By Danielle Dyann Abril
Welcome to the NFP.GoodforLife Blog and Natural Family Planning Awareness Week 2021! We are so excited to kick off this celebration with all of you!
In coordination with the USCCB, we are celebrating NFP Awareness week from July 25-July 31. The theme for this year is: To Have, to Hold, To Honor: Supporting God’s gifts of love and life in marriage.
NFP Awareness Week is celebrated annually on the anniversary of the publication of the great document, Humanae Vitae, by Pope Paul VI on July 25, 1968. Humanae Vitae celebrates the wonder and beauty of married love and reaffirms the age-old guidelines for the responsible regulation of birth. During the time of the publication of this document, there was much turbulence and change in the culture regarding sexual mores and the Church, in Her compassion and love for the souls of Her people, felt the need to respond.
For many, the content and teachings spelled-out in this document were a surprise and a source of fear and discomfort. However, as one reads through this ground-breaking document, one begins to gaze into the heart of the Church’s loving and compassionate teaching on married love and conjugal fecundity.
From the very first line, the document recognizes both the joy and the difficulties present in living out the beautiful vocation to married life. It says, “The transmission of human life is a most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator. It has always been a source of great joy to them, even though it sometimes entails many difficulties and hardships” (HV 1).
Humanae Vitae is a very coherent document that spans the experience and needs of men, women, and couples in all stages of family life, from the responsible spacing of children (HV 10), to those suffering from infertility (HV 11), to the religious and clergy responsible for guiding the laity (HV 28, 30), to those in the medical profession on the front lines of making difficult choices with their patients (HV 27).
Responsible parenthood is exercised by those who prudently and generously decide to have more children, and by those who, for serious reasons and with due respect to moral precepts, decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time.
Humanae Vitae 10
If you have not had the pleasure of reading Humanae Vitae, I encourage to take set some time aside this week to do so. It will be well worth your time!
For those looking for additional resources to learn and share more about Natural Family Planning stay tuned to the NFP.GoodforLife Blog all week long and check out some of the awesome resources below.
More Resources:
- Tune in with us on Facebook each evening at 8 pm from 7/26 to 7/30 view the Ultimate NFP Challenge.
- Visit YouTube to view our NFP Playlist including:
- Read Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski’s Article: NFP – SERVE THE LORD WITH GLADNESS | Discipline of NFP helps married couples build a stronger partnership.
- Check out the USCCB NFP Awareness Week Website #NFPweek
Danielle Dyann Abril is the mother of many children through adoption, foster care, and biological motherhood. She home-schools her crew and in her spare time works with the Archdiocese of St. Louis Office of Natural Family Planning to share the good news about NFP with the world.