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Jesus is Born and Eco-Breastfeeding

Sunday, December 25th, 2011

The angels announced the birth of the Savior as “good news of great joy.”     In taking on our human nature, God the Son poured himself out for us, and from this we learn that joy comes from the giving of self.
Another message of the angels is that joy comes from personal acceptance of Jesus as our Savior. The proud can never experience this joy, for they refuse to admit their need for salvation; or they pursue a futile quest for joy in pleasures and possessions.
We give thanks that the Son of God came to save us.
Our Father
1. [While Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem for the census,] the time came for her delivery.  Hail Mary
2. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes.   Hail Mary
3. She laid Him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.  Hail Mary
4. There were shepherds in the same region, living in the fields and keeping watch over their flocks at night.   Hail Mary
5. And behold, an angel of the Lord came to them, and the glory of God shone round about them, and they were very much afraid.   Hail Mary
6. The angel said to them:  “Do not be afraid for I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be to all the people.”   Hail Mary
7. “Today in the town of David there has been born to you a Savior who is Christ the Lord;”   Hail Mary
8. “And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”   Hail Mary
9. Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God,   Hail Mary
10. And saying:  “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.”   Hail Mary
Glory be
___________________________________________________________________________
Reference: Luke 2:1-14

John F. Kippley
Seven Day Bible Rosary

ECO-BREASTFEEDING: If anyone needs support for ecological breastfeeding during the Christmas season, read Crunchy Lutheran Mommy’s blog.  After reading this blog on eco-breastfeeding, click Part 1 at the beginning of the blog and read how she searched for God’s way to care for babies.

Posted in Ecological Breastfeeding, Spirituality | Comments Off on Jesus is Born and Eco-Breastfeeding

What Can You Do? Prayers and Financial Support Needed

Sunday, December 18th, 2011

My request for your prayers for the NFPI apostolate is not just pious window dressing for a fund appeal.  The battle is spiritual.  Bishops and priests have been either misled or cowed into ignoring the elephant in the sanctuary.  Please pray for them generically and by name.  If you have a speaking relationship with them, ask them to make the NFPI course part of their New Evangelization effort.  Pray for them to call or write us.  We provide an excellent service, but the bishops and their priests have to create the demand.  In any diocese, the judicious use of the NFPI Home Study program could make our service immediately available to every parish no matter how remote. And, of course, I would be most happy to share our goals and efforts with seminarians.

I am sure that many of you realize that what NFPI really needs is someone younger to take over its leadership.  To accomplish that, we need to raise our level of funding enough to fund a small staff plus office and travel expenses.  So Sheila and I ask your prayers for the wisdom & prudence and the manpower & the money to make NFPI a long term service to our Church and culture.  Please include these needs of NFPI in your Mass and Rosary intentions.

Activity
Is there anything else you can do?  Here’s a short list.  Perhaps you could become NFP teachers with us if your pastor will make the course a normal part of preparation for marriage. . .  We want to advertise the Home Study Course, and we could use your help.  Can you suggest any magazines that are read by young people? . . . Perhaps you could sign up for Google Alerts on Natural Family Planning or Ecological Breastfeeding, and then provide informed commentary. . . . Also, become familiar with the NFPI website and the many articles posted there including several dealing with the sexual revolution.  These might be helpful in your discussions with others or letter writing.  There’s also a recent article on NFP as an agent of evangelization, and there will be more.

Financial Support
Please support NFP International.  It very definitely IS an agent of the New Evangelization—just read or reread Chapter 1 of our users manual, Natural Family Planning: The Complete Approach.  Admittedly, NFPI is very small but we are making a difference here and around the world.  In our fiscal year ending September 30, we had 4,644 registrations to download the NFPI manual.  Of those, 4097 were from the States, and 547 were from 102 different countries around the world.  That’s an average of 387 per month, and tabulating the day’s registrations is frequently the bright spot of my NFPI day.

A major donor is eager to match all gifts received during the month of December up to a total of $10,000.  So please take advantage of stretching the power of your donation.  Thanks very much for whatever you can do.

In His service,
John F. Kippley
President
NFP International is a 501-c-3 non-profit charity.  All gifts are tax deductible.

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Marital Contraception is the Elephant in the Sanctuary

Sunday, December 11th, 2011

The Catholic Church in this country and around the world has been suffering for more than 40 years from massive contraception by Catholics and also from the effort to avoid the issue.  Marital contraception is truly the elephant in the sanctuary.  Everyone knows it’s there, but it’s the unmentionable subject.  After a US Bishops committee urged, in 1989, that every engaged couple should be required to attend a full course of Natural Family Planning instruction, that good idea has been adopted by only six dioceses with a seventh trying to get there.  The pews continue to empty, schools are being closed due to lack of students, parishes are closed or consolidated, and the basic cause—marital contraception—continues to be ignored.

And then there are the millions of aborted babies.  Abortion is a fatal fruit of the modern sexual revolution that started with the acceptance of marital contraception.  How can we reasonably expect to stop abortion without a huge increase in the number of voters who refuse to accept unnatural forms of birth control?  Build a Humanae Vitae population within the Catholic Church and legalized abortion is over.

How does this affect us?

The 43-year tradition of ignoring the elephant in the sanctuary has tangible results. Only about 1.1 percent of churchgoing fertile-age Catholics are using any form of systematic NFP.  Others are breastfeeding or just letting the babies come as they may.  But the rate of non-contraception is still very low, about 10% at best.  When we started teaching NFP in 1971, there was a market of couples who had formed their consciences—at least partially—before Humanae Vitae.  Many of our early students were using unnatural forms of birth control because some priest had told them directly or implied that it was now okay to do so, but they still felt uneasy about it.  Our NFP services and our Catholic teaching freed them to accept and to live out the truths of the encyclical.

But now there is almost no market for NFP services geared to couples of normal fertility.  In the once-very-Catholic western part of Cincinnati, our pastor is the only priest who requires his engaged couples to take an NFP course, so we teach very small classes at his parish.  I’ve talked with most of the other pastors (but some won’t return my calls).  They say they accept Humanae Vitae, but they will not do anything effective such as requiring an NFP course.  In response to my recent request to the Archdiocese, I received a page and a half of difficulties and problems they saw with an NFP requirement.  Parish bulletin announcements rarely bring a response. The elephant in the sanctuary remains undisturbed.

Next week: What can I do about it?

John F. Kippley

Posted in Abortion-Contraception, NFP | 2 Comments »

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