My Sunday Best – NFP Week

Linking up with Rosie and the rest!

 

Happy NFP Week! I don’t know why that of all things drags me out of blogging hiatus, but you never know what God places on your heart.

On me: A stretchy black and white polka dot dress that I’ve had for years and is a real workhorse of a dress. I think I found it at Second Time Around, a chain of consignment stores I know for sure are in New England. I wore it for 8 months during my pregnancy, but it still hangs nicely on my slowly shrinking postpartum body.

On Aslan: A Carter’s number with sailboats on the button-down shirt and navy shorts. Though I have told my husband we are are not allowing “dress” shorts that my father-in-law sports over the summer (seriously, and no, you actually don’t want to see them), for babies in car seats with poor ventilation, we’ll make an exception to the “boys wear pants and nice shirt to Mass” rule.

So this Sunday’s Gospel featured a couple of parables, and it is also the start of Natural Family Planning Awareness Week. And I got inspired to draft this little parable about NFP–probably a stretch, but hey, maybe it will help with one of the biggest misunderstandings out there–“why NFP is not artificial contraception.” Nota bene: The concept of “wedding invitation” was featured in the Archdiocese of Boston’s Transformed in Love marriage prep program (published by Pauline Books and Media), and I am adapting/expanding what I remember. If you have any ways to improve it, please let me know!

There once was a wedding planner who had three couples seek his invitation designs and the rooms of his banquet hall. The first couple requested invitations for 100 guests. They expected about 80 to definitely make it and 10 to definitely reply “no,” but they happily requested the largest ballroom in case everyone could attend–and if any surprise guests showed up, too. The second couple requested invitations for 75 guests. They would have liked to invite 50 more, but knowing their budget and other concerns, they only sent the 75 invitations. They requested the medium ballroom. The third couple had the oddest request the planner had ever heard. They wanted the smallest ballroom, which seated only 50, but they were going to send 100 invitations out! “What shall you do if more guests reply yes?”  “Oh, we’re hiring a bouncer,” the groom said.  The planner replied: “One condition for having your wedding feast here is if you send an invitation out, you must welcome any guest who may come; blocking their entry is not an option.” The third couple went away, pondering what they should do.