TOB Tuesday Special Edition: The most painful challenge?

A few weeks ago in our Chicago bookstore, I approached a woman to see if she was finding what she needed. She held up the booklet she had been flipping through. It was for Catholics facing infertility. I checked our computer system, and there were only two other titles in the database--neither of them in stock. That's because one of those books hadn't been published yet.

It's available now for that young couple, and for many other heartbroken Catholics. This is a spiritual resource for couples, with stories of other couples'  struggles and experiences (including attempts at in vitro fertilization and other artificial methods of "skirting" but not healing infertility), suggestions for praying together, and information about the science behind NaPro-TECHNOLOGY, an approach to infertility that is consistent with the Theology of the Body and Church teachings on human life and the integrity of the couple's intimate life. 

This is an important book, not just because of the hope it can offer suffering couples, but because NaPro is an example of great news that nobody knows. How many Catholic couples end up alienating themselves from the Church because they turned in desperation to assisted reproduction techniques? Nobody told them that NaPro has as much success as the more aggressive approaches, but without the compromises (or side effects). So get this news out there, especially in younger circles! (This Pinterest link may help.)

For your Facebook page, here's a link right to the Pauline webstore:
http://store.pauline.org/English/Books/tabid/126/ProductID/3872/List/0/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName,ProductName

TOB Tuesday: Now Read This! (UPDATED)

A Lutheran minister discovers "Humanae Vitae" and is surprised by how prophetic it was--and how the TV lineup confirms Paul VI's predictions ("Bachelorette," anyone?). Be sure to read the comments, which can be as interesting and informative as the post.

Here's an analysis of "the tension between religious liberty and gay rights". Is the redefinition of marriage inevitable? Not light reading, to be sure, but a helpful parsing of the issues.

The Theology of the Body Institute's latest newsletter also provides some good reads, like the discovery of Church teachings on the body by a young couple for whom contraception was simply a given. When Rebecca realized the effects the pill was having on her health and looked for other options, NFP came up. "Who knew that the church taught responsible parenthood?! We didn't know that we didn't have to have as many babies as physically possible! We could space pregnancies and financial reasons could be legitimate reasons to avoid a pregnancy?! We were in shock, good shock, all the way around...When we removed the pill from our marriage we experienced a healing that we never expected or dared hope for."
Read how NFP helped Rebecca and her husband face an unexpected hurdle in their married life. And here (also from the Theology of the Body Institute) is Dr Peter Colosi's presentation of the Theology of the Body as a commentary on the 1968 Humanae Vitae.

This afternoon I learned (hat tip to the Maximus Group) that this is "National NFP Awareness Week" for Catholics:  this year’s theme is “Faithfully Yours.” NFP awareness week always coincides with the anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae (July 25).

Over at Aggie Catholics, there's all the facts about porn use in America, in the world, by men, by women. And at HuffPost, one woman's list of things she wished she had known about porn before she got into it (plus links to all the data behind those things she wished she knew).

And for healing of porn and other sex-related forms of addiction through a method based on brain science and THEOLOGY OF THE BODY, "Reclaim" offers private, anonymous, online help.