A mother’s love is wonderful to behold. At times it is revealed as a gentle, loving embrace. At other times it can be a swift and powerful movement to protect her child from danger.

Every mother sets boundaries for her child, not because she does not want her child to enjoy life or have fun but because those boundaries help to keep her child out of harm’s way. A mother wants what is best for her child. She wants him or her to be happy, healthy and holy.

When the Church teaches us the moral boundaries of life, she does so with a mother’s love. It is not that the Church does not want us to enjoy life. Instead, like any good mother, the Church wants us to be happy, healthy and holy. Also, she has been around longer than any one of us and has great wisdom.

This understanding of the Church as our mother is particularly significant when we encounter what are commonly considered the “difficult” teachings of the Church, often referring to the Church’s teaching on human sexuality.

As we prepare for the visit of Pope Francis and the World Meeting of Families that he will attend in Philadelphia, let’s consider the Church’s teaching regarding contraception, for example. Both faith and reason teach that in marriage a man and a woman have the great privilege of giving of themselves to one another completely, in such a way that a new life can result from their union.

They also teach that to disrupt this gift and distort either the unitive or procreative nature of spousal love is harmful to the man and woman and to the marriage.

Contraception does just that. It disrupts the perfect gift a man and woman can make to one another in the spousal embrace. Through barriers, chemicals or sterilization procedures, a man and a woman withhold something of themselves — namely, their life-giving potential — from one another.

Our reason alone can attest to the wisdom of our faith with regard to these issues. Has widespread acceptance of contraception resulted in happiness in our culture? We need not look much further than the spike in the divorce rate since contraception became widely accepted in our culture to see that happiness has not been the result of us separating the beautiful act of the two becoming one flesh from the procreation of children.

Is it healthy? Numerous hormonal birth control pills have been classified as Group 1 carcinogens by the World Health Organization.

Does sterilization or contraception help us grow in holiness? No, they intentionally separate us from God and His beautiful plan for man and woman.

The list of these concerns goes on and on, all pointing to the fact that our mother, the Church, might have had a great deal of wisdom in the consistency of her teachings on these subjects.

In her motherly wisdom, the Church does not suspend her guidance to us with a teaching against contraception and sterilization. She not only strives to protect us from the harm that these can bring men and women and marriages, the Church’s teaching also points us in a better direction. She shows us the path that has proven to be the road less travelled in recent times is the same road that helps marriages, and helps men and women thrive.

This motherly wisdom shines brightly in the Church’s teaching on natural family planning, or NFP, in marriage. NFP is a method of family planning that empowers couples to work with God’s plan for married love and design of human persons, as male or female. It helps couples achieve or avoid pregnancy based on their discernment of what God is calling them to at this time, and does so without altering or distorting the total gift of their whole self that a husband and wife make to one another in the marital embrace.

Studies have shown that couples who practice NFP in their marriage have a divorce rate of less than 5 percent, which is significantly less than our cultural norm today.

NFP is completely natural and organic. It can also be an incredibly helpful tool for trained healthcare providers to identify and treat other underlying health problems that may become apparent through NFP charting.

Even more importantly, it fosters communication between a husband and wife and God, as a couple invites God into their discernment about their family and works with God’s design for man and woman and marriage.

If you are not familiar with NFP or have perhaps heard negative rumors about the process, please contact the LiFE Office or one of the many NFP Providers throughout the Diocese of Rockford who would be happy give you more information. This is too important not to know.

Pope Francis has called for efforts to strengthen our families. Prayer and living the God-given boundaries of married life are two important ways for us to start.