Natural Family Planning International

What do you do while you are traveling to Mass?  Does it, whatever it is, help you to get ready for celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?  Is it possible that consciously thinking (or at least trying to think) about what the Mass is and why we are celebrating it might help you to get more ready?  At any rate, here’s a suggestion that focuses on the four purposes of the Mass.  With children in the car, you might ask each child for one item of thanksgiving and one item of petition.
 
   Heavenly Father, I offer You this Mass today in praise and adoration of the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 
   I offer this Mass in reparation for my own sins and those of each member of my family and extended families, and for all the sins committed against the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
   I offer this Mass in thanksgiving for the whole work of creation and redemption, for the work of the prophets, for sending your divine Son to save us, for the “yes” of Jesus, for the “yes” of Mary and Joseph, for all that Jesus did and said and taught us, for giving us his Body and Blood in the Eucharist, for his suffering and death, for his resurrection and ascension into heaven, for his sending the Spirit at Pentecost, for the gift of the Church and the sacraments, and for his priest who will celebrate this Mass.
   I offer this Mass in thanksgiving for every personal blessing you have given to me and my family, especially for the gifts of faith and family, for the gift of good health that enables me to come to Mass, and for the freedom to worship at Mass without fear of persecution. 
   I offer this Mass in solemn petition for authentic renewal in the Church, for all the missionary work of the Church, for a rebirth of chastity, for a stop to contraception, for a stop to abortion, and for a culture of life.
   I offer this Mass for faith and perseverance for all those who are being actively persecuted for the Faith today; I offer this Mass for a stop to persecution of the Church, and I offer this Mass for the healing of divisions within the Church and for unity of Faith among all Christians.  
   I offer this Mass in petition for the missionary work of the Church, for the missionary work of NFP International, for the conversion of Islam, for the conversion of the Jews, and for the conversion of China and all other lands still under the heavy hand of atheistic communism.  I offer this Mass for the conversion of my own country and all other countries that allow abortion and encourage personal immorality. 
   I offer this Mass also in solemn petition for all my personal needs and those of my family and friends—for an increase in faith, hope, love, contrition and purity, for the continuation of good health, for adequate employment, for a true spirit of Christian generosity, and for these other needs: _________________________.
Amen.

This is a slight adaptation of the prayer on page 12 of the prayer book at http://www.nfpandmore.org/Catholic_Prayer_Book_2007.pdf

John F. Kippley

The Church offers its faithful regular opportunities to walk more closely with the Lord.  What follows is not a personal witness but simply a reminder of two special times when we can use abstinence from the marriage act as a form of prayer and penance. 
    There is no question that the Church calls us to penance and self-denial as part of our walk with Jesus.  Here are three paragraphs from the current Code of Canon Law (1983) and a paragraph from —The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC).
    Canon 1249.  The divine law binds all the Christian faithful to do penance each in his or her own way. In order for all to be united among themselves by some common observance of penance, however, penitential days are prescribed on which the Christian faithful devote themselves in a special way to prayer, perform works of piety and charity, and deny themselves by fulfilling their own obligations more faithfully and especially by observing fast and abstinence, according to the norm of the following canons.
    Canon 1250.  The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.
    Canon 1251.  Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
    CCC 1438.  The seasons and days of penance in the course of the liturgical year (Lent, and each Friday in memory of the death of the Lord) are intense moments of the Church’s penitential practice.  These times are particularly appropriate for spiritual exercises, penitential liturgies, pilgrimages as signs of penance, voluntary self-denial such as fasting and almsgiving, and fraternal sharing (charitable and missionary works).

Let’s start with Friday abstinence.  You may be surprised by the text of Canon 1251 because this discipline has not been widely preached in the Church in recent years.  Friday abstinence from meat, however, has a long history.  What started as devotion in honor of the Good Friday suffering of the Lord Jesus became codified into a matter of Church law and obedience for many centuries.  In the immediate aftermath of Vatican II (1962-1965) the Church changed the law of obedience regarding Friday abstinence, but   the Church continues to urge us to practice Friday abstinence as part of personal devotion and penance. Canon 1251 uses the language of obligation—“is to be observed,” but it is no longer a sin of disobedience if we do not fulfill that obligation.  The Fathers of the Council were trying to get us to develop a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus, one in which we will empathize so much with his Good Friday sufferings that we will want to join with his sufferings in some small way each Friday. 

A form of self-denial that may be especially appropriate in our culture is abstinence from the marriage act on Fridays for these same reasons.  The Church and the entire world are in great need of prayers and sacrifices for a rebirth of chastity, for a stop to contraception, and for a culture of life.  Friday abstinence from the marriage act can be such an act of prayer and sacrifice. 

The primary text for Lenten abstinence comes from the prophet Joel who was calling his people to fasting and repentance: “Let the bridegroom go forth from his bed, and the bride out of her bride chamber” (2:16).  This call to penance is read each year at Mass on Ash Wednesday.  The fact that the Church proclaims this call to penance each Ash Wednesday is a good indication that it is something to be taken to heart by all of us in some way or other. 

If you practice this form of penance, don’t be surprised if you find abstinence for spiritual reasons a bit more difficult than abstinence for the practical reason of avoiding pregnancy.  The latter form of abstinence can and should be offered up as a living prayer and penance, but you might find there is something even richer in abstaining for purely spiritual reasons.  Some couples abstain from Ash Wednesday through Holy Saturday.  Others may break the fast on Laetare Sunday or on other Lenten Sundays, but still trying to do penitential abstinence in the overall spirit of Lent.  Couples seeking pregnancy may want to use the fertile time or times of Lent to seek pregnancy, more consciously giving of themselves and accepting all that having another child entails.  These are personal decisions.

The decision to abstain from the marriage act as a form of prayer and penance must be a mutual decision.  Spouses have a right to engage in the normal marriage act, and one spouse should not decide unilaterally that he or she is going to be more spiritual and thus refuse the rightful request of the other spouse. 

“The divine law binds all the Christian faithful to do penance each in his or her own way”—Canon 1249.  We don’t ordinarily tend to think in these terms.  The purpose of these paragraphs simply has been to remind us of the opportunities the Church’s penitential days and seasons provide for us to offer abstinence from the marriage act as a form of prayer and penance.  
    The above text is excerpted from Chapter 7 of Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach,  © 2009 by John and Sheila Kippley. 

John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant