It’s not uncommon to have couples of advanced years in the SmartLoving Engaged course. One or both may be widowed or they may have only found love and a vocation to marriage after many decades of single life.
Sometimes they express confusion or frustration that their marriage preparation course includes fertility awareness education. For example, recently a widower in his 70’s engaged to a widow in her 60’s asked: why do we have to do this course? We both are past the age of childbearing.
We get it! It’s not immediately obvious how can fertility awareness formation is relevant to them. Here are three ways.
Benefits for monitoring health
Fertility awareness is more than a method for managing conception. It’s a lifestyle founded on an attunement to our bodies’ physical and emotional needs.
It’s particularly important for women, who experience hormonally induced variations in their physiological and psycho-emotional profile throughout the menstrual cycle.
These variations are associated with different nutritional needs, brain function, and mood. Fertility awareness assists women in tracking these changes so that they can optimise for the ebbs and flows.
And when it comes to reproductive system disorders, fertility awareness is a valuable diagnostic tool. That’s relevant to general health irrespective of family planning intentions or age.
Deepens spirituality
The scriptures record that male and female are central to God’s creative plan. In Genesis we read: “God created humankind in his image … male and female he created them.” (Gen 1:27)
In other words, being male or female is central to our identity as God’s created masterpiece. If we want to know the heart of God, we need to contemplate this mystery.
Because it’s not just about the physiological distinction in our reproductive organs and hormones. For example, gene expression studies have found 37 per cent of genes exhibit sex-biased expression impacting multiple tissues in the body.
Our distinctiveness as men and women is so much more than an x or y chromosome! Fertility awareness includes a whole person appreciation of the unique giftedness of each sex – what is called the feminine and masculine genius.
This theological and spiritual formation, facilitated through the practice of fertility awareness deepens our appreciation of God’s creative expression in the human body, particularly through the one-flesh union of the marital act. That applies no matter how old a couple may be.
Witnessing to others
The Sacrament of Matrimony (marriage), along with the Sacrament of Holy Orders (priesthood) are missionary sacraments. That means that they are intended to serve the mission of the church.
Specifically, marriage witnesses to the one-flesh union between Christ and the church. St Paul speaks of this when he addresses couples in his letter to the Ephesians:
“‘…A man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.” (Eph 5: 31-32)
In other words, the love of husband-and-wife images the love between Christ and his people. Both are a one-flesh union, a holy communion.
Therefore, every couple married in the Catholic Church is called to bear witness to this mystery by loving each other in imitation of Christ’s love. It’s a love which is both unitive and life-giving (procreative).
That life-giving orientation is not just for young fertile couples – it’s for all of us and applies beyond conception and raising children. It includes how we relate to grandchildren, to neighbours, to the disabled or elderly, to the poor, even those annoying community members!
On their wedding day, the celebrant will ask bride and groom: Will you accept children lovingly from God and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his church?
That question is about more than making babies – it’s about openness to all life, and for all our life. It’s a question every one of us should consider – married, infertile, single, celibate.
Being ‘open to life’ is a posture of open hands before the Lord – it’s a disposition of heart that says: Everything we have is your gift, O Lord – may we welcome your children and love them as you do.
Francine & Byron Pirola are the co-founders of SmartLoving. Visit www.smartloving.org for more.
