It can be learned fairly quickly if it becomes necessary.
Also for engaged couples that are chaste, the classes are uncomfortable and can make chastity more difficult. It does not seem right for couples who intend to be open and are chaste, to have to go through the classes.
But I know teaching couples that have been a good influence on the couples in their classes. It's a tough situation.
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Bridget, happily married to Kevin, mom to 8 on earth and a small army in heaven
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MicheleQ
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gwendyt wrote:
| BUT, based on the proper view and use of NFP, would it be valuable therefore to have older teens or couples in marriage prep required to learn NFP(as some dioceses do)? |
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I am not in favor of teaching NFP to teens or even couples in marriage prep as I would echo Bridget's concerns about it being an offense to chastity.
gwendyt wrote:
| OR would it be better if it was offered after marriage, presenting it more just for those have "just reasons"? |
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Yes, I DO feel that would be best as it would seem to me to be most in keeping with Church teaching on the matter.
The important thing to remember is that simply living our married lives without recourse to charts and temperatures and mucus checks should be the norm. Anything else is the exception and as Msgr. Burke wrote, a privation of a good that rightfully and divinely belongs to the marriage.
God bless!
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Michele Quigley
wife to my prince charming and mom of 10 in Lancaster County, PA USA
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